Jenny Harris was a reputed witch. This woman, old, poor, and, from the world’s ill usage, rendered malicious, was often charged with the evils which fell upon cattle, children, or, indeed, on men and women. On one occasion, a robust and rough-handed washerwoman, who conceived that she was under the spell of Jenny Harris, laid violent hands on the aged crone, being resolved to “bring blood from her.” The witch’s arm was scratched and gouged from the elbow to the wrist, so that a sound inch of skin did not exist. This violent assault became the subject of inquiry before the magistrates, who fined the washerwoman five pounds for the assault.
My correspondent writes:—“I was also present at a magistrates’ meeting at the Porcupine Inn, near Tywardreath, some years ago, when an old woman from Golant was brought up for witchcraft. One farmer, who appeared against her, stated that he had then six bullocks hanging up in chains in his orchard, and he attributed their disease and death to the poor old woman’s influence. The case was dismissed, but it afforded a good deal of merriment. There was a dinner at the inn after the meeting, and some of the farmers present were disposed to ridicule the idea of witchcraft. I said, well knowing their real views and opinions, ‘Gentlemen, it is all well enough to laugh, but it appears to me to be a serious matter.’ Upon which Mr ——, a farmer of ——, said, ‘You are right, Mr ——; I’ll tell of two cases in which one family suffered severely,’ and he gave us the details of the cases. All the others present had a case or two, each one within his own experience to vouch for, and the whole afternoon was spent telling witch stories.”
The extent to which this belief was carried within a comparatively recent period, may be inferred from the fact that, on one occasion when the visitors were assembled at the county asylum, a man residing at Callington came with the mother of a poor imbecile patient, and sent his card to the boardroom. This was inscribed with his name and M.A. Upon being asked how he became a Master of Arts, he replied that he was a “Master of Black Arts.” The object of this fellow’s visit was, having persuaded the mother of his power, to propose to the visitors that they should place the imbecile girl in his care, upon his undertaking, on their paying him five pounds, to cure her. Of course this was not listened to. This fellow imposed upon people to such an extent, that he was eventually tried at the sessions, under an almost forgotten Act of Parliament, for witchcraft. The impression on the mind of my informant is that the case broke down.
NOTES ON WITCHCRAFT.
In confirmation of the melancholy facts related of the continuance of the belief in witchcraft, I would give the accompanying cuttings from the West Briton newspaper of a very recent date:—
GROSS SUPERSTITION.
“During the week ending Sunday last, a ‘wise man’ from Illogan has been engaged with about half-a-dozen witchcraft cases, one a young tradesman, and another a sea-captain. It appears that the ‘wise man’ was in the first place visited at his home by these deluded people at different times, and he declared the whole of them to be spell-bound. In one case he said that if the person had not come so soon, in about a fortnight he would have been in the asylum; another would have had his leg broken; and in every case something very direful would have happened. Numerous incantations have been performed. In the case of a captain of a vessel, a visit was paid to the sea-side, and while the ‘wise man’ uttered some unintelligible gibberish, the captain had to throw a stone into the sea. So heavy was the spell under which he laboured, and which immediately fell upon the ‘wise man,’ that the latter pretended that he could scarcely walk back to Hayle. The most abominable part of the incantations is performed during the hours of midnight, and for that purpose the wretch sleeps with his victims, and for five nights following he had five different bed-fellows. Having no doubt reaped a pretty good harvest during the week, he returned to his home on Monday; but such was the pretended effect produced by the different spells and witchcraft that fell upon him from his many dupes, that two of the young men who had been under his charge were obliged to obtain a horse and cart and carry him to the Hayle station. One of the men, having had ‘two spells’ resting on him, the ‘wise man’ was obliged to sleep with him on Saturday and Sunday nights, having spent the whole of the Sunday in his diabolical work. It is time that the police, or some other higher authorities, should take the matter up, as the person alluded to is well known, and frequently visited by the ignorant and superstitious.”
THE CASE OF GROSS SUPERSTITION AT HAYLE.
“In the West Briton of the 27th ult. we gave some particulars of several cases of disgraceful fraud and delusion which had been practised by a pretended ‘wise man’ from Illogan, and of gross superstition and gullibility on the part of his dupes. A correspondent has furnished us with the following particulars relative to the antecedents of the pretended conjurer. He states that James Thomas, the conjurer from the parish of Illogan, married some time since the late celebrated Tammy Blee, of Redruth, who afterwards removed to Helston and carried on as a fortune-teller, but parted from her husband, James Thomas, on account of a warrant for his apprehension having been issued against him by the magistrates of St Ives, for attempting to take a spell from Mrs Paynter, through her husband, William Paynter, who stated before the magistrates that he wanted to commit a disgraceful offence. Thomas then absconded, and was absent from the west of Cornwall for upwards of two years. His wife then stated that the virtue was in her and not in him; that she was of the real ‘Pellar’ blood; and that he could tell nothing but through her. His greatest dupes have been at St Just and Hayle, and other parts of the west of Cornwall. He has been in the habit of receiving money annually for keeping witchcraft from vessels sailing out of Hayle. He slept with several of his dupes recently; and about a fortnight since he stated that he must sleep with certain young men at Copperhouse, Hayle, in order to protect them from something that was hanging over them, one of them being a mason and another a miner, the two latter lately from St Just. He said himself this week at Truro that he had cured a young man of St Erth, and was going on Saturday again to take a spell from the father, a tin smelter. He has caused a great disturbance amongst the neighbours, by charging some with having bewitched others. He is a drunken, disgraceful, beastly fellow, and ought to be sent to the treadmill. One of the young men is now thoroughly ashamed of himself to think he has been duped so by this scoundrel. We have purposely withheld the names of a number of Thomas’s egregious dupes, with which our correspondent has furnished us, believing that the badgering which they have doubtless received from their friends has proved a sufficient punishment to them, and that their eyes are now thoroughly opened to the gross and disgraceful imposture that has been practised upon them.”
The following is from the Western Morning News:—