Village brand girl, 9, as ‘witch’.
Little Nicolina and ‘evil spirit’ start a panic.
From Llyn Lewis, Rome, Saturday.
Police have been sent to a tiny hamlet in Southern Italy to protect a girl of nine who is accused by neighbours of being a witch. The tales about little Nicolina Mustone started when she went to stay with her aunt and uncle in their three-roomed cottage at Melito, Irpino. For when she arrived their smallholding went haywire. Hens stopped laying, water turned bad, and the rabbits started killing each other.
Then the furniture in the house started moving by itself. Jars fell off shelves, tables overturned, and a barrel of grain – too heavy for two men to lift – turned on its side as the frightened family watched. When Nicolina went home to her parents, the strange happenings stopped. Her uncle, Antonio Mustone, 79, said: “I didn’t believe at first that it was anything to do with the child. But when she came back trouble started again. I believe there is a spirit in the house which does not like her.”
The local bishop has blessed Nicolina, and a priest tried to exorcise the spirit. But the trouble went on. So last week villagers called in a “wizard.” He cleared the house, sealed it, and ordered the spirit to depart. When the door was opened, the furniture had been disarranged. It was then that Nicolina’s uncle called in police.
Already, farmers have chased Nicolina out of their fields with pitchforks, and children stoned her.
Sunday Mirror, 20th March 1966.
The following seems to be a rare example of Leicester Daily Mercury’s ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ that is actually based on a real story??
The girl they called a witch.
By John Macklin.
The villagers of Melito in Southern Italy still talk about the two occasions in 1966 when nine-year-old Nicolina Mustone came to stay for her holidays. Within days of her arrival, inexplicable things began to happen on her uncle’s farm. The hens stopped laying, the water supply was poisoned and her uncle’s prize rabbits began killing one another. Then, as if all that wasn’t enough, her uncle’s house fell victim to acts of terrifying violence, as if it had been cursed with the presence of a malevolent poltergeist.
Furniture moved of its own account, crockery crashed down from the kitchen shelves, tables overturned and then, in full view of the petrified family, a barrel of grain which was far too heavy for even two men to lift suddenly tilted and smashed on its side.
Soon after that Nicolina’s holiday came to an end and, the minute she left, life once again returned to normal. As if by magic, the mysterious events stopped. Yet it didn’t one occur to the community that Nicolina could have had anything to do with the traumatic happenings of the previous few days.
Some months later, Nicolina came to stay again. This time the manifestations were too nightmarish and coincidental to shrug off and slowly her aunt and uncle began to realise the terrifying truth – Nicolina was in some way connected with the events. By then, the story had spread among the simple-minded and superstitious villagers and their reaction was violent. Children stoned Nicolina whenever she showed her face outside the door of her uncle’s cottage, and farmers chased her away from their land, threatening her with their pitchforks. The little girl’s life became a torment as she tried to understand what was happening to her.
Tempers rose so high in the neighbourhood that Nicolina’s uncle was forced to call in the police to protect her. He himself, he explained, did not think the girl was bewitched. He thought she was antagonising some evil spirit which was haunting the place. The police tried to reassure the peasants with this explanation. But they were not to be appeased. The whole community was convinced she was a witch.
In an effort to quell inflamed local feeling, a bishop blessed Nicolina, hoping to drive out any evil spirit that might have taken possession of her. And while this was going on the village priest attempted to exorcise the spirit from the house. Still the trouble went on and the villagers began to work themselves up into a frenzy. It seemed only a matter of time before one of the more frightened peasants did the child some serious harm.
The police protected her all they could, but they could not watch her every minute of the day. In desperation her uncle tried another method to rid his house of the threat of malignant evil. He called in a man who was believed locally to be a wizard. The wizard ordered everybody out of the house, and had the windows and doors sealed. Then he began his centuries-old incantations to drive out the evil that lurked inside. The minutes passed slowly as his droning and chanting went on. Finally he stopped. In that instant, Nicolina’s uncle rushed to the door and unlocked it, praying that the spell had at last been broken and that peace would return to his home. The wizard, exhausted by his ordeal, nodded. Everything would be all right, he said. The spirit had gone.
Curious villagers, who had been waiting outside, crowded in to see if anything had happened. It had indeed! All the furniture had been thrown around, chairs were upturned, and the smashed remnants of plates and cups littered the floors. If the spirit had departed the house, it had left with one almighty spasm of violence.
Nicolina’s uncle, however, has never put the wizard’s spell to the test. Taking no chances, he immediately sent Nicolina home and refused to invite her back. Ever since, the village of Melito has remained calm and quiet.
Is Nicolina bewitched? Or has she some mysterious force in her that caused a dormant spirit to rise up in fury and wreak havoc in that farmhouse in Southern Italy? It’s something both she and her family hope they will never find out.
Leicester Daily Mercury, 2nd September 1971.
John “Mr Imaginative” Macklin rewrites it again in 1978 with even more dramatic detail but I don’t know if I can be bothered to type it all out. (E.g. Reading Evening Post, 14th October 1978).