Steeped in evil sorcery and potent as she was, the witch had never before been actually involved in murder, and she was half afraid; but she saw at once the advantage the knowledge that a murder had been done could be to her, and after demanding an exorbitant fee, she agreed to carry away the little body secretly, and dispose of it somehow. In fact, she bore it to a meadow lying in the parish of Lollesworth, adjoining Ellesworth, and there she buried it.
When Thurkill at last returned home, the child’s absence could not but be noticed, and to forestall any questioning, the wife met her husband with the most woeful tale of the boy’s disappearance. In pretended sorrow and simulated grief, she sobbed out the tale to her adoring husband.
‘He was listless, and pining, as he has been often of late,’ she said. ‘He would not eat, he would not play. Instead, he roamed about the hall and the yards alone, and would not obey when told to come indoors. Then one day, he had gone, and did not return. I set the men and the womenfolk to search for him, and though they looked for three days, he could not be found!’
Then Thurkill looked at her beauty and her lissom body, and was consumed with desire for her. The son he had grown to ignore of late slipped from his mind and was forgotten. His lady wife needed no potion from the witch to make him forget all the world, except her, so no more questions were asked. He would surely soon have other sons.
As time went by, however, the witch fell upon hard times, and became very poor indeed. She bethought her of the secret she shared with Thurkill’s wife, and turned to her for sustenance. At first it was freely given, but as with all blackmailers her demands became more and more importunate. The servants of Thurkill’s household began to comment among themselves upon the frequency of her visits, and mutter that she had but to ask, to be loaded down with gifts.
The wife, meanwhile, had managed to convince herself that her guilt was completely unsuspected, and that all had now been hidden by time; moreover, since the witch herself was also implicated, it was very unlikely that she would disclose what she knew. But she dare not allow the gossip of her household the leniency to hit upon the truth. Next time, therefore, that the witch presented herself and begged for alms, the lady bade her servants to bring the wise woman to her.
‘You have been treated well,’ she said, ‘and you now take advantage of kindness. You will get nothing else here!’
The witch could hardly believe her ears. She looked at the noble lady with unrelenting eye, and said,
‘Madam, I know what I know!’ in a most menacing fashion.
‘You know nothing, you evil old hag!’ shrieked the guilty lady. ‘Be off, before my servants set the dogs on you!’ And that was her last word.
The witch stumbled away, her mouth twisting with anger and her fingers writhing with passion, as she wizened out the best way of accomplishing her revenge. She could not denounce the lady without implicating herself and giving away her own part in the horrid murder, but with her last hope of sustenance gone, it made little odds, anyway. So she took her herself off to Bishop Etheric, told the whole tale, confessed her guilt and threw herself on his mercy.
The bishop summoned Thurkill and his wife to his synod, that they might make full inquiries on the witch’s deposition. Then Thurkill flew into a passion, and vowed that he would not appear at the bidding of any English churchman, at which the bishop was also made angry, and set the whole matter before King Cnut.
Now Cnut was wise; and though he had a loyalty to those who, like Thurkill, had helped to put him on the English throne, his chance of remaining there in peace depended largely on his good relations with the Church, which he had been very diligent to foster. So the king compromised. He commanded Thurkill to appear, as bidden by Etheric; but he added that the trial should not be merely before Etheric and his synod. Instead, Thurkill should take with him eleven witnesses (or jury) of his own choosing, and that his wife should likewise take with her eleven of her own sex. In this way they would be tried by their peers, in Danish fashion, and their innocence, or guilt, thus publicly established. Thurkill now had no course open to him but to obey.
The bishop fixed the date and time of the meeting, and chose for the meeting place the field at Lollesworth where the witch had declared she had buried the body of the murdered child.
The day came, and with it came Athelstan, Abbot of Ramsey, with a great number of the brethren. Before them in procession were carried many of the holiest relics the abbey possessed, and they wended their way across the fields singing as they went, to where Bishop Etheric waited at the gruesome spot. Then the relics were placed upon the grave, for the ceremony to begin.
