Devonshire Characters and Strange Events - Baring-Gould Sabine

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at once went home with the purchaser. She survived both buyer and seller, and then married again. Some property came to her in the course of years from her first husband; for notwithstanding claims put forth by his relatives she was able to maintain in a court of law that the sale did not and could not vitiate her rights as his widow.

      Much astonishment was caused in 1837 in the West Riding of Yorkshire by a man being committed to prison for a month with hard labour for selling or attempting to sell his wife by auction in the manner already described. It was generally and firmly believed that he was acting within his rights.

      In 1858, in a tavern at Little Horton, near Bradford, a man named Hartley Thompson put up his wife, who is described by the local journals as a pretty young woman, for sale by auction, and he had the sale previously announced by sending round the bell-man. He led her into the market with a ribbon round her neck, which exhibits an advance in refinement over the straw halter; and again in 1859, a man at Dudley disposed of his wife in a somewhat similar manner for sixpence. A feature in all these instances is the docility with which the wife submitted to be haltered and sold. She would seem to have been equally imbued with the idea that there was nothing to be ashamed of in the transaction, and that it was perfectly legal.

      If we look to discover whence originated the idea, we shall probably find it in the conception of marriage as a purchase. Among savage races, the candidate for marriage is expected to pay the father for his daughter. A marriageable girl is worth so many cows or so many reindeer. The man pays over a sum of money or its equivalent to the father, and in exchange receives the girl. If he desires to be separated from her he has no idea of giving her away, but receives what is calculated to be her market value from the man who is disposed to relieve him of her. In all dealings for cattle, or horses, or sheep, a handsel is paid, half a crown to clinch the bargain, and the transfer of coin constitutes a legal transfer of authority and property over the animal. This is applied to a woman, and when a coin, even a sixpence, is paid over and received, the receiver regards this as releasing him from all further responsibility for the wife, who at once passes under the hand of the purchaser. There is probably no trace in our laws of women having been thus regarded as negotiable properties, but it is unquestionable that at an early period, before Christianity invaded the island, such a view was held, and if here and there the rustic mind is unable to rise to a higher conception of the marriage state, it shows how extremely slow it is for opinions to alter when education has been neglected.

      WHITE WITCHES

      Some years ago I wrote a little account of “White Witches” in the Daily Graphic, in which I narrated some of my experiences and my acquaintance with their proceedings. This brought me at the lowest computation fifty letters from all parts of the country from patients who had spent much of their substance upon medical practitioners, and, like the woman with the issue of blood in the Gospel, “had suffered many things of many physicians and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.” These entreated me to furnish them with the addresses of some of these irregular practitioners, that they might try them. I did not send what was desired, and that for a very good reason, that I regard these individuals as impostors and the occasion of a good deal of mischief.

      At the same time distinguez, as the French would say. They are not all so, and I have seen and can testify to very notable and undeniable cures that they have effected. That they believe in their powers and their cures is true in a good many cases, and I quite admit that they may be in possession of a large number of valuable herbal recipes, doubtless of real efficacy. Some of our surgeons are far too fond of using the knife, and the majority of them employ strong mineral medicines that, though they may produce an immediate effect, do injury in the long run. I take it that one reason why our teeth are so bad in the present generation is due largely to the way in which calomel was administered in times past, a medicine that touches the liver but is rottenness to the bones.

      What Jesus the son of Sirach said centuries ago is true still: “The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them … by such doth he heal men, and taketh away their pains. Of such doth the apothecary make a confection” (Ecclus. XXXVIII. 4, 7, 8). What the writer meant was herbs and not minerals. The simples employed by the wise old women in our villages were admirable in most cases, but they were slow, if sure of action, and in these days when we go at a gallop we want cures to be rapid, almost instantaneous.

      But the professed herbalist in our country towns is very often not a herbalist at all, but a mere impostor. He puts up “herbalist” on a brass plate at his door, but his procedure is mere quackery.

      Moreover, the true White Witch is consulted not for maladies only, but for the discovery of who has cast the evil eye, “overlooked” and “ill-wished” some one who has lost a cow, or has been out of sorts, or has sickness in his pig-sty. The mode of proceeding was amusingly described in the Letters of Nathan Hogg, in 1847. Nathan in the form of a story gives an account of what was the general method of the White Witch Tucker in Exeter. A farmer whose conviction was that disorders and disasters at home were the result of the ill-wishing of a red-cloaked Nan Tap, consulted Tucker as to how the old woman was to be “driven” and rendered powerless.

      I modify the broad dialect, which would not be generally intelligible.

      When into Exeter he had got

      To Master Tucker’s door he sot;

      He rung’d the bell, the message sent,

      Pulled off his hat, and in he went,

      And seed a fellow in a room

      That seem’d in such a fret and fume.

      He said he’d lost a calf and cow,

      And com’d in there to know as how,

      For Master T., at little cost,

      Had often found the things he’d lost.

      Thereupon the farmer opened his own trouble, and told how he and his were bewitched by Nan Tap. And as he told his tale, it seemed so sad that the man in the room bade him go in first to consult the White Witch.

      Now this fuming man was employed by Tucker to draw out from the gulls what their trouble was, and there was but a sham wall of paper between the room where the interview took place and that in which he received the farmer, whom he greatly astonished by informing him of all the circumstances that led to the visit. The remedy he prescribed was to carry a little bag he gave him, in which were some stones, and to dash water in the direction of the old woman, and say, “I do it in the name of Tucker,” and if this did not answer, he was to put a faggot up his chimney, set fire to it, and say a prayer he taught him while it was burning. We need not follow the account any further.

      There was a few years ago a notable White Witch of the name of Snow, at Tiverton, who did great business. In a case with which I am well acquainted, he certainly was the means of curing a substantial farmer. The man had caught a severe chill one night of storm, when a torrent threatened to inundate his house. He had stood for hours endeavouring to divert the stream from his door. The chill settled on his chest, and he became a wreck; he drew his breath with difficulty, walked bent, almost double, and as I was convinced would not live out the twelve months. He consulted the most famous and experienced physicians, and they did him no good. Then in desperation he went to “Old Snow.” From that day he mended. What the White Witch gave him I do not know; but the man is now robust, hearty, and looks as if many years were before him.

      I know another case, but this is of a different nature. A young farmer, curious as to the future, visited a White Witch to learn who his future wife would be. Said she – this witch was a woman, and an old one: there are female witches who are young and exercise very powerful charms – said she: “Next Sunday, you go along Narracott lane, and the first young woman you see pass, look her well in the face, and when you’ve gone by, turn your head and look, and if she’s also turned her head and is looking at you, that’s the one.”

      “Well now,” said this farmer in later years, “it were a coorious thing it were, but as I were goin’ along thickey lane there I seed Bessie Baker, and I turn’d, and sure enough her were lookin’ over her shoulder to me, and wot’s most coorious of all – her’s my missus now. After that, don’t ee go and

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