Mountain Ash, or the Witch-Wood Tree

Although it's now socially acceptable to be a witch, that wasn't always the case, particularly here in New England. Many people today identify as witches, which usually means they are interested in the occult, folk magic, and possibly paganism. These are all good things, and most modern witches are lovely people who just want to be left alone with their candles and dried herbs. 

In the past, though, no one wanted to be called a witch. The activities we associate with modern witches today - fortune telling, herbal magic, protection magic - were widely practiced across New England, sometimes by specialists called cunning folk, conjurers or seers, but more often just by average people. Curious to know if you were going to marry the boy next door? Grandma would break out the Bible, bind a key inside it, and start asking questions. Troubled by bad dreams? The farmer next door would tell you to place a knife under the bed. Everyone knew a charm or two, but no one called themself a witch.

This is because people believed witches used magic for evil: ruining crops, killing farm animals, making children sick, and causing death. Sometimes witches were motivated by jealousy, sometimes revenge, and sometimes they were working for the Devil himself. No one wanted to be a witch. Calling yourself a witch in the past would be like saying, "Hi! I'm a serial killer" today. 

Image from the Arbor Day Foundation. 

A community might accuse its most unpopular members of being witches, but these accusations were always false and motivated by the need to blame someone for life's misfortunes. Crops failed? Blame the mean old widow down the road and call her a witch. Child sick? Blame the crotchety guy who swears at everyone - he must be a witch. 

These people weren't really witches, but there was plenty of magic for protecting one's home and family from the imaginary threat. A horseshoe placed above the front door was the most popular method, but there were others, including this one I found in Clifton Johnson's What They Say in New England (1896):

It is well to have a piece of a branch cut from a mountain ash in the house. It is as good to keep to witches as a horseshoe nailed over the door. 

The practice seems to have been relatively widespread. John McNab Currier was a physician and folklorist who lived in New Hampshire in the 19th century. Currier knew a woman who blamed witches for all the misfortunes in her life and wore a necklace of mountain ash beads to deflect their evil influence:

They were cut about three eighths of an inch in length, the bark being left on, and strung on string running through the pith. She was careful to keep them concealed, but sometimes they would work up above her collar and be conspicuous. This species of tree was once quite popular among New England witch-believers as a charm against witches... (“Contributions to New England Folk-Lore,” The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 4, No. 14 (Jul – Sep. 1891)

Folklorist Fanny Bergen also notes that many people carried pieces of mountain ash wood in their pockets and the tree was sometimes called the "witch-wood" tree (“Some Bits of Plant-Lore”, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol 5, No. 16 (Jan – Mar, 1892).

Image from the Arbor Day Foundation

Although many folks still hang lucky horseshoes over their doorways, I haven't encountered anyone who carries around pieces of mountain ash, let alone wears a necklace made of it. Partly it's because we don't practice as much folk magic as our ancestors did, and even when we do the meaning has changed. People who hang horseshoes today usually do so to bring luck, not to keep out witches. We just aren't as afraid of witches as we once were, which is a good thing.

I also think New Englanders, and Americans in general, are less familiar with trees and plants than we were were a century ago. Very few of us work in agriculture or even outdoors, so we don't need to be well-acquainted with what's growing around us. Industrial and scientific progress has made us less superstitious (and less likely to hang our neighbors as witches), but it's also disconnected us from our immediate environment. 

Even if I wanted to make a mountain ash necklace, I probably couldn't identify the tree. They tend to grow in higher elevations, and I've lived most of my life in the coastal regions. The mountain ash (sorbus americana) is a small tree that bears orangey red berries. Sorbus Americana is very similar to the European rowan tree, which has a lot of magical lore attached to it, and I assume that's why magical powers are ascribed to the mountain ash. 

There's a mountain ash tree nearby me in Arnold Arboretum. I've been meaning to visit if for years. Maybe this spring I'll finally do it!

Goody Cole: Old Tales of New Hampshire Witchcraft

As the days grow shorter my thoughts turn once again to old stories about witchcraft! Those of us in New England are lucky to live someplace blessed with an abundance of strange and spooky witch tales.

I am particularly fond of witchcraft accounts from the 17th century, back when the Puritans were establishing their settlements in a land much different from the one they left behind. Demons and monsters were thought to lurk in the woods, but even scarier things could be hidden inside the walls of a neighbor's home. The Puritan witchcraft stories read like horror films or dark fairy tales.

