In 1692, Invisible Witches Danced in Boston on Christmas Day

Christmas fast approaches, bringing with it Santa Claus, presents, eggnog and... dancing witches? 

As I mentioned in a recent post, the Puritans who colonized New England really hated Christmas. They believed it had no basis in the Bible, and disapproved of how it was celebrated with drunken carousing and public disorder. In 1659, the Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony even enacted a law called "Penalty for Keeping Christmas," which fined anyone who celebrated the holiday. 

The law was repealed in 1681 under pressure from the British king, but the Puritans still did not embrace Christmas. They thought it was a holiday for heretics (like Catholics and Anglicans) and for witches, who apparently, liked to celebrate Christmas with dancing. 

We know this fact about witches from A Brand Pluck'd Out of the Burning (1693), the Reverend Cotton Mather's account of the torments of Mercy Short. Short was an orphaned Boston serving girl who became tormented by invisible witches after mocking Sarah Good, an accused Salem witch being held in Boston's jail. After seeing Sarah Good and making fun of her, Short was stabbed by invisible pins, burned by unseen flames, and at times made deaf and blind. She also shouted profanities and claimed to see the Devil and witches hovering around her. Her torments lasted for many months. 

Merry Christmas?

Reverend Mather treated Short's afflictions with prayer and Bible readings, with mixed results. Groups of people would often join Mather in Short's room to witness her torments and to pray over her. No one except Short ever saw the spectral witches that allegedly assaulted her, but on Christmas Day, 1692, the following occurred:

On the twenty-fifth of December it was, that Mercy said, They (the invisible witches) were going to have a Dance; and immediately those that were attending her, most plainly Heard and Felt a Dance, as of Barefooted People, upon the Floor; whereof they are willing to make oath before any Lawful Authority. 

If I should now venture to suppose, That the Witches do sometimes come in person to do their Mischiefs, and yet have the horrible skill of clothing themselves with Invisbilities, it would seem Romantic. And yet I am inclinable to think it...

It probably seems strange to a modern reader that anyone believed evil invisible witches danced around an afflicted teenaged girl on Christmas Day, but this incident just demonstrates how much the Puritans hated Christmas. In their minds, it was literally a Satanic holiday. 

Some details about Mercy Short's life can provide more context. Prior to living in Boston, Short had lived in New Hampshire with her parents and siblings. In 1690 their family was attacked by indigenous Wabanki warriors. Short's parents and several siblings died in the raid, and Short was sold into captivity in Quebec. She was eventually freed and made her way to Boston, where she found work as a servant. 

Significantly, Mercy Short claimed the Devil looked much like a Wabanaki man. Modern psychologists who have studied her case suspect she suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which was caused by seeing her family killed. Concepts like PTSD didn't exist in 17th century Massachusetts, so she processed her anguish using the concepts she did have: Puritan theology, witchcraft, and the Devil. 

I don't want to end this on a grim note, since it's almost Christmas. So here are the positive aspects of Mercy Short's alleged witchcraft affliction. First, although she claimed some neighbors were among the invisible witches, no one was formally accused of witchcraft and no one was executed. Cotton Mather thought demons could easily impersonate a living person and therefore felt neither he nor Short could be sure if any neighbors really were afflicting her. 

Second, Short said a radiant bright spirit told her that her torments would end on March 16, 1693. And you know what? They did. Her afflictions ended as suddenly as they began. She was free from pain.

Finally, it is socially acceptable to celebrate Christmas here in New England. So take off your shoes and dance like a barefoot witch on December 25 if you want!

Witchcraft in Littleton: "It Was Necessary to Accuse Someone..."

The Salem witchcraft trials weren't the first witch craze in New England, and they weren't the last either. Even after the mania of 1692 New Englanders believed in witchcraft, but happily they were less likely to execute their neighbors for it, as the following story shows.

