English Villages

by P. H. Ditchfield

Some of the inns in remote country places did not enjoy a very enviable reputation, and were little better than man-traps, where the unfortunate traveller was robbed and murdered. At Blewbury, in Berkshire, there was an inn, the landlord of which was suspected of murdering his guests with great secrecy and mystery, and no one could tell what he did with the bodies of the victims he was supposed to have murdered. A few years ago an old tree in the neighbourhood of the inn was blown down, and on digging up the roots a skeleton was found among them. People wondered how it could have been placed there, but at last a very old inhabitant told the story of the mysterious disappearance of the bodies of the late landlord’s guests, and the mystery was at length accounted for. Whenever he slew a man he planted a tree, placing the body of the murdered victim beneath it. The constables never thought of looking there; and probably under every tree which he planted (and there were several), when their roots are dug up, the bones of his numerous victims will be discovered.

Another story is connected with the old “Hind’s Head” at Bracknell, which was another of these mantraps, where many travellers slept to rise no more. One winter’s night a stout-hearted farmer stayed there, and joined several jovial companions round the kitchen fire. They ate and drank merrily, and at last the serving-maid showed the traveller to his chamber. She told him that he was surrounded by robbers and murderers, showed him a trap-door at the side of the bed, on which if he stepped he would tumble headlong into a deep well. She directed him to tie the bed into a bundle, put it on the trap-door, and escape by the window. He did so; down went the bundle, instead of the farmer, into the well, and he managed to effect his escape. Rousing the neighbourhood he captured the villains, who were all executed, and the bones of many of their victims were found in the well. Happily such inns were rare.

To describe the conditions of the old inns for which England was famous, of the good fare which awaited the travellers by the coach, of the spacious corridors, of the comfortable beds hung with silk and smelling of lavender; to tell of all the great folk who entered their doors—kings, queens, poets, generals, highwaymen, statesmen, grooms, conspirators, coachmen—all this would require much space to relate. When railways came in, their ancient glory departed; the old stables are destroyed; grass grows in the courtyard; and the object of their existence has almost ceased to be.

CHAPTER XXIII

VILLAGE SUPERSTITIONS AND FOLKLORE

Belief in witches—Survival of water ordeal—Witches turned into hares— Cruelties practised on witches—Bishop Jewel on the “evil eye”— Fairies—Berkshire popular superstitions—Field-names—Homes of famous men—Washington Irving’s description of an English village—Rural exodus—Conclusion.

There is yet another class of subjects connected with old village life, of absorbing interest and importance. I refer to the old superstitions and folklore which still linger on in the recollections of the “oldest inhabitant,” and which ought to be at once treasured up, lest they should be altogether lost. The generation of those who believed firmly in the power of the “evil eye” of the witch, and who feared to disturb the revels of the fairies on their rings and mounds, is only just passing away. An old gipsy has told me some strange stories of the superstitions of former days. He has told me of the witch at Farnham who made the cows wild and prevented them from giving milk; of another witch who lived at Henley-on-Thames, and who when thrown into the river “floated like a cork.” Here we have a survival of the old Saxon method of trying culprits by the water ordeal, often used in examining witches. This particular witch could turn herself into a hare, so my venerable gipsy friend, aged one hundred and six years, informed me, and the dogs hunted her. He told me of the Tadley witch, who “wished” several people, and greatly injured them. It seems to have been a common practice of the old witches to turn themselves into hares, in order to vex the squires, justices, and country parsons, who were fond of hunting, as the old dames could elude the speed of the swiftest dogs. An old writer states “that never hunters nor their dogs may be bewitched, they cleave an oaken branch, and both they and their dogs pass over it.” Mary Dore, a witch of Beaulieu, Hampshire, used to turn herself into a hare in order to escape detection when caught in the act of wood-stealing, to which she was somewhat addicted.

Old women were rather harshly used in the days when people believed in the power of witches. If any farmer’s cattle died, it was immediately concluded that the animals were bewitched; and some wretched old woman was singled out, and summarily tried and burnt. If anyone fell ill, some “witch” had evidently a waxen image of the sufferer, and stuck needles into it; and such was the power of the witch that, wherever the person was, he felt the stab of the cruel needle. Hence the witch had to be found and burnt. If the corn crops failed, was not witchcraft the cause? for had not old Mother Maggs been heard to threaten Farmer Giles, and had not her black cat been seen running over his fields? Even good Bishop Jewel did not disbelieve in the power of the evil eye. In preaching before Queen Elizabeth he said: “It may please Your Grace to understand that witches and sorcerers are marvellously increased within Your Grace’s realm. Your Grace’s subjects pine away even unto the death, their colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft. I pray God they never practise further than on the subject.” To so great an extent did faith in the witches’ fatal power prevail. Our forefathers used to believe in the existence of other, and more pleasant little companions than the old toothless witches—the bright little fairies who, on account of the neglect which they have received from the present generation of Englishmen, have, so it is reported, left our shores in disgust, never to return. The previous inhabitants of our villages did not so treat them; and did not the fairies always bring them luck? They nailed the horseshoe to the stable door to keep out the witches, lest the old beldams should ride their steeds by night to the witches’ revels; but no one wished to exclude the fairies. Did not the dairymaids find the butter ready churned, and the cows milked by these kind assistants? Was there not an old lady in Yorkshire who knew all about the fairies, had often heard them making butter, and had seen the butter smeared all over the gate by a little green man with a queer cap who had been seen slipping under a culvert? Canon Atkinson told us of this lady who knew all these strange things, and of the Hart Hall “Hob” who worked so hard with his flail, and of many other curious folk who frequented the Yorkshire moors in olden days. The last witch had just died before he went to Danby, but he found the whole atmosphere of the folklore firmament so surcharged with the being and work of the witch, that he seemed able to trace her presence and her activity in almost every nook and corner of the neighbourhood.

The wells all over England were haunted by fairies, and is it not confidently asserted that “the good people” (as the fairies are called) live in wilds and forests, and shun great cities because of the wickedness which exists therein? Have they never appeared to the lonely traveller, clothed in green, with long hair floating over their shoulders, and with faces more blooming than the blush of a summer morning? Then there were the fairy rings formed by the dancing of their merry feet.