Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/99

Rh a walnut tree of extraordinary dimensions. It grew on a rock of limestone at Llanddyn Farm, near Llangollen; its height was about twenty-five yards, and its boughs covered a space of ground about thirty yards diameter. According to a story in the neighbourhood, this tree was very old. A man 95 years of age said that he remembered a bough of it being broken by the snow when he was a child, and that his grandfather used to tell the family that, in olden times, fairies used in the dead of night to celebrate their marriages under this walnut tree.—Shrewsbury Chronicle, 3 Nov. 1882.

Modern Witchcraft in Durham.—The Rev. W. Featherstonhaugh, rector of Edmundbyers, writes as follows to the Newcastle Daily Chronicle:—During an incumbency of twenty-six years I have come to know that charms are quite commonly resorted to for the healing of complaints, and that even positive witchcraft still lingers and is practised. For all ordinary complaints, especially of children, there are well-known and recognised charms, as for ringworm, whooping-cough, thrush, &c.; and certain persons are noted for their success in the use of certain formularies and the accompanying acts. One woman here is greatly resorted to in "blowing for burns," that is, breathing on the wound with the accompaniment of a form of words. In a late case, a leg affected with erysipelas, which did not yield to the doctor's remedies, was cured by stroking with a stone kept for the purpose and a secret form of words, used by a man in the parish noted for it. An old woman, now dead, reputed as a witch, was always avoided if possible; and if met, her evil influence was counteracted by doubling the thumb into the palm of the hand. Positive witchcraft has been practised in this village within the last thirty years, when a farmer, having a horse taken ill, sent for a well-known witchman, and carried out an incantation, with all the accompaniments of killing a black fowl, taking out the heart, sticking it full of pins, and roasting it before the fire at night; when, as a man present informed me, something uncanny was seen to pass the window and look in, and the horse was cured. Even so late as the year 1865, a large sum of money having been stolen from the office of some works near here, a witchman was consulted for its recovery and the detection of the thief. These things are strange but true, and are going on day by day in the