For example, here is some testimony from Abraham Perkins of Hampton, New Hampshire. One evening in November 1662 while he was walking by the home of Goodwife Eunice Cole he heard two voices in conversation. Goody Cole had been widowed earlier that year, so he was curious who was talking with her at night. He paused near her house and listened:

I heard a discoursing . . . and, harkening, I heard the voice of Eunice Cole and a great hollow voice answer her, and the said Eunice seemed to be discontented with something, finding fault, and the said hollow voice spake to her again in a strange and unworldly manner . . . as if one had spoken out of the earth or in some hollow vessel...

Perkins was disturbed by this, so he ran and brought two friends back to her house with him. The three men stood outside and heard more strange things:

We three went to her house and harkened, and heard the said Eunice Cole speak and the said strange voice answer her diverse times, and the said Eunice Cole went up and down in the house and clattered the door to and again, and spake as she went, and the said voice made her answer in a strange manner . . . and there was a shimmering of a red color in the chimney corner (quoted in John Demos, Entertaining Satan, 1982)

That testimony sounds like something from a horror novel or a very dark fairy tale. The great hollow voice is creepy enough, but the shimmering red  color is the perfect ending to Perkins's account. 

In addition to dealing with infernal forces, Goody Cole also supposedly had a penchant for stealing children. Well, at least she tried to steal children, but they always got away. Here is testimony from Sarah Clifford of Hampton, who claimed in 1673 that Goody Cole tried to steal away nine-year old Ann Smith:

... and then the child told her that there came an old woman into the garden with a blue coat and a blue cap and a blue apron and a white neck cloth and took this girl as she told us by the hand and carried her into the orchard and threw her under a pearmain tree, and she was asked to live with this old woman and she said if she would live with her she would give her a baby and some plums... (quoted in David Hall, Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth Century New England, 1991)

Young Ann Smith refused Goody Cole's offer. In response, Goody Cole threatened to kill her and then allegedly struck her on the head with a rock. The girl said that Goody Cole then turned into a dog, climbed a tree and flew off. 

Goody Cole was a childless elderly widow. Maybe she really did want the little girl to come live with her. Maybe the encounter did turn violent. But did she really turn into a dog and fly away? The testimony is a mix of the realistic and the fantastical, like "Hansel and Gretel" set in coastal New England. 

Cole was arrested and tried for witchcraft three times. She spent several years in jail but always avoided the gallows. Despite being whipped and serving time Goody Cole still filled the people of Hampton with fear.  Everything from minor household mishaps to major accidents were blamed on her. In 1657 eight people drowned when a small ship sank in the Hampton River. According to tradition Goody was to blame (although she was jailed at the time), and the incident was popularized in a poem by 19th century poet John Greenleaf Whittier:

"Fie on the witch!" cried a merry girl,
As they rounded the point where Goody Cole
Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl,
A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul.
"Oho!" she muttered, "ye're brave to-day!
But I hear the little waves laugh and say,
'The broth will be cold that waits at home;
For it's one to go, but another to come!" (John Greenleaf Whittier, "The Wreck of Rivermouth", 1864) 

Even after she died in 1680 the strange stories about Goody Cole continued. Legends say her body was buried at a crossroads. To keep her from causing mischief after death the citizens of Hampton drove an iron stake through her heart. Just to make sure the magic worked they also placed a horseshoe on top of her as well. But it's hard to kill a legend or a fairytale. In 1938, as Hampton celebrated its tricentennial, several people claimed to see Goody Cole's ghost walking through the oldest parts of town. The town posthumously pardoned her for being a witch that same year.

I know that fairy tales aren't true, and neither are these scary stories about Goodwife Eunice Cole. If anything, the real scary story is how an elderly woman was harassed and accused of demonic crimes by her neighbors for decades, simply because she was a curmudgeonly widow. But even if the stories aren't true I still get a thrill reading about hollow voices speaking from the earth and strange red lights shimmering by the chimney. 

Moll Cramer, the Witch of Woodbury

I'm always happy when I discover a new witch story. (I bet you're the same way if you're reading this blog!) Although New England doesn't have an infinite supply of witch stories, it does have hundreds of them, so hopefully I can keep discovering new stories for years to come.

