The Sweet Milk of Satan: A Cape Cod Witch Story

Tony and I were down in Truro on Cape Cod recently, and we found a gravestone I've wanted to see for a long time. It belongs to Sylvanus Rich, who was born in 1720 and died on July 3rd, 1755. There's an interesting legend about Rich and a local witch. It goes something like this. 

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Sylvanus Rich was a sea captain. Not much is known about him, but something strange happened to him once during a routine sea voyage carrying carrying corn from North Carolina to Boston. As his ship was sailing north along Truro's Atlantic coast he told his crew to drop anchor. He had seen a small hut nestled among the dunes.

"I want some fresh milk," Rich told his men. "I'm tired of brackish water and rum. I bet whoever lives there has a cow that that gives milk." The crew watched as he rowed himself to shore (alone) and made his way to the hut. When he rowed back to the ship he had a jug of milk with him. "I was right," he said. "The old woman there had some milk for me. But she was the ugliest hag I've ever seen!" Rich retired to his cabin with the creamy beverage, but as soon as he did a fierce gale arose that shredded the ship's sails. The crewmen pounded on his cabin door for guidance, but he did not emerge until the next morning.

Sylvanus Rich's grave in North Truro Cemetery

"What's that?" Sylvanus Rich said groggily to his crew. "The sails are shredded and we're drifting? That's not my concern... Last night the hideous hag came to my cabin. She threw a magic bridle over my head and rode me like a horse up and down the Cape until sunrise. See?" He lifted his shirt, and his crew gasped at the red marks on his torso. They looked like they were made by a woman's shoe. 

"She will come again tonight," Captain Rich said. "I must prepare for her." His crew wasn't sure if he grimaced or smiled as he returned to his cabin and locked the door. 

For several days the ship drifted aimlessly off the Truro coast. Each night the dune-dwelling old witch came and used the captain as her steed, riding him up and down the Cape. Sylvanus Rich was under her spell and helpless to resist her. He spent his days and nights locked in his cabin. 

The crew was feeling desperate (and thinking mutinous thoughts), when they saw another ship approaching from the distance. By a strange coincidence, it was captained by Sylvanus Rich's son. When the crew told him his father was bewitched, Sylvanus's son went down to his cabin. The crew could hear the two men talking inside but were unable to make out what was said. 

Finally, Sylvanus Rich emerged onto the deck. "What are you all looking at?" he said. "My son's ship has materials to repair our sails. Get to work! We need to bring this grain to Boston."

The sails were repaired, and the ship finally arrived in Boston. The merchant waiting for the shipment of corn asked why it was so late. Sylvanus Rich simply said, "Blame it on the sweet milk of Satan."

That's the end of the legend. His gravestone is in Old North Truro Cemetery, but I couldn't find much information about Sylvanus Rich's life. He was born in Eastham, Massachusetts in 1720, and had at least two children with his wife Mary. His son Isaiah was born in 1744, and would only have been 11 years old when Sylvanus died. It seems unlikely that Isaiah was captaining a ship at the age of eleven, so I'm not sure how much of this legend is based on fact. 

There are a lot of New England legends about witches using magic bridles to ride men like horses. There are at least two others from Cape Cod specifically about witches riding sailors! I guess it was an occupational hazard of the time, like scurvy or getting seasick. New England witch stories aren't usually erotic, but I think the sexual undertones in these witch bridle stories are pretty obvious. Milk, usually associated with motherhood and sustenance, has a more sinister and unwholesome role in this tale. 

We never learn what transpired in the witch's hut, or what Sylvanus's son says to him that finally breaks the spell. I like that mystery. I also like that the witch is not killed or harmed at the end of this story. Instead, she is free to seduce and torment more sailors with the SWEET MILK OF SATAN. 

I included this story in my new book, Witches and Warlocks of Massachusetts, which is available now for pre-ordering and will mail on September 1. You can purchase it all your favorite online book vendors. 

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My main source for this story was Elizabeth Renard's book The Narrow Land (1934), and she got the story from Shebnah Rich's Truro, Cape Cod, or Landmarks and Seamarks (1884), with additional details from oral tradition.  

Abducted by Aliens on Cape Cod: Robert Matthews

I just came back from spending some time in Truro on Cape Cod. Truro is on the Outer Cape and there are a lot of woods and undeveloped beaches out there. I'm a city person and I am always impressed by how dark it gets at night when you're away from the urban light pollution. Out in Truro we could see hundreds of stars after sunset. It was amazing!

Of course, as a city person I also get a little freaked out by how dark it gets. I won't deny it. Driving down a road with no streetlights or walking down an unlit path at night can be scary. Who knows what you might encounter? There are lots of coyotes and foxes on the Cape, and those are just things you might meet on land. Who knows what lurks in the dark water, or even in the dark skies? Lots of strange things can happen at night on the Outer Cape. 