Thurkill stood to one side, with his eleven witnesses chosen from his Danish friends. A magnificent spectacle they provided, too, for they were all tall, strong and handsome, though none more so than Thurkill himself, with his tanned face, sea-blue eyes and golden-auburn hair, which surrounded his noble head like a halo, and ran down round his shoulders to join the curly copper-golden sculptured beard of which he was inordinately proud. From their belted tunics hung their swords, and each man’s cloak was fastened on the shoulder with a pin or brooch that showed their class and worth. On the opposite side stood Thurkill’s disdainful lady and the eleven others of her sex, all ready to testify to her innocence if need be. They were in every respect a match for their menfolk, heads held high and long hair plaited and intertwined with jewels. Among such high-born, foreign juries, what chance had the bedraggled English village witch of making her accusation hold?
Then Thurkill was brought forward, and the deposition against him spoken. Proudly and defiantly he repudiated it, and declared in ringing tones that all present could hear that he was utterly innocent of the murder of his son, and of all knowledge whatsoever of the manner in which the child had met his death.
He could see from their demeanour that he had impressed his judges, the bishop and the abbot; and he looked across at his beautiful, proud, and beloved wife, awaiting in her turn the ordeal of question and accusation. Wishing above all now to spare her such public humiliation, he raised his voice again.
Winding his hand into the curls of his splendid beard, he said, ‘O Bishop! Just as God permits me to glory in this beard, so my wife is innocent and clear of the dreadful crime imputed to her of killing my beloved son!’
And he threw back his head, and took away his hand – and with it came the glorious beard, drawn out by the roots from his face.
Then the great crowd of ordinary folks shouted their feelings aloud, while the monks and the clergy fell on their knees and chanted in an ecstasy of praise to their God who had worked such a miracle in the sight of all men. The friends of the Dane turned aside in shame and embarrassment, while Thurkill himself stood dumb with amazement, and gazed towards his wife, for surely this must prove that she was guilty.
But the lady only tossed her head with disdain, and continued to deny any part in the crime. So the bishop had no option but to command the grave to be opened, and men with mattocks, who had been standing ready, began to dig as soon as the holy relics had been safely removed from the spot. It was only a few minutes before the little skeleton was unearthed, and laid on the grass for all to see.
At that, the lady broke down, and confessed before them all; and Thurkill admitted his fault in so basely neglecting his child and stifling his own suspicions.
Then Bishop Etheric showed his clemency, judging that they had had public punishment enough; but he gave them the humiliation of doing penance yearly, on the anniversary of this day.
Thurkill was both relieved and grateful for such lenient punishment of his wife, and in return he made over to the bishop all of the western part of the manor of Ellesworth, free from any claim from him, or from his heirs, for ever. And he asked that the bishop would bestow it on some religious place where prayers might be said to help him and his wife assuage their terrible guilt.
The Abbot Athelstan already held the eastern part of Ellesworth, and had long coveted the rest
; so there and then Etheric bestowed it upon the abbot and monks of Ramsey, to their great joy.
Then the relics were lifted high again, and the procession once more began to move in all solemnity, with the abashed Danes and the excited mob following after. It takes very little imagination to hear Etheric’s low murmur to Athelstan at his side, under cover of the chanting of the brothers. ‘Well, that settles my debt to Ramsey for the cracked bell, I think, old friend? More than a hundredfold. I’d say! Wouldn’t you?’
Witchcraft
Belief in witchcraft, probably dating back to pre-Christian times, dies very hard. The supernatural character of witchcraft might have placed the three stories following in the category of that name; but it so happens that the extraordinary details of all of them were recorded contemporaneously, and they must therefore be regarded as history. They are tales about the folk remembered by the folk, who have in the usual way added other bits of folklore to them.
