This past week, I joined a podcast chat by two people I have followed on Instagram because they look at the folklore of the many customs we unconsciously participate in without a thought to the origins, particularly how marks were supposed to protect people & places from witches & malevolent forces.
The talk was held in the evening at a local English Heritage property that I often take visitors to - Boscobel House.
I blogged about its connection to King Charles II when he was hidden there after the Battle of Worcester & that of the nearby White Ladies Priory.
It is the first time the house has been opened to an evening event & we arrived keen to see it in a different light. It is a striking black & white building which looks on to a field where the Royal Oak is (where King Charles II spent a night in the oak tree, hiding from Cromwells men.)
We wandered around & joined our small group of about 20 people in the stables tearoom for hot chocolate & a chat before heading to the house.
The parlour is accessed by a side door, crossing a small room, under the inside balcony, up some stairs & into quite a dark room, even in the day time. The fireplace is black slate with carved images of the history of the house, while the dark panelling & magnificent sideboard hold their own in the space.
What a fascinating evening with two very knowledgeable ladies speaking about the history of witches who were often just women with special skills of herbs, of healing in a time of home medicine & of women who were deemed a threat for whatever reason. They became targets with terrible consequences as they were burned at the stake, drowned, hung etc.
The famous witch trial of Pendle near Lancaster is well known but it is just one of many such trials at that time. The Salem witch trials in America are notorious too.
This information plaque is in The Quarry in our county town of Shrewsbury & tells the story of Mrs Foxall burned at the stake for poisoning her husband in 1647. (Not a great photo I took a few years ago ...)
She was burned at the stake on 23 December 1647.
Was it a deliberate poisoning, accidental, was he ill prior to the meals, who made the claim etc
Can you imagine - burned at the stake?
Homes often had protective marks put on entrances & near chimneys to prevent malevolent spirits entering - witches marks.
Boscobel house has 'burn marks' above an entrance - these marks were deliberately made to protect the house against fires. The same upstairs rooms has a M mark to (Mary) to protect against ill fortune & spirits.
I have been in those rooms several times previously but not understood what they were, so thanks to the EH curator who took us up & pointed them out.
Many of our modern day customs stem from these folklore beliefs - bodies leaving a house feet first after death so the spirit is confused & won't return. In previous times coffins were taken on corpse roads across rivers, in an even path so the spirits did not know how to return etc on the way to the church for burial. The coffin could not just be put down anywhere when the bearers were tired because it could 'ground' the spirit to that place so consecrated coffin stones were used en route to rest the coffin on.
This is a lych gate I photographed recently at St Andrew's Church, Hope Bowdler in Shropshire
The history of lych gates at churches makes sense too. They are a covered porch like structure over a gate at the entrance to churches. I have passed through dozens of them but they were where coffins were placed prior to funerals, sometimes overnight with someone staying to watch over the coffin for its safety. This space under the cover often had seating on either side where the coffin was placed. It is where the priest would conduct the first burial ceremony from before moving in to the church.
Lychgates serve to differentiate consecrated and unconsecrated space, and serve as a liminal space. Stone lychgates may create an increased aural awareness of the transition from one space to another by creating a tangible contrast between sounds inside and outside. In England, there was a folk belief that the spirit of the last person buried stands watch at the gate until the next is buried, leading to funeral fights at the entrance to decide which corpse should be buried first.
Lych is the ancient Saxon word for corpse & then the history of the various lych or knell bells came in to the discussion. Church bells were rang to signal that someone in the parish was close to death, different number for men, women or children & it was a harbinger of bad news to follow. Some funerals still have a funeral bell toll (For Whom the Bell Tolls ... )
Boscobel House was splendid lit up at night & it was a great space to hold this talk with the dark countryside all around the house & the night sounds filtering in.
I hope you have enjoyed the history too; do you have any of these observances that supposedly ward off evil or protect your home? Tell all & thank you for stopping by,
Dee ⛪️🙏