For example, take the case of Robert Matthews. In 1966 Matthews was 19 years old and newly inducted into the United States Air Force. His first assignment as an airman was to the North Truro Air Force Station. Following instructions, Matthews took a bus on October 1 to Dutra's Market* in Truro and then used a payphone to call the Station. He told them he had arrived in Truro; the airman on the other end told Matthews a truck would come pick him up. The time was 8:45 pm.

Salty Market in Truro (formerly Dutra's Market)

North Truro Air Force Station was only a couple miles from Dutra's Market so Matthews didn't think it would take long for the truck to arrive. But as he waited by the side of the road he noticed something unusual above him. There were lights moving back and forth across the night sky. They weren't like anything he had seen before in his life. They certainly didn't look like they belonged to an airplane. As he watched them he was filled with a strange fear.

Only a few minutes had passed but he called the station again and told them something weird was happening. Could they please hurry and pick him up? Matthews was surprised when the airman on the other end said they had already dispatched a truck for him nearly an hour ago. When it arrived at Dutra's Market the driver couldn't find Matthews and had returned to the station. Matthews was confused - only a few minutes had passed, not an hour, and he hadn't moved from in front of the market. There was no way he could have missed the bus. But when he looked at his watch he saw it was 9:45 pm. Somehow he had missed an hour of his life.

The bus stop across from the market.

This was not the first unusual occurrence in Matthews's life. When he was five or six years old he woke up one night to see a glowing green figure standing next to his bed. He tried to scream but was unable to make a sound or move. The luminous green entity pulled up his pajama top and proceeded to do something - Matthews wasn't sure what - to his chest. In the morning he told his mother that he had seen a ghost in his room. She reassured him he had just had a nightmare but Matthews remembered the experience for years afterwards, unsure if it had been real or just a dream.

It wasn't until 1984 when he was an adult that he received confirmation his experience might have been real. But this time Matthews was out of the Air Force and no longer on Cape Cod. While on vacation and looking for some light reading he saw the cover of Budd Hopkins's book Missing Time:

The creature on the book's cover looked just like the entity which had appeared in his room when he was a child.

Matthews contacted Budd Hopkins who quickly answered his letter. They had something in common: they had both seen strange things in the sky over Truro. Before writing about UFOs Hopkins was best known as a painter and sculptor and had a studio on Cape Cod. His interest in UFOs had first been kindled by seeing an object in the sky off the coast of Truro in 1964. Only later did he come to write about alien abductions and missing time, the phenomena where abductees forget their experiences at the hands of alien abductors. 

When Matthews met Hopkins in person Hopkins facilitated a hypnotic regression session for him. Matthews was brought back to that hour in Truro he couldn't remember. While in a trance he described how the lights he had seen that night came down from the sky and landed near the market. They belonged to a flying craft of some kind. Matthews entered the craft and encountered four alien beings. Much as they did when he was a child, the creatures examined his chest before putting him back on the street. The creatures had been studying him for years. 

Robert Matthews was the subject of an episode of Unsolved Mysteries - you can watch it here. Did he really encounter alien creatures outside a convenience store on Cape Cod? It sounds bizarre and unbelievable, but I think lots of strange things happen on the Outer Cape at night. 

As I researched Matthews's story I was reminded of two old stories from Truro. In one, Captain Sylvanus Rich is abducted every night by a witch who rides him like a horse, leaving him exhausted until the spell is broken. In another tale, a sailor who steals donuts from a witch is also haunted and ridden each night. While these stories aren't identical to Matthews's account they do have similarities: strange entities who come at night, men who are powerless to resist them, and Truro. 

I don't think the explanation is as easy as either witches or extraterrestrials. Maybe these stories are all just attempts to explain the phenomenon called sleep paralysis, but maybe there's something else going on here. Either way, a lot of strange things happen on the Outer Cape at night. 

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One of my main sources for this week's story was Paranormal Provincetown: Legends and Lore of the Outer Cape by my friend Sam Baltrusis. Lots of good spooky stories are in it plus a photo of yours truly. 

*Dutra's Market is now Salty Market.

The Witch's Doughnuts: A Cape Cod Witch Story

It's a well-known fact that people in New England really like doughnuts, and our region is blessed with an abundance of doughnut stores. Maybe it's even an overabundance. Locals often joke about how many there, particularly Dunkin Donuts. There are in fact two Dunkin Donuts within a quarter mile of my house. Two! There's another one a half-mile away.

This is not something recent. Doughnuts have been popular here for centuries. As Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald discuss in their 2015 book America's Founding Food, early New Englanders ate doughnuts at almost any meal. They were particularly popular served with cheese and bread and butter during the break on Sunday church services. There's nothing like some fried sugary dough to get you through the next hour-long Calvinist sermon.

