Folklore of Yorkshire (4 page)

If the famed Mother Shipton of Knaresborough was a historical figure, it is likely that her reputation during her lifetime was as a cunning-woman with powers of precognition. Her alleged prophecies were almost certainly fabricated by later writers in order to feed the seventeenth-century appetite for such material, but it is possible that they were inspired by an older oral tradition. In 1684, Richard Head recorded biographical details, claiming that she was born Ursula Southiel around 1488 in a cave on the banks of the River Nidd and adopted the name Mother Shipton following her marriage to Toby Shipton in 1521. However, as she is supposed to have died in 1561 and documentary record of her name does not appear until the first publication of her supposed prophecies in 1642, the evidence for her historical existence is thin.

Nonetheless, between the seventeenth and nineteenth century, her reputation as a soothsayer was unassailable across the whole of England. Following the publication of
Two Strange Prophecies
in 1642, interest burgeoned so rapidly that the pamphlet had expanded to
Fourteen Strange Prophecies
by 1649. The celebrated diarist, Samuel Pepys even records that during the Great Fire of London in 1666, the king’s cousin, Prince Rupert, was heard to remark, ‘Now Shipton’s prophecy is out.’ This was in reference to a notorious couplet which ran, ‘Triumphant Death rides London through / And men on tops of houses go’. Typically, however, like most prophecies, Mother Shipton’s alleged divinations are couched in ambiguous, symbolic language and for any event, there are lines which can be imagined to fit.

With the success of the prophecies, a rich body of legend grew up around Mother Shipton’s birth and supposed childhood in Knaresborough. It was said that she was born from her mother’s union with the Devil and that fearsome sounds accompanied her entry into the world. Even as an infant, Ursula was reported to be fearsomely ugly, with a crooked body, hooked nose and goggling eyes. Her powers manifested from an early age and she would make the furniture in her nurse’s house dance up and down the stairs. On one occasion, the child went missing and when her nurse returned with a search party, they were all magically compelled to take the four ends of a cross and dance until they dropped, whilst a simian imp goaded them with pins. A priest was eventually summoned and he found Ursula in her cradle, floating three full yards above the ground.

Mother Shipton’s fame endures today, as the cave in which she was purportedly born has been turned into one of North Yorkshire’s principle tourist attractions – although arguably its appeal rests on the neighbouring petrifying well rather than the cave itself. Nonetheless, the sibyl has become something of a county icon, which may be some small vindication for all those who were persecuted for their uncanny reputation in Yorkshire’s history. Her birthplace is certainly a more edifying spectacle than the skeleton of Mary Bateman, which following the donation of her corpse to an anatomy school after her execution now hangs forlorn in the Thackerary Medical Museum – a stark reminder of the havoc superstition could wreak in centuries gone by.

B
efore the advance of modern science, when livelihoods could be destroyed by a simple crop blight and lives suddenly snatched away by some unknown sickness, so many individuals must have felt cast adrift in a hostile environment, powerless against forces beyond their understanding or control. With the human tendency to anthropomorphise and seek causal agency, the world could not help but be transformed into a demon-haunted place, apparently overrun by baleful supernatural forces bent on doing harm to persons and property. It is scarcely surprising that these beleaguered folk attempted to assert control by any means necessary, and a rich legacy of protective charms and talismans survives as testament to their endeavour. Whilst such contingencies may seem absurd today, they once represented the only hope in the face of an unforgiving universe.

Should a house find itself tormented by a restless spirit, there were few expedients available following the Reformation, as the rite of exorcism was forbidden to Protestant clergy and often householders were forced to resort to a local cunning-person to help ‘lay’ the ghost. Such individuals might perform a corrupted remembrance of the old Catholic ritual or provide a charm to ward off the spirit, which had to be kept in the house indefinitely. For instance, in 1905, the occupier of High Fernley Hall at Wyke in West Yorkshire discovered seven pieces of parchment concealed in the rafters of the building, apparently deliberately fixed into place for posterity. These parchments were inscribed in the legal hand of the latter half of the eighteenth century, each with a series of largely nonsensical words doubtless meant as magical formulae.

It was locally believed that the charm had been placed to offer protection against the ghost of a former owner of the hall, who had committed suicide there. Legends record that in the mid-eighteenth century, High Fernley Hall was occupied by two brothers named Bevers, both of whom loved the same woman. Only one brother won the lady’s affection, however, and they were married at Kirkheaton Church on 5 May 1742. After witnessing the ceremony, the spurned suitor returned to High Fernley, whereupon he told the servants that tragedy would soon befall him and he would ‘come again’ minus his head. He then proceeded to take his own life, supposedly by decapitating himself, although this might be a later embellishment to account for the condition of his ghost.

