A further post in my series republishing The Folklore of Herbs (1946), a book by Katherine Oldmeadow, who was a significant figure in the British pagan revival.

CHAPTER III

WITCHES: BLACK AND WHITE

The housewives of the past were learned in the use of physic herbs and capable of doctoring their households. But some of them, not content with the plain and useful art of simpling, combined their knowledge of medicine with the magic in which, in those days, most people had an extraordinary belief. These women were known as white witches, or wise women, who could cure not only illness of the body, but knew all the right things to do for anyone who suffered from jealousy, bad temper, dislike of their relations, ill luck, or a melancholy temperament.

The white witch, too, could break evil spells cast by her wicked sister, the black witch. White, or natural magic was worked for the good of the witch’s client; but black magic was evil, taught by Satan, and when a black witch cast an evil spell she would mutter wicked charms.

If some poor, ignorant creature came to a white witch nearly dead with fear, because he was certain that the evil eye had been cast on him, the white witch would soothe him with herbal potions and remind her patient to say at bedtime the white paternoster:

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

Bless the bed that I lie on;

And blessed guardian angel keep

Me safe from danger while I sleep.

This was a genuine prayer, and also a white charm against evil and the terror that flieth by night.

But those who consulted black witches about their troubles were given a “black” charm, and told to recite the Lord’s Prayer backwards.

Both kinds of witches believed in auguries, portents, votive offerings and the power of the evil eye; and both kept a good stock of antidotes against bad luck in the shape of horse shoes, two-tailed lizards, four-leaved clover, mice’s tails and what not. The science of luck was studied in their belief that all the herbs they used were under the influence of the stars.

The white witch, or wise woman, was a very important person and most people in difficulty consulted her. For instance, if a pale, listless child were brought to her by its anxious parents, the white witch knew exactly what treatment was necessary.

She would say that the evil eye had been cast upon the child and that it must at once be passed through an ash tree. Gilbert White, writing the Natural History of Selborne in 1776, makes a note explaining this strange custom:

In a farmyard near this village stands a row of pollard ashes, which, by the seams and long cicatrices down their sides, manifestly show that in former times they have been cleft asunder. These trees, when young and flexible, were severed and held open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped naked, were pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion that by such a process the poor babes would be cured of their infirmity. As soon as the operation was over, the tree, in the suffering part, was plastered with loam, and carefully swathed up. If the parts soldered together, as usually happened, the child was cured; but if the cleft continued to gape, it was supposed the operation would prove ineffectual. Not long since I cut down two or three such trees, one of which did not grow together.

We have several persons now living in this village who in their childhood were supposed to be healed by this superstitious ceremony, derived, perhaps, from our Saxon ancestors, who practised it before their conversion to Christianity.

Although the origin of this strange practice was pagan, there were Christian legends attached to the ash tree, which probably caused our forefathers to continue it up to the eighteenth century. Tradition said that the ash, under the influence of the sun, was a tree of healing; and there was a legend that on the night of the Nativity our Lord was swaddled before a fire of ash wood.

This would be a good enough reason for the people to believe that such a tree would cure sick children. Another strange custom connected with the ash tree continued until a hundred years ago.

This was called making a “shrew-ash,” whose twigs and branches were supposed to be healing to cattle. The shrew ash was made by boring a deep hole in the trunk of the tree, and into the hole was pushed a poor, innocent little shrew mouse, alive.

The hole was then sealed up with charms and incantations and the tree was available to the parish when cattle fell sick.

Three hundred years ago people lived in the direst dread of the evil eye of the black witch, and when plague, sickness, misfortune, or even thunderstorms came to torment them it was always the neighbouring witches who were to blame.

It was the custom to carry charms for protection from prayer these evil spells. Sometimes the charm was a little written on paper or linen and stitched inside the clothes, or a tiny cross made from a twig of the ash.

There were special herbs, too, supposed to be helpful against the power of Satan and his malicious witches. Angelica was one, the herb that is said to have been given by an angel to a monk as a cure for plague.

Elder leaves would keep off witches and so would mallow, mugwort and rosemary; but best of all was St. John’s wort, which the Welsh call “blessed plant,” the French “All-holy” and the Irish Mary’s Glory.” It was the plant most revered as a charm against evil; the fuga damonium, or “devil’s flight.”

If in the old days, you were being tormented by a black witch, who had perhaps made a waxen image of you and was causing you daily suffering by sticking pins into it, you would seek out a white witch and ask her advice. After ordering you a soothing herbal medicine, and reminding you of the comforting white paternoster, she would take you into her garden – witches always had herb gardens – pick you a large bunch of St. John’s wort and tell you to place it in your window or over your door. The black witch, and even Satan himself, terrified of all good and holy things, would flee at the sight of this blessed plant.

Besides its power of driving off witches St. John’s wort was one of the most precious healing plants, and an infusion of its leaves, flowers and seeds was much used for wounds. If the evil eye had been cast upon a horse, St. James’ wort, commonly called ragwort, was used, for St. James is the patron saint of horses.

The rowan tree or mountain ash was also greatly esteemed for keeping witches away from the cattle. Branches of it were hung in byres and stables and little crosses were made of the wood and tied to the cows tails.