Of course, good church-going folks weren't the only people who loved doughnuts. They were popular with more disreputable people like sailors (many ships had doughnut making equipment in their galleys) and even witches. 

That's right. Even witches liked doughnuts. And as the following Cape Cod legend demonstrates, witches became very unhappy when someone stole their doughnuts. 

Way back in 1780, a sailor was walking through the dunes of Truro to reach a ship whose crew he was joining. It was a long hard walk through the sand and his stomach was beginning to rumble with hunger. As he passed by a small rundown house he smelled the rich aroma of freshly-made doughnuts wafting from within.

Unable to resist the smell he knocked on the door. No one answered. The door was unlocked so he opened it and stepped inside. 

No one was home. Well, no one except a small black goat that sat by the fireplace. The sailor thought this was odd but he ignored the animal. His attention was captured by a tray of hot doughnuts cooling on the table. He couldn't resist. He grabbed the tray and ran out the door. 

As he hurried away through the dunes he ate one doughnut and then another. They were the best doughnuts he had ever eaten.

By the time he reached the ship he had eaten all of them. Sure, he felt a little guilty for stealing someone's doughnuts, but they were only doughnuts, right? As the ship sailed away from the Cape he thought he would never be caught. He thought he had gotten away with the perfect doughnut crime. 

He hadn't. That night as the sailor slept an old woman appeared to him. Angrily and without speaking a word she threw a horse's bridle over his head. The witch rode him up and down the Cape as he slept, digging her heels into his sides violently whenever he slowed his gait. In the morning his torso was covered in bruises shaped like a woman's shoe. 

She appeared to him again the next night, and the next. He tried to hide the witch's nightly visitations from the other crew members. He knew that sailors were superstitious and wouldn't want someone cursed by a witch onboard. They'd call him a "Jonah" and try to throw him into the sea. 

Unfortunately the witch's curse radiated out from him and everything he touched went wrong. After he was asked to pump the ship's drinking water it became brackish. When he was told to work in the ship's galley all the flour became moldy. He was exhausted, his body ached, and he was jinxed. 

The crew began to mutter about him, and the ship's captain pulled him aside. "Tell me the truth," the captain said. "Are you bewitched?" The sailor told the captain everything: how he had stolen the doughnuts, how he was being ridden every night, and how he was now cursed.  

When the sailor was done with his story the captain grabbed a musket and then pulled a silver button off his coat. He loaded the button into the musket and handed it to the sailor. 

"Use this tonight when she comes for you," the captain said. 

At midnight the crew was awakened by the sound of a single musket-shot. The next morning the sailor came up on the deck looking fresh and rested. The curse was lifted and the ship completed a successful voyage.

So there's the story. It sounds like a folktale to me, but some people claim it was true. The sailor eventually returned to Truro, and over a century later his grandson told the story to a reporter from The Boston Herald, where it appeared in the February 6, 1919 issue. The Harvard historian George Lyman Kittredge (author of 1929's Witchcraft in Old and New England) said he heard the same story from an old Truro native in the late 19th century. It is also included in Elizabeth Renard's book 1934 book The Narrow Land. 

The doughnut angle is unusual, but like so many folktales about witches it is mainly intended to educate the hearer about how to fight back against witchcraft. The point is not that the sailor stole doughnuts, but that he was bewitched and defeated the witch. It's an education in defensive magic (use a silver bullet!), not a morality tale. 

Still, I find the conclusion of this story troubling. Let's face it, the sailor committed a crime. I understand why the witch was so unhappy. I don't want anyone stealing my food, do you? Perhaps she should have gone to the local constable and pressed charges, but that might have raised some uncomfortable questions. ("Did you see the sailor steal your doughnuts ma'am?" "No, but my black goat familiar did...") Instead she took matters into her own hands. Perhaps the whole situation could have been defused if the sailor simply apologized or paid restitution. 

Also, like a lot of New England witch stories there is an uncomfortable gender-dynamic at play. The nighttime witch-riding feels like it has a sexual subtext, and is something that is always used by female witches against male victims. But is the sailor really a victim in this story, or a perpetrator who needs to be punished?

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Special thanks to Tony for the doughnut photo shoot!

Simeon Smith: Wizard, Necromancer, and Patriot

Simeon Smith was one of the early settlers in the New Hampshire town of Wentworth (located near Waterville Valley). Town records indicate that he arrived in 1772 or 1773 and built a farm on the border of the nearby town of Warren.

Simeon held town office in Warren (thinking that's where his property really was), and named his first-born son Warren as well. Simeon was employed as a tailor but also fought with the Continental army. One of his sons grew up to be Wentworth's first town historian.

All in all, Simeon Smith sounds like a good, upstanding citizen. He sounds like the kind of patriotic, hard-working individual New England was built by.

