BRITAIN'S LAST WITCH TRIAL (1944)

[Story]

NPR's 'Here and Now' is doing a piece on her

http://www.here-now.org/shows/2007/10/20071030_17.asp
Nina Shandler, author of the book "The Strange Case of Hellish Nell: The True story of Helen Duncan and the Witch Trial of World War II" tells us Helen's story.
Boo!

 

[dhermann1]

One other interesting aspect of this whole story that I recall reading about somewhere was that in the Middle Ages the rich ate wheat and the poor ate rye. The problem was that rye flour tended to develop a particular type of mold, when it had been sitting around too long. This mold contained a compound related to LSD. So poor folks were eating bread that sometimes made them hallucinate. They actually believed they were flyiing through the air on broom sticks! So when they were accused of witchcraft, the accused sometimes believed it themselves. VERY weird.
Speaking of punishments, I believe at least one of the Salem victims was pressed to death. He had large stones placed upon him till he was crushed. Giles Corey, if I remember my "Crucible" correctly. Also, until the invention of the modern hangman's knot in the 19th century, hanging was a very different affair. The victim dangled sometimes for days before he expired. Gruesome, and a lesson to everyone who witnessed it!
I guess Halloween is just around the corner, isn't it!

 

[Kitty_Sheridan]

Her story would make an a-mazing film!!!!
K

 

[Edward]

I hate to get pedantic here, but heretics were hung. Relapsed heretics (those who had admitted to heresy and then changed that admission) were burned. Stakes were not necessarily involved. For example, see 'The Trial of the Templars' by Malcolm Barber, 'Montaillou' by Emmanuel leRoy Ladurie or (even) 'The Cathars' by Sean Martin.

If you'll excuse one further pedantic post, paintings are hung - people are hanged.

I remember something I heard some time ago about witches.
In order to prove wether they were guilty or not, there was a "watertest".
The poor woman were tied up and thrown into a lake.
If she floated she was in company with the devil and a witch. And should burn.
If she did not float, but sank to the bottom of the lake, she was free - but dead. Pretty easy back then.

This is entirely correct. The water was blessed by a a priest beforehand: Holy water would accept a righteous soul, but it would not suffer an evil witch within it, so if she floated the water was said to have rejected her, therefore....

One other interesting aspect of this whole story that I recall reading about somewhere was that in the Middle Ages the rich ate wheat and the poor ate rye. The problem was that rye flour tended to develop a particular type of mold, when it had been sitting around too long. This mold contained a compound related to LSD. So poor folks were eating bread that sometimes made them hallucinate. They actually believed they were flyiing through the air on broom sticks! So when they were accused of witchcraft, the accused sometimes believed it themselves. VERY weird.

Bizarre! I'd not heard that before - interesting, though. I'd always assumed that there were other factors involved too, c/f threats to family, browbeating leading to brainwashing of the broken spirit and all that - c/f the show trials under Stalin.

Speaking of punishments, I believe at least one of the Salem victims was pressed to death. He had large stones placed upon him till he was crushed. Giles Corey, if I remember my "Crucible" correctly.

You are correct. In Miller's version of the Salem story, Corey is tortured by the placing of large stones upon his body in an effort to extract a confession. He refuses to say one way or the other whether he is a witch (either answer damning him, the choice being confessed heretic, losing everything, or an unrepentent heretic, and to be executed), simply saying "more weight" before he dies. He therefore "die Christian under the law" and his family inherit his estate, which would otherwise have been confiscated.

Also, until the invention of the modern hangman's knot in the 19th century, hanging was a very different affair. The victim dangled sometimes for days before he expired. Gruesome, and a lesson to everyone who witnessed it!

I don't think it was so much the knot that was the issue as the gallows.....? Originally, those to be hanged were stood on a stool or equivalent which was kicked out from beneath them, leading to a prolonged suffocation. The more benevolent authorities would permit family and friends to pull at a persons legs to lead to a more rapid death, which is wehre our modern saying "pulling your leg" has its origin. The modern gallows was designed to be a more humane method of execution, with death being almost instantaneous. If memory serves, death occured within something like three seconds of the trapdoor opening. Still seems pretty barbaric to me, but that's another discussion for another day!

 

[SarahLouise]

I saw something about witch bottles earlier on TV. Apparently if you believed you were "bewitched" you would urinate into one of these bottles (which were originally used for wine) and place some sharp objects such as pins into it. This was then believed to cause the witch who cast the spell on you to be in excruciating pain, which would force them to visit you and banish the spell. Alternatively people would bury the bottle outside (I've forgotten the exact location) upside down which would cause the witch a much slower, agonising pain for a long period of time. Anyway, a guy found one of these witch bottles recently near his home in England and he refuses to let anybody open it! He allowed it to be x-rayed and sure enough, there were pins.

 

[Story]

Her story would make an a-mazing film!!!!
K

Verily.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=522992&in_page_id=1770

Campaigners bid to clear the 'witch' who leaked WWII secrets about sinking battleship
By ANDY DOLAN - More by this author »
Last updated at 11:14am on 1st March 2008

A group of mediums have handed a petition to the Scottish Parliament, calling on it to lobby Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

Campaigner Roberta Gordon, from Gullane, East Lothian, said: "At the time the country was paranoid about security and the evidence used against her wasn't accurate.

"It would take away the stigma from her granddaughters and the great-grandsons."

Doesn't look like a witch to me.

 

[blacklagoon]

here are a couple of links on youtube,of an early 1922 witchcraft film called HAXAN.the film is full of all the imaginary images attributed to witchcraft.from flying on their broomsticks to dancing with the devil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq2_jVmJ6wA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRu5sqaHLHQ&feature=related

To think,people created these images of witchcraft activity in their own mind,then pointed at an old woman or someone else who was innocent,and accused them of doing those things.

 

[CharlesB]

witchcraft, spirits, psychic powers. What nonsense

 

[Alan Eardley]

Verily.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=522992&in_page_id=1770

Campaigners bid to clear the 'witch' who leaked WWII secrets about sinking battleship
By ANDY DOLAN - More by this author »
Last updated at 11:14am on 1st March 2008

Sorry to be pedantic (again) but Helen Duncan was not the subject of 'Britain's last witch trial' as the article states. It was the last successful prosecution and conviction under the 1735 act of Parliament - a different thing. A later prosecution failed. The act was repealed in 1951 and replaced by the Fraudulent Mediums Act.

Alan