The Witches of Tring
Perhaps this is one of the saddest and most horrifying tales ever handed down from one generation to the next – (at least to our ears nowadays) – yet the perpetrators of the crime were only seven or eight generations before our own time!
Among the stories remembered and recounted by the folk from generation to generation are a few which cannot be forgotten simply because they are too true in every detail and too deplorable in general to be swept away, even by time. Such a story is that of Ruth and John Osborn, of Tring in the county of Hertfordshire.
In the year 1751 – so little time ago! – there lived within the parish of Tring a poor old couple named Osborn. They had reached the end of a long, hard life, and had been superannuated by being put into the local workhouse. Crazed with age and misery, the wife occasionally went out and roamed the countryside, begging here and there on her rambles for the titbits of extra food her senile body craved.
One day she found herself at the farm of a man called Butterfield, of Gubblecote. He was a man of choleric disposition, who from childhood had been subject to fits. When Ruth Osborn came to his farmyard, he had been churning, and pails full of creamy b uttermilk stood ready for disposal. The old woman asked for a drink of it. Being a countrywoman herself, she knew well enough that it had been set aside for the pigs, and thought nobody could grudge her such a draught.
Butterfield would have none of her. ‘Be off, you old hag.’ he cried, shaking his fist at her. ‘There’s little enough as it is to feed my hogs! Away with you to the poorhouse, where you belong. You’ll get no buttermilk, or anything else, from me!’
The poor old woman was used to such rebuffs, but in this particular instance she did not go meekly away. She screamed her rage and disappointment at the farmer, adding that she hoped ‘the Pretender’ would take both him and his hogs together; and having had her say, she crept miserably away and back to the workhouse. That, no doubt, would have been the end of the tale, except for the coincidence of a run of bad luck at Gubblecote. A few weeks later some of Butterfield’s calves fell sick, and to make matters worse the farmer himself had a sudden recurrence of the fits he hoped he had grown out of. He brooded darkly on his ill-luck and his ill-health, for which he could see no reason other than that he had been cursed. His suspicion fell on Ruth Osborn, who had acutally said she hoped the Pretender would get both him and his animals.
Having made up his mind that he knew the cause of his present misfortunes, he looked around for help. He told his tale, and voiced his suspicions, in and around the neighbourhood, and was given a good deal of advice about how to deal with the matter. Highly recommended was a wise woman who lived over the border in Northamptonshire. Butterfield consulted her, but all she did was to confirm his own conclusions. In any case her charms and potions proved of no avail. Butterfield’s fits continued, and even grew worse as his fear and his anger mounted, while the disease among his cattle showed no signs of improvement.
By this time the whole neighbourhood’s sympathy with him had been aroused, and fear began to spread. Did not the Bible itself condemn all witchcraft? How could they suffer a known witch to live unmolested among them? Rumour grew into certainty, and words into action. The witch must at least be punished, and they would see to it that she was.
The town criers at Winslow, Hemel Hempstead and Leighton Buzzard were sent out to announce that on the morning of 22nd April 1751, there would take place at Long Marston, in the parish of Tring, a trial for witchcraft by ducking in the village pond.
When the day arrived, crowds gathered from far and wide and made their way to Long Marston as for a holiday, to see the fun. From the neighbourhood of Gubblecote itself, there was more dire intention. While the witch went unpunished, no one was safe, they said.
Ruth Osborn and her husband faced the morning with understandable terror, old and crazed with misery as they were. They had no hiding place other than the House of God, and there, trembling, they took refuge and hid themselves early in the day. When the boisterous holiday crowd foregathered round the pond, the witch was not in evidence, nor was the Devil’s assistant, her poor old husband, John.
Baulked of their prey, the mob grew sullen, and demanded vociferously that their expectations of good sport be realized. Led by a chimney-sweep named Colley, they decided on action. The witches were being kept hidden by the governor of the workhouse, they opined; and the bloodthirsty crowd, whipped into mass hysteria and anger, marched on the workhouse to demand their sacrifice.