Suprisingly, he might also have been a witch. I guess he was also the kind of mean, malefic individual who built this region.

The following is a quote from George Plummer's History of Wentworth (1930):

The old people, or many of them, did believe in witches; there is no doubt about that... The archwizard and head necromancer of our town was no doubt Simeon Smith. He, it was commonly believed, had supernatural powers and thereby made his neighbors uncomfortable at times. 

What exactly made his neighbors so uncomfortable?

Wonderful were the feats he could perform. Sometimes, from sheer malice, he would saddle and bridle one of his neighbors and ride and gallop him all over the country round. The butter would not come and he was in the churn. The children behaved strangely and he bewitched them. Smaller than a gnat, he could go through the keyhole; larger than a giant, he was seen at twilight stalking through the forest...

Most of those are the typical actions of witches found in New England folklore: riding neighbors in their sleep, disrupting household tasks, and afflicting the children. Turning into a giant is a new one to me though!

It's hard to reconcile the patriotic New Hampshire pioneer with the malevolent necromancer who tormented his neighbors. He obviously cared about his town, but it's clear his neighbors disliked him enough to called him a witch.

Several stories tells how Simeon's witchcraft and patriotism were united in acts of evil magic. For example, in the early years of the Revolutionary War he once rushed out of a Sunday meeting because he had seen through second sight a battle happening far away. This was not entirely unusual. He would often go into a trance like state while mounted on his horse, but neighbors assumed he was "gazing upon fiendish revels", aka the witches sabbath.

Here's another story. A Tory family named Merrill lived in Wentworth and Simeon decided to torment them because they supported the British cause. He bewitched their son Caleb, making him go deaf and causing him to "run up the sides of the house or barn like a squirrel."

To protect their son the Merrills fought back with their own magic. They put some of Caleb's urine into a bottle and set it by the fire. As the boy's urine boiled, Simeon Smith, miles away in his own home, bled from his eyes. But the urine ran out through a crack in the cork, and Simeon recovered.

The Merrills tried again. This time they put Caleb's blood in the bottle, and stuck a small blade through the cork until it reached the blood. This was some serious magic! The next day Caleb recovered his hearing and told his family that Simeon Smith was dead. When they investigated they found the "archwizard and necromancer" of Wentworth had indeed passed away.

However, his magic lived on after his death. Simeon was buried underneath an apple tree (per his will), but children never stole any fruit from the tree. The apples that grew on it were "crabbed and bitter beyond belief."

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The information about Simeon Smith is from Richard Dorson's Jonathan Draws the Long Bow (1946), George Plummer's History of Wentworth (1930), and this genealogy site.

A Travelling Woman, Coarsely Dressed: Another Witch, Another Footprint

Here's a little story from John McNab Currier, a 19th century physician and folklorist:

In the summer of 1852 I was at a farmhouse in a rural town in Grafton County, New Hampshire, when a travelling woman, coarsely dressed, called to get a glass of water to drink, and inquire the distance to the next village. She drank the water and started on her journey. Scarcely had she gone thirty rods when the woman of the house said she believed the traveller was a witch, and she was going to try her. She immediately took a knitting needle from her work, found one of the traveller's tracks in the path, and stuck the needle into it. Almost immediately the traveller stopped, stood still, and gazed towards us, who were watching the trial. The woman of the house said she would not remove the needle from the track, even if the traveller should never move again; but she turned soon, and went on without stopping. The woman with the needle believed the steel had the power to fasten a witch in her tracks so she could not move, and shen she saw that the woman went on her way, she believed the power was lost by her speaking; so she tried another track with the needle, but without effect. 

It's interesting to compare McNab's story with a similar one I wrote about in March, which had two small children trying to test a witch with a needle, and was recorded in the 1920s or 1930s. McNab's story is a first-hand account of adults trying this form of folk magic 70 or 80 years earlier. In the 19th century witchcraft was not child's play.

Both stories involve women, seemingly poor, walking by houses. Is it their poverty and their mobility that causes such concern? I'm sure there's some sociological reason why these women were suspected of witchcraft.

The magic of steel seems to work in McNab's story, unless you want to be a skeptic and claim the travelling woman just stopped because she was amazed someone was sticking a needle in her footprint.

Even when it doesn't work there's an explanation consistent with the magic: the woman of the house spoke, and broke the spell. Maybe if she had never spoken a word the witch would still be standing in the road today. Silence is a key ingredient in some types of folk magic. Bittersweet root is best harvested in total silence, and a witch can be controlled with her own witch bridle only if you remain silent.

McNab's story appeared in the The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 4, No. 14, in 1891.

Liza Tower Hill, the Witch of Half Way Pond

Elizabeth Lewis was born in Barnstable, Massachusetts sometime early in the 18th century.

