Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/245

 Rh it to the policeman who apprehended her, saying that she had committed the theft for the purpose of working out a charm which was to restore her sick child to health. The child, it appeared, had long been ailing, and was now fast pining away, when its mother, full of uneasiness about it, consulted a witch who lived near. The witch solemnly charged her to steal a hen, take out the heart, stick it full of pins, and roast it at midnight over a slow fire, first closing up every communication with the outer air. If this were duly done, the hag promised that, as the heart was gradually consumed, health would return to the suffering child. The magistrates, considering the delusion under which the woman had acted, dismissed the case.

The following tale is from the West Riding of Yorkshire, communicated to me by Mr. J. Stott, of Perth, formerly a resident in that district; a variation will be observed in the treatment of the heart and the pins. There was a woman in the village of L—— who pined and wasted away till, as her neighbours said, she was nothing but skin and bones. She had no definite illness, but complained that she felt as if pins were being run into her body all over her. The village doctor was resorted to, but in vain. At last they applied to the Wise-man, who pronounced that some person was doing her harm, and advised them to search the garden for hidden spells. They did so, and found buried under the window a sheep’s heart stuck full of pins like a pin-cushion. The thing was removed and destroyed and the woman recovered.

Again, in a village near Preston a girl, when slighted by her lover, got a hare’s heart, stuck it full of pins, and buried it with many imprecations against the faithless man whom she hoped by these means to torment.

The Rev. Canon Tristram has communicated to me another case from the south of the county of Durham: “In November of the year 1861 I was sent for by a parishioner, the wife of a small farmer, who complained that she had been scandalized by her neighbours opposite, who accused her of witchcraft. These neighbours had lost two horses during the last year, and therefore consulted ‘Black Willie’ at Hartlepool, who assured them that they had been bewitched. Acting on his advice, they