The governor met them with a declaration that he did not know where the accused couple was – they were certainly not within his institution.
‘Liar!’ came the shouts of the enraged mob. ‘He’s hiding them! Duck him instead!’ they shrieked, and moved in threateningly to secure him for the scapegoat.
In fear and terror of his own life, he bade them enter, and search the place, to see for themselves that the supposed culprits were not there.
They took him at his word, and ransacked the place, adding terror to the misery of the other pitiable inmates. The mass violence grew in intensity with every thwarted minute that passed. The ring leaders were for setting fire, not simply to the workhouse, but to the whole town, for so bringing them out on false pretences. Perhaps it was in genuine self-defence that the governor at last suggested they should try the church, hoping that their reverence for the holy building would counteract their lust for cruelty. But the crowd had lost the power of reason, and rushed towards the church in a body. Within minutes the ancient couple had been dragged from their sanctuary, almost fainting with fear, and propelled towards the pond for their ‘trial’ at the hands of their neighbours.
Kicked, buffeted, beaten, pinched, scratched and spat upon, the two old folks were brought at last to the pond at Long Marston. There they were stripped, and trussed like dead chickens in the age-old manner of ‘trying a witch’. Bent double in spite of the agony of old rheumatic bones, their thumbs were lashed firmly to their opposite big toes. Then they were bundled into a heavy covering of a sheet, and roped.
The crowd now watched in an ecstasy of self-righteous excitement. ‘To the water with them! Throw her in! See if she’ll swim! Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live! Heave ’em in, neighbours! See if the Devil can save ’em now! In with ’em! Throw ’em in! In! In! In!’
The ringleaders needed no bidding. They picked up the frail old body of the witch and tossed her high, so that she fell where the water was deepest. As her old grey head disappeared beneath the surface, her husband followed. Then great sport was had by all, as they were dragged backwards and forwards through the water by willing hands whose owners all wanted the glory of being in at the centre of operations.
The sheet wrapping the skin-and-bone frame of Ruth billowed out with the air trapped inside it, and brought her to the surface again and again.
‘She swims!’ roared the crowd. ‘The Devil is looking after his own! Down with her!’
The chimney-sweep, Colley, needed no further encouragement. Seizing a long stick,
he ran nimbly round the pond to wherever the pathetic bundle bobbed to the surface. Sometimes he delighted the crowd by picking her up on the end of his stick, and dumping her again; sometimes he fetched roars of appreciation by simply turning her over and over in the water. Mostly he thumped and prodded the inert package, holding it under water for as long as he could at a time.
When, finally, they grew tired of the sport, Colley took off his cap and made a round of the spectators, who donated generously for the right royal sport his antics had given them.
At last the sodden bundles were drawn from the water, and unwrapped. The preference given to Ruth as the chief malefactor had in some degree spared her husband the attentions of the sweep and his fellows, and surprisingly, the poor old man was still breathing when he was brought to land again. He was taken back to the workhouse unconscious, where he died of shock, terror and cold within a few hours. Ruth was dragged from the pond already dead, to the great satisfaction of the mob, who then dispersed to their homes filled with the comfortable conviction that justice had been done.
Within a few days, however, the ghastly account of their sport had reached the ears of the magistrates, particularly the part played in the day’s events by the chimney-sweep, Colley. A warrant for his arrest was soon issued, and he was brought for trial on a charge of murder. At the next assizes at Hertford, the trial being conducted by Sir William Lee, Colley was sentenced to death for the murder of Ruth Osborn.
Once again, the countryside was in uproar, though somewhat subdued by the awesome power of the law. Hang an honest man for killing a witch? One that had in any case been proved guilty by swimming when thrown tied and bound into the pond? What was the country coming to, when the law condemned a man to death for helping to protect his neighbours from such foul interference as Butterfield had had to endure!
The Book of English Folk Tales Page 22