Although she and her parents lived near Crooked Pond, an area of Cape Cod which at the time was quite remote, as a child she walked without fear in the dense forest, unafraid of wild animals or getting lost after dark. There were rumors she even hunted with the local Indians.

To her English neighbors it all seemed a little uncanny. Why wasn't she afraid like other girls her age?

As she grew older Elizabeth, or Liza as she was known, also became quite wise in the ways of curing animals and diagnosing problems with crops. Wiser than one so young and pretty should be, her neighbors whispered. Who (or what) had given so much knowledge to Liza? Perhaps she was a witch and in league with the Devil.

Liza's uncanny reputation didn't stop William Blatchford from proposing to her, and when she was sixteen she and William built a house even further in the forest near Half Way Pond. Isolated from the community, they raised a family deep in the woods, coming into the town of Barnstable only to attend Sunday services. By this time Liza had a full-blown reputation as a witch and other women would avoid her touch when she drew near. Her husband's family had originally come from the Tower Hill section of London, so when the townspeople whispered about her they called her Liza Tower Hill, half in derision and half in fear.

Many stories were told about her witchy ways. The forest near Half Way Pond was supposedly luminous, and on moonlit nights travelers said they saw Liza dancing on the surface of the pond as animals and other less easily identifiable creatures watched with delight.

Some travelers found their way to Liza's pond unwillingly. The historian George Lyman Kittredge was told by an elderly neighbor how one Mrs. Loring of Barnstable was riding homeward through the woods one day when her horse unaccountably headed towards Half Way Pond. No matter how hard Mrs. Loring tried, the horse refused to obey her and instead circled the pond for hours. Clearly, Mrs. Loring said, her steed had been bewitched.

Liza allegedly used her witchcraft to protect her family as well. One of her daughters took a servant job at the home of the wealthy Allyn family, who mistreated the girl. Shortly thereafter their house became haunted. A large cat appeared mysteriously in the Allyn house, howling at all hours of the night. Even when the cat was turned out it could still be heard in halls and on the stairs, roaming invisibly. Chairs were smashed by unseen hands, and tables were knocked over. Many members of the Allyn family claimed the haunting was Liza Tower Hill's vengeance.

Of course, Liza was also accused of riding men in the night like horses, a traditional witch activity. For example, a Mr. Wood of West Barnstable said Liza saddled him and rode him to Plum Pudding Pond in Plymouth for midnight witch meetings. Since she was an attractive woman, this may just have been wishful thinking on Mr. Wood's part.

Liza may have met her end because she rode another man like a horse. Benjamin Goodspeed of East Sandwich claimed that Liza rode him nightly, and to escape her witchery he boarded a ship sailing from Barnstable. As the ship departed he thought he was free, but as he looked landward he saw a large black cat swimming after the ship. Needless to say the sight made him uneasy. That night Liza came to him in his dreams and rode him even more furiously than before.

Exhausted, the next morning Goodspeed once again saw the cat swimming after the ship. Realizing it was Liza's spirit in feline form, he loaded a gun with pages from the Bible and shot the cat in the head. The supernatural feline howled and sank below the waves. Back in her cottage by Half Way Pond Liza died suddenly at her spinning wheel, her eyes wide open and staring into the void.

It's a dramatic story but it may not be true. Records show that Liza Tower Hill died in July of 1790 from old age, not mysteriously at her spinning wheel. Although she had lost her beauty she had retained her independent spirit to the end.

Personally, I think Liza Tower Hill is a really nice embodiment of the mythic witch. She's the type of witch everyone would like to be! She was wise and attuned with nature, but definitely not someone you'd want to mess with. She was independent and feisty, but not particularly malevolent. If she had lived in the previous century and outside Cape Cod she undoubtedly would have been brought to trial for witchcraft. Happily she was born after the witch trial fury had burned out, and Cape Cod never had many witch trials to begin with. Perhaps even then people on the Cape were a little more tolerant of eccentrics.

Although Liza died in 1790, it's hard to keep a good witch down. Witches are able to send their spirits out of their bodies while alive, so for many witches death is just a minor inconvenience. Well, at least in folklore. Next week I'll tell you what happened to Liza after death. Conveniently it's also a Christmas story!

Most of the information for this week's post is from Elizabeth Reynard's The Narrow Land, while the story about Mrs. Loring's horse is from George Lyman Kittredge's Witchcraft in Old and New England.

Sylvanus Rich and the Witch of Truro

For Halloween season, here's a nice witchy story from Elizabeth Reynard's 1934 collection of Cape Cod folklore, The Narrow Land.

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Sylvanus Rich was an elderly yet highly skilled sea captain. He came from a long line of seafaring men (and had fathered several more himself), so he thought nothing of captaining a ship carrying grain from North Carolina to Boston. It would be easy! Yes, the ship's crew was inexperienced, but Sylvanus was not worried. He had made the journey many times. 