This week's witch story is new to me, and comes from the charming town of Woodbury, Connecticut. If you've ever seen a horror movie you know that charming New England towns often harbor gruesome secrets. That's sort of true in this case, but not entirely. Let's say the story is probably half charming and half gruesome. It's about a woman named Moll Cramer.

The earliest version of Moll Cramer's legend apparently appears in William Cothren's 1872 book History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut: From the First Indian Deed in 1659 to 1854, Volume 2. According to Cothren, Moll lived in the 1700s and was the wife of Adam Cothren, Woodbury's blacksmith.

Adam and Moll didn't really get along, and Adam told friends and neighbors that whenever he and Moll fought strange things would happen around the smithy. Most suspiciously, he claimed that he could not hammer a shoe onto a horse after he and Moll had quarreled. It was believed at the time that witches were afraid of iron, horseshoes in particular, so Adam deduced that Moll was using some type of magic to interfere with his horseshoe work.

In other words, she was a witch.

Adam eventually kicked Moll and their son Adam Jr. out of the house, and with no one to turn to Moll built a small thatched hut out in the woods and became a beggar. She managed to beg enough food and money for her and her son to scrape out a pitiful existence. Although her reputation as a witch made her a pariah it also encouraged people to give her what she needed. They were just too afraid to refuse.

A postcard of the oldest house in Woodbury, from this site. Charming or spooky?

The following story illustrates why. One day Moll went to a farmer who had a barn full of fat, healthy pigs. She asked the man for just a small piece of bacon for her and her son. Please, please, just one small piece sir? The farmer scornfully refused. This poor woman had no right to any of his food, he thought. After all, he worked hard for what he had, while she just wandered around begging. Moll skulked off into the woods, muttering.

A few days later one of the farmer's pigs came down with hog cholera. The next day another fell ill, and then another. Trying to recoup his losses, the farmer slaughtered his remaining pigs so he could sell the pork to his neighbors. But even the meat from the healthy pigs turned black and pestilential as soon as the animals were butchered. The farmer was at his wit's end. How would he make his living if all his pigs were gone? Unfortunately, he didn't have to worry very long. The farmer himself contracted cholera through a scratch on his arm and died a quick but horrible death, grunting and squealing.

So, you can see why most people gave Moll whatever she asked for.

That's the gruesome side of Moll. A more charming version of her story appears in They Found A Way: Connecticut's Restless People (1938) by Iveagh Hunt Sterry and William H. Garrigus. In this version, Moll is married to a man named Bill Cramer who breeds race horse. Unfortunately, even in this version of the story theirs is still not a happy marriage. Whenever Moll is the jockey their horse wins the race. Whenever Bill is the jockey their horse loses. This makes him feel emasculated, and he jealously evicts her from their home.

It doesn't help him win any races, however. The horses refuse to race for Bill, and continually escape from their stable to find their way to Moll's thatched hut. In despair and shame Bill finally hangs himself in the stable. His heirs try to sell his horses but are not successful because horseshoes will not stay attached to their hooves. Moll has by this time earned a reputation as an animal-enchanting witch and is reduced to making a living as a beggar.

Sterry and Garrigus do include the story about the pig farmer, but they also say Moll was kind to animals and children. Moll's hut was located near some abundant berry patches, and while she glared at any adults who picked her berries she smiled kindly when small children picked them. Moll's berries were said to be extra sweet and produced the best pies. That's an unexpectedly domestic side to the same witch who killed a pig farmer through cholera.

It's interesting how the later version of the story gives Moll a kinder and more gentler side. By the 1930s most people in New England did not fear witchcraft, and witch stories could be a little more cheerful. Sterry and Garrigus also add a little romance, claiming that Moll was a great beauty - at least until she aged prematurely from living in the woods.

No one knows what happened to Moll, and this is something that both stories agree on. She and her son (who is absent from the Sterry/Garrigus version) just disappeared from Woodbury. Did they die in some undiscovered place in the woods? Did they move on to a friendlier town where they could start again? Or did Moll ascend to some extra-dimensional witchy plane of existence?

There's no answer, but this site claims that some people in Woodbury believe that Moll's ghost still wanders through the woods, knocking on people's doors on windy nights and begging for food. So maybe if you're down in Woodbury some dark and gloomy night you can ask her yourself.

Just be sure to give her what she wants.