The cow herds used a stout stick from the rowan tree to drive their herds to pasture, and dairy maids preferred their churning sticks to be made out of the magic wood. Sometimes, when churning, nothing would make the butter “come” and, of course, this was believed to be entirely due to some malevolent witch’s evil eye. The dairymaid must run out and cut two sticks from the rowan, one to stir the cream and one to beat the innocent cow before the good fairies of the rowan broke the spell!

Like the black witch, the white witch used other and sometimes sinister remedies as well as herbs, and that is why in pictures of witches’ houses, we always see spiders, frogs, newts, bats and toads. Whooping cough was treated by herb water, in which were boiled the tails of young mice and rats, and it served the same purpose as a cure for coughs.

In the bad old days, the poor, harmless toad was cruelly persecuted, for it was considered the companion of sorcerers and witches.

The strangest stories were told about it and it was even believed to have the evil eye itself, and the power to cast wicked spells. It was said to suck cows’ milk, plunder beehives, and its very stare was baleful. Witches boiled it in their poison decoctions, and toads, in bottles, were part of the magician’s stock-in-trade.

But in spite of its bad character the toad was looked upon by the white witch as a creature with power to heal, and although people might loathe its appearance and reputation they would endure it as a means of curing illness. A toad was often put under the bed of a patient or cruelly hung up by one leg in a stable to keep infection from cattle.

There were even “Toad Doctors” up to 1840. One of these, called Dr. Buckland, used to appear at Cerne Abbas in Dorset once a year and hold what was known as “Dr. Buckland’s Fair.” Patients came from far and near and the doctor, dressed in white with his three daughters also in white garments, treated their ailments with live toads.

There was a legend, too, that the toad carried a precious jewel in its head which could be used as a charm against ill fortune, and the poor creature was often killed by people in search of the talisman. The legend probably originated in the discovery that the toad has beautiful eyes that glow like rubies in the darkness.

The white witch of to-day still holds queer beliefs about mixing creatures with her simple medicines, and only a short time ago a gypsy woman advised the author to take “a strong cup of snail tea” for a bad cough.

But the white witch’s best cures were wrought with hedgerow medicines and she was greatly respected for her skill by her neighbours.

It was not until the great witch-hunting days of James I, a king who had a hatred for witchcraft, and himself wrote a treatise on demonology, that the wise woman got into serious trouble and was marched off to the village pond for a ducking or sometimes, alas, a drowning!

The black witch was a totally different person who, according to common belief, spent her time in casting wicked spells, and the fear of her evil eye was the curse of medieval days. She was held in such terror that even the fonts in the Church were kept locked so that she should not creep in and steal the holy water for her spells.

But apart from much foolish and superstitious belief in magic and sorcery there were, undoubtedly, black witches in the old days, wicked old women who used their knowledge of the properties of plants for evil purposes.

There were also hundreds of harmless old creatures merely interested in the gathering of herbs as a fascinating and profitable pastime, who were at first suspected and then openly accused of witchcraft.

This was because their ways were mysterious and superstitious at a period when the Puritans were doing their utmost to stamp out black magic. Still believing in the influence of the stars on growing things, in spite of the Church’s teaching, these women would go out to gather their simples at auspicious moments. Perhaps an innocent old herbalist, in need of one of Saturn’s plants for her brew, would sally forth at night to find it, everyone knowing that Saturn was at his best under cover of darkness. That was why night was looked upon by many people as an evil time, and even as late as fifty years ago night air was thought to be poisonous and bedroom windows tightly shut against it. In the same way people feared great and unknown things in nature. Thunder was terrifying because it was the voice of God or “God’s Drum.” Lightning was “God’s Torch” and high mountains fearful because they were near to “God’s House.”

Perhaps some old herb gatherer would need the root of a water lily to heal an ulcer in her leg and she would naturally wait to gather a lunar plant by the light of the moon’s lantern. Or, perhaps, a sun herb must be picked at dawn, which meant she must stay out and wait for the lucky moment.

Shepherds or field labourers out early would meet these old women coming home after one of their excursions, and they would report that they had met a witch returning home after a night out with the devil.

Woe betide these poor creatures if this should happen during the great witch hunt, organized by Matthew Hopkins, the witch-finder-general, who rounded up thirty witches in Essex alone in 1645.

If the old woman were caught muttering “nummy-dummy,” all that was left to the ignorant of the monks’ In nomine Domini, things would be the worse for her, and she would be dragged off to the pond and there drowned by Puritan gentlemen in shirts embroidered with texts from Scripture, who shouted out the verse from the Book of Exodus: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Among the women condemned to death for witchcraft there would be, undoubtedly, some of evil life and reputation; but many of them were simple herbalists with a firm belief in charms and magic, and among them there would be innocent and beautiful young girls, for it is a mistake to imagine that all witches were old and hideous.

These witches, black and white, are typical of herbs, good and evil, for although nearly every plant growing has some virtue and can bring health and healing by skilful use of it, the same plant, misunderstood or wrongly applied, can be deadly enough to kill.

The witches of the past left a vast amount of superstition behind them which is still practised in remote country districts. But they left, too, a vast amount of useful knowledge, and some of the homeliest and most efficacious of hedgerow medicines were first brewed in a witch’s cauldron.