On the last leg of their journey, just as the ship was about to round Cape Cod and enter Massachusetts Bay, Captain Sylvanus dropped anchor off the Atlantic shore of Truro. He could tell the weather was bad up ahead at Provincetown's Race Point, and he didn't want to risk his cargo or crew.

As he walked the deck, Captain Sylvanus sighted a small house nestled in the Truro dunes.

"Boys," he said, "I'm tired of dried pork and hardtack for dinner. I'm going to row ashore and see if I can purchase myself some milk from that farm. Lower a boat!"

The crew watched as their captain rowed himself towards Truro. After about an hour he returned with a wooden bucket full of milk.

A view of Longnook Beach in Truro.

When his crew asked about the farm Captain Sylvanus laughed. "There was no farm! Just an old hag in a filthy hut. And she wore shoes with red heels! Ha! But still, she sold me some milk. I guess I've still got my charm."

The weather by this time had cleared, and while the crew prepared to set sail for Boston Sylvanus retired to his cabin to enjoy his milk.

However, as soon as the crew raised anchor a strong gale came in from nowhere. Dark clouds filled the sky, a howling wind raised huge waves, and the ship's sails were blown to tatters as it was pushed out to sea. In a panic, the crew pounded on the door to the captain's cabin, but he didn't answer. Was Captain Sylvanus dead? Had he been poisoned by the milk?

The storm dissipated by morning, and the crew evaluated the damage. It was serious - the sails and rudder had been both seriously damaged, and the ship was adrift far from land.

Around noon Captain Sylvanus emerged from his cabin, hollow-eyed and pale. He said quietly, "The milk was bewitched. After I drank it I fell into a deep sleep. And then ... she came. The Truro hag. The witch! She threw a bridle over my head and climbed onto my back. She rode me up and down Cape Cod like a racehorse. Over the dunes, through the woods, across the swamps and rivers. If I slowed my pace, she dug her red shoes into my sides."

The captain lifted his shirt. The crew gasped! His sides were covered in bruises shaped like heelmarks.

The first mate said, "But captain, we're adrift and the sails..."

The captain wearily raised his hand and silenced the mate. "In due time. But first, I must prepare. Tonight she will visit me again. I must be ready!" He entered his cabin and shut the door, grimacing.

Or, the crew wondered, had he really been smiling? Was he actually looking forward to another visit from the witch of Truro?

The ship drifted aimlessly in the cold Atlantic for days. Each night, Captain Sylvanus locked himself in his cabin and the witch made him her steed. Each day, Captain Sylvanus sat hollow-eyed and exhausted as his crew begged him for guidance. Food and water were low. Starvation seemed imminent.

Just when all seemed lost, a sail was spotted on the horizon. It was a merchant vessel, and was captained by one of Sylvanus Rich's own sons! When he heard about his father's bewitchment he dragged Sylvanus into the cabin and shut the door after them. What transpired within is not recorded, but somehow he broke the witch's spell over his father. Repairs were made to Sylvanus's ship, and it arrived safely in Boston.

When asked by the ship's owners to explain the damage and the delay, Captain Sylvanus Rich blamed them on the "sweet milk of Satan."

***

Elizabeth Reynard mentions red shoes or heels in a lot of her Cape Cod witch stories, but I haven't seen this in other sources. Perhaps it's a Cape Cod thing, or maybe I just haven't read enough.

Sea captains and sailors are often ridden by land-based witches in folktales. It seems to be a hazard of the profession! There are definitely some pre-Industrial gender role issues at play here. It's nice to see that nothing bad happens to the witch in this story. 

Like the majority of New England witch stories, this one is about a woman, but next week I'm going to post about a male witch. Stay tuned!

Kidnapped by Witches in Plymouth

I have been very much on a witch groove these days. I could say it is because of the increasing darkness this time of year, but I think I'm always kind of in a witchy groove. You can't like New England folklore without liking witches!

Here's a nice little witch story from an 1893 book called The Old Colony Town and Other Sketches, by William Root Bliss. The Old Colony in the title refers to Plymouth, Massachusetts. Plymouth, settled by Europeans in 1620,  was considered the old colony when compared to Boston, which was only settled in 1630, and therefore was newer.

These 19th century local history books often have a chapter on witchcraft stories, and The Old Colony Town is no different, having a chapter of stories which Bliss heard from two elderly Plymouth ladies. I particularly like the following one.

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In the Plymouth forest near Buzzard's Bay lived two old witches. They never came out during the day, but at night they would emerge from their house and wander around in the gloom, casting spells on anyone unfortunate enough to encounter them. One night they met a boy walking through the woods, and charmed him into following them home. He quickly fell into a deep slumber in the main room of their house.