The Witch of Mashpee, and a Book Release Party

I'm having a party to celebrate the release of my book Legends and Lore of the North Shore. Here are the details:

When: Tuesday, September 9, from 6 - 8:00 pm

Where: Club Cafe, 209 Columbus Avenue, Boston

What: Appetizers, cash bar, and me signing books!

Who: You're invited! I hope you can attend!

Now that the obligatory marketing is over, on to the witchcraft.

*****

Last week the murderous Hannah Screecham was the star of this blog. This week her sister Sarah gets a turn in the spotlight.

While Hannah partnered with pirates to bury their treasure and kill anyone who might reveal its whereabouts, Sarah headed to Mashpee and built herself a cottage on the shores of a small pond. The pond is now called Witch Pond, so you can guess what type of work Sarah pursued.

The pond was in the middle of a very dense forest, so dense that even when the moon was full no light could shine through its trees. Most people avoided the place, fearful of the witch's magic, but when times where lean members of the Mashpee tribe would venture into Sarah's domain in search of game.

Sarah was very protective of the forest and the animals that lived in it. If she saw a hunter she cursed them will ill luck, preventing them from killing any game. She could appear and disappear at will in the woods, traveling unseen, though after she disappeared hunters often saw a beautiful young doe or huge black mare running through the trees. Both animals were impervious to arrows and bullets.

One day Sarah saw a particularly handsome Mashpee man hunting near her home. Even in her witch's heart there was room for love, and she fell in love hard. She pursued the man, begging him to be her lover, but he was terrified and refused her. Sarah was persistent, however, and eventually the man relented. They could meet, but he had one condition - she must come to his home outside the forest.

Blinded by love, Sarah agreed. She visited the man, and as the sun set she turned herself into the huge black mare. Playfully she scampered around the man's house, and playfully she let herself be tied to a tree. Once she was securely tied the Mashpee man's smile dropped away, and he pulled out a hammer and four horseshoes. The black mare didn't make a sound as he nailed in the first three, which were made of iron, but the horse neighed in terror and pain when he nailed in the final one, which was silver. When the man was done he ran to get his neighbors so they could see how he had hobbled the witch.

The black horse had vanished by the time they came back, so they went to Sarah's cottage. They found her inside, screaming in pain with a silver horseshoe nailed to her hand.

Once she recovered Sarah returned to her witchy ways, cursing hunters and transforming herself into animals. She gave up on love. The hunters once again avoided her forest, until many years later a particularly grim winter hit the Cape. No game could be found anywhere, and the Mashpee people were starving. In desperation one hunter finally set out for Witch Pond. He was armed with a rifle, and because he remembered the story about the horseshoe he carried with him one silver bullet.

The forest was strangely silent, even for a winter day, and the hunter didn't see any animals as he trekked through the deep snow. As he neared the pond a beautiful young doe leapt out of the woods. It stared at him fearlessly, as if if was taunting him. He fired his silver bullet, and struck the doe in the hear. It disappeared. The hunter made his way to Sarah's cottage, where he found an old woman dead with a silver bullet in her heart.

*****

I find this story sad. Poor Sarah! Lots of witch stories involve death by silver bullet, but the silver horseshoe incident is quite cruel. She was just lonely and looking for some male companionship. Even witches need some love. That part of the story reminded me of the recent movie Maleficent. It's unsettling how misogynist some of these stories are.

Sarah's story is included in William Simmons's Spirit of the New England Tribes, and if you approach it from the Mashpee perspective Sarah's not quite so sympathetic. Historically the Mashpee people had most of their land taken by English settlers, saw their numbers reduced by European diseases, and saw their way of life vanish. I see a woman looking for love and protecting animals in this story, but from a Mashpee perspective Sarah, a white woman preventing the tribe from pursuing their traditional hunt, is probably symbolic of white domination. We know the Mashpee weren't able to displace the whites, but at least in this story they can symbolically kill their oppressor.

The story also conveys metaphysical information about witches, and if you're a historian you can try to figure out whether Sarah really existed. There really is a Witch Pond in Mashpee - was there really a witch? So much to consider in one short (and sad) story.

Don't Be A Jonah: Bad Luck On Ships and Boats

I am not a sailor.

My brother loves to sail. My father loves to sail. I come from a long line of Nova Scotia fishermen, but somehow I didn't get the sailing gene. Instead I got the "I get seasick even riding a bus" gene. Maybe I inherited that one from my mother's side.