Sure enough, the unfortunate Bevers brother returned every night as a headless horseman, galloping up and down the lane which led from High Fernley Hall to Judy Woods. Few locals dared walk that way after dark and the house stood untenanted for many years, until that portion in which the suicide had taken place was demolished. Considering the apparent agreement between the date of the suicide and the approximate date of the parchment charms, it seems highly likely that they were intended to ward off Bevers’ acephalous spectre. Following their rediscovery in 1905, a local belief developed that bad luck would befall the hall and its tenants should the charms ever be removed.

Of course, the majority of household talismans between the sixteenth and nineteenth century were intended as a defence against witchcraft – specifically maleficium. In some cases, they were purely prophylactic; designed to protect against potential witchcraft, rather than a spell already directed against the house (which typically needed stronger measures to undo). The most common example, known throughout the British Isles, was a horseshoe nailed to the door of the house. In his 1686 work,
Remains of Gentilism and Judaism
, the antiquarian John Aubrey noted that the power of horseshoes derived from the fact they were made of iron; although it is not clear why most sources insisted that their points should be directed upwards. Nonetheless, positioned thus, no witch could cross the threshold and their spells would be reflected back upon them.

Similarly effective were stones through which a natural hole had been bored. This occurred as the result of water action over many centuries and such pebbles were usually plucked from the seashore or a streambed. Known variously as holy-stones, hag-stones or dobby-stones, smaller examples were kept about the person as a portable talisman – often attached to a door-key; whilst larger specimens were hung in the home or sometimes in stables. It was widely believed that witches stole horses and rode them hard to their sabbats, before returning them to their stalls sweating and exhausted. Animals found in such a condition were described as ‘hag-ridden’ and the holed stone was regarded as an effective defence against this danger.

The wood of the rowan tree (sometimes known as mountain ash) was also thought to protect against witchcraft and being easier to come by than horseshoes and holed stones, it was very extensively deployed. Sprigs of rowan were hung in each room of the house; in the stables and byres, above the beds, behind every window and door. On farms it was considered prudent to make the churn-staff and whip-stocks from rowan wood, whilst it was tied around the horns or necks of cattle to keep them safe from maleficium. Some cottages even went so far as to have a rowan tree growing in their garden to hold the witches at bay. Beyond the home, people would wear posies in their buttonholes, carry twigs in their pockets and place leaves in their shoes.

A sprig of rowan, hung to protect a house from witches. (Kai Roberts)

In some areas of the county, cutting rowan for such use had to be performed with the appropriate ritual. Around Cleveland, St Helen’s Day (2 May) was the appointed time for this ceremony. Householders would rise before dawn and proceed into the woods to search for a suitable tree. For the rowan charm to be fully effective, the wood had to be cut with a domestic knife and taken from a tree of which the cutter had no previous knowledge. In Holderness, meanwhile, the rowan had to be gathered at a certain times of day to be fully effective. Noon was considered relatively favourable, but wood procured at midnight was thought to be the most potent – especially when fashioned into the shape of a cross.

Rowan was also used to make witch-posts, an architectural feature unique to North Yorkshire farmhouses in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, especially around Farndale. These thick wooden posts were usually located beside the hearth to protect the threshold from unwelcome incursion. The chimney was regarded as a common access point for witches during the night, but such intruders could not pass beyond a rowan witch-post. For additional security, their faces were carved with a St Andrew’s Cross, beneath which were a number of lines believed to represent the number of people in the household requiring protection. Sometimes a crooked sixpence was stored in a niche in the centre of the post and if the butter would not emulsify due to some enchantment laid upon it, the sixpence was taken from this position and placed in the churn as a counter-spell.

But such techniques were only good as preventative measures; if maleficium was already directed at the household, more evasive action was required. In such cases, the local cunning-person was again the resort of choice and often counter-attack was their recommended course of action. The principle by which maleficium was thought to operate required that the witch establish an intimate connection with the target of their spite; hence why the personal affects of a victim were often needed to direct the spell. However, this connection could be fruitfully turned against the witch so that in order to escape her own suffering, she would be forced to undo the original enchantment.

A witch-post preserved from a Farndale farmhouse. (Kai Roberts)

For instance, when the dairy was thought to be bewitched and the butter would not churn, it was imagined that sticking a red-hot poker into the cream would be quickly felt by the witch. More elaborately, when a farmer living near Skipton in the eighteenth century believed his cattle to be bewitched, a local wise-man instructed him that on a specified day he was to kindle a fire behind his house and gather his family round. They were then to take the heart from one of the diseased cows and boil it in a pan suspended over the fire; when the organ was removed, each member of the family was to stick a pin into it. The next stage of the procedure varied: sometimes the heart was burnt on the fire; sometimes it was placed in the chimney; and sometimes it was buried in consecrated ground.