Around midnight the boy awoke to see the two witches pulling a quahog shell from the oven. The women rubbed the shell behind their ears and said, "Whisk!" In an instant they vanished up the chimney. Curious to see where they had gone, the boy also picked up the shell and rubbed it behind his ears. After saying the magic word, he found himself transported up the chimney into a meadow where the two witches were mounted on black horses. Noticing their new guest, one of the witches produced a bridle and put it on a bundle of straw, which was transformed into a pony. The witches galloped off across the meadow, and the boy followed them on the pony into the night.

After a while they came to a brook, which the witches' horses easily leaped over. When the boy's pony leaped the brook, the boy exclaimed: "A pretty good jump for a lousy calf!" As soon as the words came out of his mouth, the pony reverted back to a bundle of straw, and he was forced to run after the witches on foot.

Winded and tired, he came to an old abandoned house with the black horses tied outside. From inside he could hear the sound of fiddle music. Peering in one broken window he saw the two witches and other elderly ladies dancing around a black man playing the fiddle. Terrified at what he saw, the boy ran away into the woods. Eventually he came to a to a farm house. The farmer and his wife took the boy in, and returned him to his family the next morning.

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There are a lot of interesting aspects to this little tale. It definitely has a dream-like feeling, with the witches who only emerge at night, and the sleeping boy who sees them fly up the chimney. (Much like Santa Claus does in a Visit from Saint Nicholas!) When the morning comes he "awakens" and is once again back at home with his parents. The journey on the horses across the meadow and over the brook is reminiscent of various mythic journeys to the Otherworld, which is often separated from the normal, mundane world by a river.

Many New England witch stories deal with issues of women's power, and I think it's salient that the witches kidnap a boy, rather than a girl, particularly since a magic bridle is involved. In most stories about witch bridles, the witches use them to subjugate men who have mistreated them. The sexual and gender issues are quite obvious in those stories, but in this one they are a little more oblique since the boy is obviously young.

It's also significant that the boy breaks the spell over the straw bundle by speaking. Silence is magically powerful in a lot of New England folk stories. For example, Eva Speare's book New Hampshire Folk Tales mentions a spell to immobilize witches that is broken only when someone speaks, and also claims that if you manage to put a witch bridle over a witch, she will obey you until you speak. A single word will set the witch free.

The black man playing the fiddle is obviously the Devil, but black is probably not being used in it's current meaning of having African ancestry. In colonial New England black clothing was quite expensive due to the dyes that were used, and only the very wealthy and important (like ministers) could afford it. Many stories describe the Devil as being dressed in black clothing which signifies his power and material wealth.

Finally, I'll just say that the quahog shell is very, very New England.

Witches Flying Over New Hampshire

John McNab Currier, a physician and amateur scientist, was born in Bath, New Hampshire in 1832. Dr. Currier was also a folklorist and contributed a couple interesting articles to The Journal of American Folk-Lore in the 1890s.

In one article, he relates how several neighbors visited his parents' house one winter night. "In the course of this rural visit, several ghost and witch stories were related, half to keep up the conversation, and half to make those stare who might take stock in their genuineness..."

A neighbor lady told the following story. One bright moonlit summer night she was out in her front yard collecting wood for the morning fire when she heard female voices, "talking and laughing merrily", coming down the road. She waited to see who was walking down the road so late at night, but when they came close to her house she realized they weren't walking, but were flying overhead.

"...I looked up and saw nothing but the bright stars. I could hear their talking and laughing as they passed along overhead. Their voices grew fainter and fainter as they passed off in an opposite direction from whence they came, until I could hear them no longer."

It's a beautiful passage. It makes me want to fly at night with those ladies!

Dr. Currier's neighbor went on to explain that the invisible women were witches, flying to some nearby abandoned house to dance and frolic. She believed witches could separate their spirits, which had flown down the road, from their bodies. Their spirits had strength equal or even greater than their physical bodies, and retained youthful vigor no matter how old the witch was physically.

Francisco Goya, Witches' Flight, 1798.

Throughout history there has been debate over how (or even if) witches were able to fly. Did they actually do it physically? Did the Devil just delude them into thinking they flew? Were they hallucinating from herbal salves they applied to their bodies?

My favorite theory is that witches were (are?) able to enter trance states, much like shamans around the world can, and send their spirits flying into the night. I wish I was brilliant enough to think of this theory myself, but I'm not. It was first stated by the Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg in his books The Night Battles and Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath. They're both great books, but very dense and academic. I'll leave the debate about the reality/unreality of spirit flights to another day...

I guess Dr. Currier's neighbor shared this theory as well, although she wouldn't have used the term "shamanism" in early 19th century New Hampshire. She went on to tell her listeners that the witches could disengage the spirits of people who were sleeping or unaware, and take those spirits with them to their revels. These captive spirits were firmly under the control of the witches, "and sometimes such stolen spirits were made the butt of fun at their evening's entertainments at some haunted house."

