Daisy Wheels and Witch Marks in New England

People in pre-modern New England used a variety of magical techniques to protect their homes from witches. Some of these are attested to in witch trial documents, where we read about people hanging horseshoes over doorways or lining their windows with bay leaves. The Puritans thought the world was full of sinister magical forces and they tried to ward them off with these protective spells. 

Historians and archaeologists believe other techniques were used as well. For example, a cat skeleton and a pot were found buried under the entrance of a historic tavern in Charlestown, Massachusetts. The cat was killed with a single blow to the skull. Animal burials inside walls or under foundations are also commonly found in England, and it's believed the animals were buried to somehow deter witches from entering the buildings. Pots (and shoes) are also commonly found buried under or hidden inside walls, and researchers believe they were intended to trap witches. 

Unfortunately, no one has found a historic document that explicitly spells this out so it's not clear if that's really the case. Researchers assume these odd burials had a magical purpose but the people who performed them didn't leave any written explanations. Because witches were perceived to be a common threat it seems likely these burials were protective magic. It's likely - but not proven. 

The Fall 2019 issue of Historic New England magazine had an interesting article about daisy wheels, another likely form of defensive magic. "Magic Markings" by Michael J. Emmons, Jr. examines a type of distinctive circular marking that is found many older New England buildings. They look like this:

From Spade and the Grave

You can see why they're called daisy wheels. Emmons notes that one of these markings is found in a Portsmouth, New Hampshire house built in 1664, and that they are found in many other old buildings in New England and along the East Coast:

I have encountered dozens of sites featuring these symbols. They are found on walls, doors, fireplace lintels, stairs, attic beams, and even floorboards, and they probably exist in hundreds of early American houses. Apparently created (most of the time) with compasses or carpenters' dividers, the symbols typically consist of an inscribed outer circle enclosing six pointed "petals" that stretch from the circle's center to its perimeter, thus resembling a flower. ("Magic Markings," Michael J. Emmons, Jr., Historic New England, Fall 2019, pp. 4 - 8.)

Emmons goes on to write that they are thought to be "..'witch marks' or 'hex signs,' protective inscriptions to guard one's house, and family, against misfortune (and perhaps actual witches)." He also lays out some other theories: that they were used by carpenters when designing buildings, or were simply doodles carved into the walls by children. There's no strong proof for those theories either, and currently we just don't know the purpose of the daisy wheels. 

From Country Living

Personally, I think they probably did have a magical purpose, at least at some point in history. As this site points out, daisy wheels are not limited to North America. The ancient Romans seem to have been the first to carve daisy wheels into buildings, and after they conquered Britain the symbol began to appear there as well. It can be found in many Medieval English churches, often carved near baptismal fonts, and carved into furniture as well. The Puritans brought the practice with them when they colonized New England, and in addition to houses the symbol also appears on some 17th century grave stones. I think there must be a purpose to something that was done for nearly 2,000 years. 

But perhaps over time the exact purpose was slowly forgotten until finally the practice finally died out. Americans stopped carving daisy wheels into houses by the middle of the 19th century. Significantly, that's also when most Americans had stopped believing seriously in witches. Witchcraft changed from something to be feared to something quaint and folkloric. Witches became the subject of stories told to scare children, not entities to protect your house from. 

A Ritual Cat Burial In Charlestown, Massachusetts?

Last month as a Christmas gift I received the book A History of Boston in 50 Artifacts (2016) by Joseph Bagley. Bagley is the official archeologist for the City of Boston, and a couple years ago I went one a tour he led of an ancient Native American quarry in the Blue Hills.

I was pretty excited to read his book. The fifty artifacts Bagley examines range from prayer books to feminine hygiene devices, but the one that really caught my attention was a cat skeleton unearthed in Charlestown. Many, many cats have lived and died in Charlestown over the last 400 years, but this cat was possibly killed as part of a magic spell.

Its skeleton was found buried in a small pit underneath the main entrance to the former Three Cranes Tavern in Charlestown's City Square. The tavern operated from 1635 until 1775, but the archaeologists who found the cat skeleton estimated it was buried sometime in the early 1700s. The cat was killed by a blow to the back of its head. The blow punctured the poor cat's skull, and its body was buried in one piece. Also buried near the cat was a large pot.

Bagley speculates that the cat was buried there to magically protect the tavern, either from witchcraft or from vermin. This certainly seems possible, since it's unlikely the tavern owners would just randomly bury a cat under the front stoop. Archeologists have found many instances of cats buried under foundations or inside walls of old buildings in Europe. Occasionally dead mice or rats are also found placed inside the cats' mouths.

There are a few theories that try to explain this practice. An older theory, popular with the Victorians, is that these animals were killed to appease land spirits. That may have been the case in the distant pagan past, but the English colonists certainly didn't believe in land spirits that needed appeasing.

A more recent theory is that the cats were killed to prevent rats and mice from entering the house. This seems counter-intuitive (wouldn't a live cat be more effective?), but I think the idea is that the cat's spirit will somehow continue to hunt mice after death. This might explain why some buried cats are found with mice inserted in their mouths.

The Three Cranes cat skeleton. Photo from The Boston Globe.

A final theory is that burying a cat under the doorstep was believed to deter witches or their familiar spirits from entering the house. That sounds like a plausible explanation, since we know our New England ancestors were very concerned about protecting their homes from witches. Some of the most well-documented methods include nailing a horseshoe over the door and putting bay leaves around the windowsills, but there were many other methods as well. It seems possible that killing and burying a cat might be another one. Archaeologists in England also often find pots buried under old house foundations or doorsteps, and they theorize that they were believed to deter witches from entering, possibly by trapping the witches spirits in them. This would explain why the Charlestown cat was buried near a pot.

There is a whole field of archaeology that deals with magic. Its foundational text is Ralph Merrifield's The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic (1987), which should probably be on my reading list. It should probably be on everyone's list! If you find this topic interesting, you may want to read this interview with Brian Hoggard, a British archaeologist working on this topic today.

My cat is sitting nearby as I write this post, and he tells me that a live cat is definitely better at averting evil than a dead one. I would have to agree. After all, the cat skeleton didn't do much to protect Three Cranes Tavern on June 17, 1775. The Battle of Bunker Hill happened that day, and the British troops burned the tavern and the rest of Charlestown to the ground. The tavern foundations were excavated prior to the Big Dig and can now be visited in City Square.

Although I enjoy writing about these old folk magic practices, I don't recommend ever hurting or killing animals. Not only is it cruel, it is illegal.