Note: this story comes from Thomas Hutchinson's 1767 book The History of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay: From the Charter of King William and Queen Mary in 1691, Until the Year 1750.  That's a really long title, isn't it? Hutchinson doesn't name any names in the following account, but he does editorialize and give his opinion.

Back in 1720, a farmer living in Littleton, Massachusetts had three daughters. The oldest girl, who was 11 years old, had an interest in the supernatural and witchcraft. She would often tell stories about ghosts and witches, and became popular for her storytelling.

I guess it is just a short step from telling stories about witches to experiencing witchcraft. Hutchinson writes:

Pleased with the applause, she went from stories she had heard to some of her own framing, and so on to dreams and visions, and attained the art of swooning and of being to appearance for some time breathless. Upon her revival, she would tell of strange things she had met with in this and other worlds. 

It still sounds kind of harmless, right? Many people experience vivid dreams and visions, even to this day, with no harm. Some psychologists, like those who follow Carl Jung, even actively encourage engagement with the inner spiritual world.

Sadly, this was 1720 and not 2015, and no Jungian therapists were available. Soon the girl was convulsing whenever she heard the words "God," "Christ," and "Holy Ghost," and strange noises began to be heard around the house. Stones thrown by unseen hands rained down her family's chimney. It was a classic witchcraft attack, and the girl blamed one of her neighbors, a woman Hutchinson only identifies as Mrs. D__y.

This allegedly witchy neighbor was blamed for all sorts of trouble. Nieghbors found the girl thrashing around in a pond; she said Mrs. D__y had tried to invisibly drown her. The girl was discovered on top of the house; Mrs. D__y had put her there by magic. Bruises and pinch marks appeared on her stomach; Mrs. D__y's specter had attacked.

Having one bewitched daughter must have been bad enough, but eventually the other two daughters in the family also began to exhibit the same strange behaviors. Three bewitched children is beyond the capability of any parent, so they sought professional help. Physicians were called in, but no medical explanation could be found. The citizens of Littleton began to murmur that maybe Mrs. D__y really was a witch...

Just when the town was ready for an old-fashioned witch hunt Mrs. D__y had spoiled the fun by getting sick and dying. No torch-wielding mobs, no trial, no hanging. Nothing. The witch hunt stopped before it even began. The girls recovered and went on with their lives.

Several years passed, and in 1728 the oldest daughter moved to Medford. She was attending Sunday meeting one week when the minister preached the following:

"He that speaketh lies shall not escape."

She felt like the words were directed specifically at her, and after the sermon she approached the minister. She confessed that she had only been pretending to be bewitched. Once her sisters saw how much attention she was getting they joined in too.

The two sisters, seeing her pitied, had become actors also with her, without being moved to it by her, but when she saw them follow her, they all joined in the secret and acted in concert. They had no particular spite against D__y, but it was necessary to accuse somebody...

And that's where the story ends. The whole thing had simply been made up by children and played their parents as fools. The family and their daughters all fade away into obscurity. 

I like to think that even if Littleton did hold a witch trial Mrs. D__y would have been acquitted. After the Salem trials people in Massachusetts had become skeptical about witchcraft, or at least skeptical that it could be proven in court.

I do find the sentence "...but it was necessary to accuse somebody..." kind of chilling. Those little girls knew that it's hard to have witchcraft without a witch to pin it on. Personally, I put witchcraft in the same category with Bigfoot, UFOs, ghosts, etc. There might be something behind all these weird phenomena, but we'll never be able to put our finger on exactly what that thing is. The collective unconscious? The Anima Mundi? Who knows? Whatever it is, it certainly isn't the old lady who lives down the street, and once you start ascribing supernatural powers to your neighbors things are bound to get bad.

One more thought. It's interesting that the children were making it all up, but their parents and neighbors were the ones who believed them. We tend to think of children as superstitious and easy to fool, but clearly that wasn't the case in 1720 Littleton. Let's hope things have changed!

*****

The Hutchinson text is quoted in The Penguin Book of Witches (2014) edited by Katherine Rowe.