Clearly, don't mess with the witches, and stay away from haunted houses at night. Dr. Currier ends his story by wondering if these witches controlled the captive spirits by throwing a special bridle over the sleeper. The witch bridle has a long history in New England folklore which I've written about before.

I just found Dr. Currier's article this week, and I was really pleased to see someone from New England giving such a clear and cogent theory about the nature of witchery. It helps show the continuity of beliefs here with ancient beliefs from around the world. If you want to read the article yourself, it's in The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 2, No. 7 (Oct. - Dec. 1889).

The Witch Bridle: Ride 'Em Cowgirl!

Gentlemen, have you recently woken up from a long night's sleep to find yourself more exhausted than when you went to bed? Did you have vaguely sexual but unpleasant dreams? Have you recently angered a neighbor woman with an unsavory reputation?

If you answered yes to those three questions, it's likely you were the victim of a witch bridle.

Witch bridles have a long history in New England folklore. During the Salem witch trials of 1692, afflicted servant girl Mary Warren claimed Martha Emerson of Haverhill used a witch bridle. According to Mary, Martha's spectre told her she had "rid a man with an inchanted bridle." Under pressure, Martha confessed that she had indeed magically ridden her neighbor Matthew Herriman. Matthew verified this, claiming he had awoken one summer morning feeling unwell and as if he had been holding a bridle in his mouth all night.

Herbert Sylvester tells another, more detailed story in Maine Pioneer Settlements: Old York. Skipper Perkins, a fishing boat captain, refuses to give his impoverished Kittery neighbor Betty Booker any halibut for free. Snidely, he says to her "Show me your sixpence, ma'am!" Bad decision - Betty's poor, but she's a witch. She curses his boat, and he's unable to bring in any good catch.

But that's not the limit of her revenge. On a dark stormy night, Betty and some of her witchy colleagues invade Skipper Perkins' home, screaming "Bring me a bit o' hal'but, skipper!" They strip Perkins naked, strap a bridle on him, and all ride him up and down the Maine coast until sunrise. As they depart, Betty says "Don't say sixpence, skipper, to a poor old woman again." It took Perkins three weeks to recover.

Years later, an old house was being torn down in Kittery. Inside one of the walls, the demolition crew found a bridle made from a horse tail, tow rope, and yellow birch bark. They burned it.

The October 10, 1896 issue of the Boston Evening Transcript contains an article titled "Witchcraft Today: The Belief in Supernatural Feats in a New England Town." According to the reporter, an unnamed coastal town near Boston was dominated by three witches, who each had their own bridle. They were made of the same materials as Betty Booker's, were about nine feet long, and could be thrown like lassos. A local fisherman named Captain Isaac somehow insulted Hetty Moye, one of the three sorceresses. Hetty invades his bedroom one night seeking revenge, armed with her bridle, but Isaac avoids becoming her steed by ducking under the covers as she tries to throw it over his head. He forced her from his home and was apparently never bothered again.

Here's one more case of a witch bridle. According to a the February 6, 1919 issue of the Boston Herald, a Cape Cod man was cursed by a local elderly witch after he stole some of her doughnuts. She devised a magic bridle, and rode him in his dreams like a horse until he was exhausted. Historian George Lyman Kittredge claims he heard a similar story himself from a Truro native in 1888.

I'm not sure of the witch bridle's origin, but the belief seems related to beliefs in succubi and night hags. There's a lot of sexual innuendo going on as well, and some fear of women!

Sources: Botkin's Treasury of New England Folklore, the Dublin Seminar's Wonders of the Invisible World, and Kittredge's Witchcraft in Old and New England. And of course, the Web!

Witches and Doughnuts - A Winning Combination

This little piece of lore screams out "Massachusetts!!!", since it combines doughnuts and witchcraft. It comes from George Lyman Kittredge's Witchcraft in Old and New England.

According to a the February 6, 1919 issue of the Boston Herald, a Cape Cod man was cursed by a local elderly witch after he stole some of her doughnuts. She devised a magic bridle, and rode him in his dreams like a horse until he was exhausted. Kittredge claims he heard a similar story himself from a Truro native in 1888. If the story comes from two separate sources, it must be true!

There's a similar story from Kittery, Maine about a group of witches (and their familiars) who rode a fisherman like a horse after he refused to give one of them a piece of halibut. The bridle was made of horse hair, yew bark, and tow rope, and was found years later inside the walls of an old house that was being torn down. It was burned by the workmen who discovered it. (This story comes from Herbert Sylvester's Maine Pioneer Settlements: Old York, quoted in A Treasury of New England Folklore, edited by B.A. Botkin.)