I'm still interested in nautical lore, even if I'm not a sailor. There is quite a bit of it in New England, naturally, and much of it concerns what might bring bad luck to a ship.

A person or thing that brings bad luck to a ship is called a "Jonah." The term of course comes from the Biblical prophet of the same name. Jonah is best remembered for being swallowed by a whale, but that's only part of his story, which goes something like this: Jonah was commanded by God to go preach in the Assyrian city of Nineveh, but refused to go. Instead he boarded a ship sailing in the opposite direction. He wanted to put as much mileage between himself and Nineveh as possible. God wasn't buying it, though, and sent a terrible storm which threatened to sink the ship. The sailors on board determined that Jonah was to blame for the bad weather and tossed him overboard. The storm abated and the ship reached its destination safely. (Jonah meanwhile was swallowed by a whale and eventually went to Nineveh).

"Sorry Jonah, but you gotta go!"

Similar stories appear throughout European literature and folklore. For example, in Shakespeare's play Pericles, the hero's wife dies in childbirth while at sea. A huge storm threatens to sink the ship, but the sailors calm it by throwing her body into the ocean. Don't be sad - since Pericles is one of Shakespeare's late romances there's still a happy ending. In folklore, mermaids often cause storms to delay or sink ships carrying handsome sailors they want to marry. The storm can only be stopped if the sailor throws himself overboard into the mermaid's waiting arms.

So apparently if you're on a ship carrying a reluctant prophet, the corpse of someone who died in childbirth, or a handsome sailor you will experience bad weather. If it's carrying all three just swim back to shore right away!

Here in New England, the following were considered bad luck:

• A man carrying a black valise on board will bring bad luck and should be shunned.
• Anyone carrying an umbrella on board brings bad luck.
• It is unlucky to pound nails on a ship on Sunday.
• Hawks, owls and crows will bring bad luck it they land on a ship.
• Dropping the hatch into the hold is bad luck.
• Never watch a ship sail out of sight, because it's the last time you'll see it.

Some men were also just considered naturally unlucky. A new crew member on a fishing boat will be blamed and labeled a Jonah if the boat brings in a small catch on his first trip. Stories are told of men who hexed three ships in a row with their bad luck. Time to pursue a new profession!

All is not grim, though, and there is light at the end of the voyage. Here are some things that bring good luck:

• Dropping a cake of ice overboard before leaving port
• Bees or small birds bring good luck if they land on the ship.
• A horseshoe nailed into the mast will protect the ship from witches.

Now I just need something to prevent motion sickness on the MBTA bus!

Witchcraft, Poltergeists and Animal Magnetism

Absolom Lawrence of Pepperell, Massachusetts had a pretty good life. He had a loving wife, he had land to farm, and he had healthy children.

Well, most of them were healthy. At some point in her thirteenth year, one of his daughters had begun to act strangely and suffer from painful fits. At random times she would curl into a fetal position with her head contorted head backwards. When this happened her jaws would clamp shut and she could only ingest liquids when a damp cloth was stuck into her mouth.

At first Absolom thought his daughter had an illness, but he changed his mind when some other strange things began happening around the house. No matter how much Mrs. Lawrence churned the butter it wouldn't come together. The pots and pans hanging in the kitchen would rattle and bang when no one was in the room. Uncanny groans emanated from thin air. It seemed as though something supernatural was assaulting their home. Were they being attacked by a witch?

If the Lawrences had lived in the 1600s they would have thrown their daughter's urine into the fire to break the witch's hold on her, but this happened in 1843. Science and industry were changing America, so the Lawrences looked through their local newspaper to find professional help. They decided to hire Dr. J.M. Nevens.

Dr. Nevens was a wandering magnetist. This doesn't mean that he worked with magnets, but rather he was versed in "animal magnetism", or hypnosis. Nevens traveled with a female colleague whom he put into a trance so she could cure "cure all complaints the human frame is subject to."

Nevens claimed to be skeptical about witchcraft, but he took the job anyway. When he and his co-worker arrived at the Lawrence's house he hypnotized her so she could diagnose the young girl. After she went into the trance she saw something uncanny.

An unknown woman was riding towards the Lawrence's house on a white horse which had no horseshoes. When it reached the front yard the woman dismounted and walked to the front door, which was closed. She squeezed herself under the door and entered the house through a tiny crack.

