Witchcraft in North Lincolnshire.
An amusing case of suspected witchcraft has come to light in the village of Bottesford, a few miles from Scunthorpe, in North Lincolnshire. A few minutes’ walk from the old Manor House of Bottesford is a cottage occupied by Edward Soulby, a man in easy circumstances, and he alleges that his household is “bewitched,” and has been for several weeks past. Soulby is quite in earnest in his asseverations, and unquestionably believes what he says to be true.
On Sunday week the whole of one of his windows was broken by some branches of trees, and he asserts that shortly afterwards the tea kettle bounced from the fire on to the kitchen floor, and trotted across the street, from whence it returned to the fire and resumed its singing on the bars of the grate.
A can of water met Soulby as he was descending the stairs, and most uncannily disputed the right of way with him step by step. A stone of lard also came rattling downstairs, breaking one of the stone steps, and, strange to say, the paved floor spontaneously rose up and hurled itself through the window.
Betsy Soulby, a grand-daughter, well advanced in her teens, is the only person who lives with her grandfather, and she it is whom Soulby says has a familiar spirit, and is invested with the powers of darkness from the Evil One. The unfortunate girl now wears a garland of wicker branches or twigs about her neck, and the pigs and poultry parade the back-yard similarly armed. This, it is hoped, will effectually drive away the “old gentleman’s” familiar spirit from Miss Soulby.
Mr. E. Peacock, J.P., of Bottesford Manor House, has advised the removal of the girl to other friends.
Daily Gazette for Middlesborough, 15th March 1879.
Correspondence.
Witchcraft in a Midland Village.
To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette.
Sir, – Among the numerous objections which have been urged to the enfranchisement of the agricultural labourer, Mr. Goschen’s is the one which is the most readily capable of being brought to a practical test. he says simply that a certain amount of education and general intelligence ought to be required of those to whom we grant political power, and that among the class in question it is not at present to be found. There is as much variety, I suppose, among the English peasantry as there is in any other class of society; and it does not follow that because in one district they are ignorant and superstitious therefore they are so in another. At the present moment, however, anything which tends to throw a light on the intellectual condition of our rural population has a special interest; and as the circumstances I am about to mention occurred in an English county celebrated for the superiority of its agriculture, and as I have always understood, for the prosperity and intelligence of its labourers, it will be fair to infer that the degree of enlightenment which is found to exist in this quarter is at least not greatly below the average yeild, to borrow an agricultural term, of the United Kingdom.
The county I refer to is Leicestershire, and the facts are these:- At Bottesford, an agricultural village in that county, dwell a family of the name of Soulby, the father and mother living in one cottage, and the son in another one close adjoining. About a month ago the squire of the parish, whose house is close to these cottages, on coming downstairs in the morning was greeted with an incoherent clamour, in which, however, the words “witches,” “possession,” “spirits” were plainly audible; and presently he heard further observations relating to calves’ hearts with pins stuck into them, drawing blood from the witch, and other kindred remedies supposed to be of sovereign efficacy against the powers of darkness.
On making further inquiry this gentleman ascertained that the cottage of the elder Soulby was “bewitched;” and on repairing to the spot found the windows broken, and the floors torn up, and was informed that the spirits had done it. The old man assured him that he had seen a brick rise from the floor, settle “like a bird” on the sofa, and then fly through the window; that a basketful of mangel-wurzel had raised itself from the floor and knocked its head against the ceiling; that a tin saucepan had taken flight from the hob, flown through the window, and, after wheeling about in the air for some time like a swallow, had returned to the fireside; and that as he was coming downstairs he had met a large can of water walking up “step by step,” and I suppose without spilling a drop.
With these remarkable depositions in his hands, the squire’s next step was to communicate with the police, and found that the rural policeman and himself were agreed as to the real author of the disturbance. But it was useless to reason with the people. The manifestations continued; and every soul in the neighbourhood, except the vicar, the squire, their families, the owner of the cottage, and the policeman aforesaid, believed in their supernatural character.
The squire’s women-servants were insulted, and told that “something would happen to them” because they had not faith. And the Wesleyan minister called a man an “atheist” and threatened to knock him down because he refused to see “the finger of God” stretched forth at Bottesford. Crowds continued to collect round the haunted cottage. People flocked from a distance to gaze on the witch’s handiwork. One Sunday alone nearly 1,500 people were brought to Bottesford by railway, many of them from Sheffield and Doncaster; and, as wild talk went on about the proper mode of dealing with the witch, who was supposed to be quite well known (“our old Sall,” as some people in the crowd were overheard to say), serious apprehensions were at one time entertained that some violent outrage might occur. The people were in a frame of mind in which it would have taken very little to excite them to treat the victim of their suspicions as the butchers and graziers of Cumberland treat the unfortunate Madge Wildfire in “The Heart of Midlothian.”
Another witch,, described as an hereditary witch, having in a spirit of professional curiosity come to view her sister’s performances, all the bystanders were observed to make the phallic sign, which is supposed to be a protection against the evil eye; and my informant says that there are several most respectable and well-to-do people in the parish who invariably make that sign when they pass the witch’s cottage.
To show, further, how prevalent the belief is, and what ludicrous forms it assumes, the gentleman I have named informs me that a farmer in the neighbourhood, occupying upwards of 300 acres, went recently to the local newspaper office to insert an advertisement for “a wise man” to come and “take the witchcraft off him.” He had lost several horses and oxen through this evil agency; the witch himself, or as I suppose we ought to say, the warlock, being a lame old man who turns himself into a black dog and bites cattle. The farmer says that he has seen this person turn himself from a man into a dog “frequently.”
The squire of course remonstrated with these foolish people. But all he got for his pains was the epithet of “infidel,” coupled with the scornful inquiry whether he believed in the Witch of Endor. For all this time the flying pots and pans, the walking pitchers, the dancing bricks, were as manifestly the work of a single human being as if she had been seen to do them. This was a girl of fourteen – the granddaughter of the old couple – who was so far possessed, no doubt, as to be under the influence of that weak and wicked love of notoriety which has caused so many similar absurdities. The marvels were never witnessed except when she was in the house. When she was sent upstairs by herself they immediately began; and one day, when my informant himself was present, and a large box came rolling down the stairs, the marks of her wet boots were visible on the boards from the door to where the box stood.
But evidence of this kind went for nothing with the people of Bottesford; to see in “the finger of God” only the dirty footsteps of an idle girl was an impiety but lightly punished by knocking down – the summary mode of dealing with the offence suggested by the pious Non-conformist. All disbelievers in the witch were lumped together as “atheists,” the laity being encouraged so to do by the vigorous and godly language of the minister aforesaid; and a prayer-meeting was held in the cottage by a party of “Revivalists,” who actually pulled up the brick flooring “to look for the spirits.”
[more moaning about peasants follows]
March 26. An “Atheist.”
Pall Mall Gazette, 27th March 1879.
more on witchcraft in 1600s connected with Bottesford here https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000205/18791024/017/0006
Erratum. – In the letter printed yesterday under the head “Witchcraft in a Midland Village,” Leicestershire was erroneously printed for Lincolnshire. The circumstances narrated occurred at Bottesford, near Brigg, in Lincolnshire.
Pall Mall Gazette, 28th March 1879.
Witchcraft at Bottesford. We have been requested to print the following note:-
Brigg [Lincolnshire], April 25, 1879.
Sir, My attention has been called to a statement in your issue of March 27. In the account of the pretended witchcraft at Bottesford the Wesleyan minister is represented as sanctioning the imposture. As this concerns me permit me to state that no Wesleyan minister was there on the occasion, and that there is no Wesleyan chapel in the village. A local, or lay, preacher did somehow figure on the scene.
Yours respectfully, Henry Graham, Wesleyan Minister.
Pall Mall Gazette, 26th April 1879.
[…] The “Atheist” […] jumps to the conclusion that we ought to “be inclined to pay more attention to Mr. Goschen, and a little less to Mr. Gladstone” with respect to the title of the county ratepayers to the franchise. It is now clear that the villagers of our Leicestershire Bottesford have been guiltless of any such intense and wide-spread superstition. It is evident, therefore, the average intelligence in the rural districts is much higher than “Atheist” has given credt for, and this is an additional proof of the accuracy of Mr. Gladstone in his estimate of the intelligence of the working classes in the counties, and their indefensible right to the parliamentary vote. It is only too clear, however, that there still lingers in some of our country districts a belief in enchantment and sorcery. The whole history of witchcraft constitutes one of the most terrible episodes in the annals of the race. It is computed that in England alone no fewer than 30,000 persons have been put to death as martyrs to a persecuting and sanguinary fanaticism. […] The greatest enemy of all such manias is the modern schoolmaster. Precisely in proportion as he discharges his state-imposed task, will ignorance and superstition disappear, and all such gross delusions become extinct.
Leicester Chronicle, 5th April 1879.