The woman, who was apparently a witch, clearly intended to once again torment the Lawrence's daughter but this time she was unable to reach her. The mangetic power that surrounded Dr. Nevens repelled her from the house, and she fled through a cellar door. As she did her groans and footsteps could be heard.

After being treated by Dr. Nevens things got better for the Lawrence's daughter, but only improved completely once the family moved to another farm.

*****

What a great account! It's from Owen Davies' new book America Bewitched, and originally appeared in the Nashua Gazette in 1843. I'd love to get my hands on the original newspaper to see if there are any more details.

In a lot of witchcraft stories there is a certain person, usually a jealous or angry neighbor, who is suspected of being the witch. But there's no mention of a neighborly feud in this story. Instead we get the cryptic woman on a white horse. Is she even a real woman? Maybe she's a purely spiritual or psychological being. She's like a bad fairy come to cause trouble. It's significant that her horse has no shoes, because of course horseshoes repel witches. White horses are also associated with magic in a lot of New England folklore. Dreaming of a white horse meant trouble was on the way.

The mysterious groans and banging pots remind me of stories about poltergeists. Poltergeists are often associated with troubled adolescents, and in the past they were also associated with witches. Poltergeists (and troubled adolescents) are still encountered today but usually without the witchcraft. They're now attributed to demonic activity or the latent psychic powers of repressed teens.

I think what I find most interesting about this story is the tension between the old, supernatural, witch-haunted view of the world and the newer, scientific worldview.  Young farm-girls have been afflicted by witches for centuries, but in 1843 you could consult your local newspaper and hire a scientific professional to help out. Well, maybe Dr. Nevens was really pseudo-scientific but it seemed to work.

If the Lawrences were alive today and had these problems they'd probably consult Google to find the nearest ghost-hunters or paranormal investigators. The same phenomena keep popping up but we just deal with them in new ways. The more things change...

The Blacksmith and the Witch

This week, another witchcraft story from the north. John McNab Currier was a 19th century physician and amateur scientist who lived much of his life in New Hampshire. He also collected folklore, including this little story from an unnamed town in the Granite State.

***

The man who served as blacksmith in the town between the years 1845 and 1855 believed strongly in witchcraft. One day a local man came into the smithy and requested that a small job be done. (Dr. Currier doesn't specify what the job was, but I'm guessing it was probably something like a repair to a farm implement.) The man was in a hurry and urged the blacksmith to complete it quickly so he could leave.

Now, the blacksmith had long suspected this man of being a witch, but never had been able to prove it. With the man inside his smithy he had his chance.

It was well-known at the time that witches could not pass through a doorway that had a horseshoe hung above it. While the man sat waiting for him to begin the job, the blacksmith climbed on a ladder and nailed a horseshoe above the door. Then he returned to his forge and quickly completed the job.

A blacksmith shop in Shelby County, Indiana.

The blacksmith handed the repaired item to the man, but although he had said he was in a hurry he didn't depart. When asked why he wasn't leaving, the man nervously said he had just remembered that a friend of his might stop by the smithy today and he wanted to talk with him.

The blacksmith went back to work, and the man sat in a chair, supposedly waiting for a friend to arrive. The man set there for many hours. The friend never arrived.

By the end of the afternoon the blacksmith felt he had his proof. He took down the horseshoe, and the man instantly left the smithy. Clearly, the blacksmith thought, this man was a witch.

***

Last year I wrote about how horseshoes were used to keep witches out of houses. For people in the 17th century witchcraft was a matter of life and death and the horseshoe belief was taken quite seriously. When I read this story from Dr. Currier I was surprised to find someone using a horseshoe to keep a witch inside a building. Either people didn't take witchcraft so seriously by the 19th century or the blacksmith was particularly brave. I guess no one was going to mess with a guy who spent all day pounding metal with a hammer!

Smiths have a long folkloric association with magic, both good and evil, going back to at least the ancient Mediterranean world. For example, in Greek mythology semi-divine smiths named the Daktyls rose from the handprint of the goddess Rhea and were invoked as protection against evil magic. Trolls and dwarves labor underground creating magical items in Norse mythology, and in some Christian tales blacksmiths learn their skills from the Devil. There's an interesting overview here.

Dr. Currier writes the name of the town this way: "B____n, N.H." There are only six towns in New Hampshire with names that start with "b" and end in "n": Barrington, Belmont, Bennington, Benton, Berlin, and Boscawen. I'm not sure why he didn't want to reveal the location, because he does for the other stories he collected and published in the July 1891 issue of The Journal of American Folk-lore, which is where I found this one.

Horseshoe Magic: Secretly Pleasing to the Devil?

A few years ago I purchased an iron horseshoe in a neighborhood botanica. There is a decent-sized Santeria community in Boston, and the horseshoe is an attribute of Ogun, the orisha (spirit or deity) who governs iron, the military, and physical strength. Don't mess with Ogun!

I don't practice Santeria, though; I just bought the horseshoe because I've always heard they're lucky. I'm not sure where this idea originated, but it's been found in New England for a long time. For example, in the late 19th century farmers in western Massachusetts told folklorist Clifton Johnson the following:

1. Nailing a horseshoe above the door of your house brings luck.

2. Nail it so the opening points upwards. Otherwise, all the luck will run out!

3. In the old days, horseshoes were used to repel witches from the house.

The first two are still commonly held beliefs, but I don't think many people in the 21st century use horseshoes to protect themselves from witches. If I am wrong please let me know.

Those 19th century farmers were quite correct that their ancestors thought a horseshoe would keep witches out of the house. Richard Godbeer provides a great example in his book The Devil's Dominion, which examines witchcraft and magic in early New England.

The story goes something like this. Goody Chandler of Newbury Massachusetts became quite ill in 1666, and thought her sickness was caused by her neighbor Elizabeth Morse, who was unpopular and therefore considered a witch. Goody Chandler was determined to keep Morse out of her house, and nailed a horseshoe over the door. Apparently it worked because Elizabeth Morse refused to enter once the horseshoe was put up.

This probably would be the end of the story if an uptight neighbor named William Moody hadn't gotten involved. William Moody was opposed to any kind of magic, and he thought putting up a horseshoe was just as bad as witchcraft. He knocked down the horseshoe, and once again Elizabeth Morse began to come into Goody Chandler's house under the pretense of being neighborly.

William Moody was not alone in condemning all forms of magic as witchery - it was the official platform of the Puritan church in New England. Cotton Mather himself, the leading minister in Massachusetts, wrote in Wonders of the Invisible World that,

"The Children of New-England have Secretly done many things that have been pleasing to the Devil. They say, That in some Towns, it ha's been an usual Thing for People to Cure Hurts with Spells, or to use Detestable Conjurations, with Sieves, & Keyes, and Pease, and Nails, and Horse-Shooes... 'Tis in the Devils Name that such Things are done."

I suppose William Moody thought he was being helpful, but he comes across as a pious busybody. And his actions certainly didn't help Goody Chandler, who just got sicker and weaker. She finally convinced another neighbor to nail up the horseshoe again (she was now too weak to do it herself) but William Moody took it down and this time carried it away. Elizabeth Morse was able to enter the house, and Goody Chandler died soon after.

It's an interesting story. Who was to blame for Goody Chandler's death? Elizabeth Morse, William Moody, or natural causes? I say natural causes (and I hope you do too), but her contemporaries had other ideas. Elizabeth Morse was brought to trial and eventually convicted of witchcraft, but even the judges must have had some doubts since she only served one year in jail.

A horseshoe could also be used to keep a dead witch in his or her grave. As I've noted in an earlier post, the people of Hampton, New Hampshire staked the heart of suspected witch Goody Cole after she died. To make double sure she stayed in her grave they tied a horseshoe to the stake.

Although the horseshoe is considered lucky and magical across Europe and North America, it's not quite clear why. The writer Robert Means Lawrence devoted an entire book to this topic (The Magic of the Horsehoe, published in 1898). Is it because its shape is reminiscent of the horns of a ferocious animal? Is it because it resembles a crescent moon? Or perhaps it's because it's made of iron, and supernatural creatures (such as fairies) fear iron.

I'm actually a fan of the iron theory, since other metals have the power to repel magical monsters (like silver against vampires and werewolves), and the defining lines between supernatural creatures are blurry. Witches can transform into animals, including wolves, and sometimes they return from the dead to cause trouble, like vampires. In the British Isles, witches often were accused of cavorting with fairies, and peasants nailed horseshoes over their doors to keep fairies out of the house. So I think it all boils down to this - if you have trouble with a supernatural creature, use some metal.

The next question is "Why does metal repel monsters at all?" but my blog is limited, and a question like that would probably lead me on an infinite regression into mankind's distant and murky past!