Spells from a Wise Woman's Cottage, by Steve Patterson

Spells from the Wise Woman’s Cottage An Introduction to the West Country Cunnning Tradition

Being a monograph on the history of the ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’ in the Museum of Witchcraft & Magic, in the maritime village of Boscastle in the county of Cornwall and a true and accurate account of the charms and words spoken therein.

Recorded by the unflinching hand of your humble servant, Steve Patterson, over candlemas in the year of our Lord MMXVI

Spells from the Wise Woman’s Cottage © 2016 by Steve Patterson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First North American Edition, 2020 First Printing, 2020 ISBN 978-0-7387-6568-6 Originally published by Troy Books Inc. 2017 ISBN 978-1-909602-20-5 Llewellyn Publications is a registered trademark of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. Cataloging-in-Publication Programme data is on file with the British National Bibliography.

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Contents

Introduction

11

PART 1 Old Joan’s Book of Spells

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Some 19th Century West Country Cunning Charms Magical Water Charms Love Spells Healing Spells Protection Spells Witchcraft A Word to the Would-be Wayside Witch Notes and Commentary on the Charms Sources of the Charms

15 17 18 22 27 29 31 33 49

PART 2 A Guide to the ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’

52

Welcome to Old Joan’s Cottage Divination and Scrying The Witch’s Familiars Charms, Amulets and Tools of the Trade Magical Herbs Two of the Original Texts Describing the ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’ Display ‘The Village Wise Woman’ (original museum sign) ‘The Wise Woman’ (original guide book description)

52 54 56 59 65 69 69 70

PART 3 Witchcraft, the ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’ & the West Country Cunning Tradition The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic The ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’ The Tableau at the Museum – a ‘Geek’ into the Otherworld The ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’ – Past and Present Strange Tales!

The Spells of the ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’ What is a Witch?

The Modern Witch Wicca and the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic The Medieval Witch Witches in the 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries Four West Country Witches Joan Wytte Mariann Voaden Cherry of Morwenstow Tamsin Blight Appendix A The Old Charms from the ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’, 1998-2015

73 73 75 76 78 85 88 94 94 96 100 102 109 110 115 118 123

128

Appendix B Wayside Witches of the Museum of Witchcraft & Magic 138 Suggested Further Reading Index

146 149

Photo Plates

Between Pages 80 - 81

Familliar spirit animals of ‘The Wise Woman’s Cottage’ Painted egg shell and ‘conker’ charms hung from the beams of the cottage.

Pin-cushion heart charm.

A rope of magical knots on the wise woman’s table.

A raggy wreath charm from a Devon coven, and the alcove set with a carved slate from the Cecil Williamson collection.

‘Old Joan’ with the tools of her tade.

Photography by Jane Cox

INTRODUCTION

T

his volume is intended to serve two purposes. Firstly it is intended to work as an accompaniment to the ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’ tableau in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, Cornwall. Secondly, I hope it will stand as a book in its own right and serve as a general introduction to folkmagic practices, cunning traditions and witchcraft in the West Country. The book falls into three sections:

Old Joan’s Book of Spells J The first is a transcription of the spells and charms you hear being spoken in the ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’ display.

They are all genuine charms used by the old wayside witches and cunning folk.

11

Spells from the Wise Woman’s Cottage

Most of them were collected in the West Country in the 18th, 19th and early-20th centuries, and all of them would have been familiar to the cunning folk and the sea-witches of Boscastle 100 years ago.

This is one of the most comprehensive collections of West Country cunning charms to date and I am sure it will be of interest to many but, for those who wish to use this as a working book of spells, be aware that these are all actual cunning charms!

A Guide to the ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’ J The second section serves as a guide book to the ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’ tableau in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. You will find that it contains much previously-unpublished material from the museum archives, from the former proprietors of the museum and from the author’s own researches. However, it will also serve as a sourcebook of folkmagic and cunning practices in the West Country.

12

Introduction

Witchcraft, the ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’ J and the West Country Cunning Tradition The third section will provide you with a background to the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, including the strange tale of the construction of the ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’ itself, and most importantly, an introduction to some ideas about Wicca, witchcraft and cunning traditions in the West Country.

Whether you read this as a book of magical practices, or an enquiry into our social history or just a good old spooky yarn, is entirely up to you. The world of magic is a strange and fascinating place, and it is rarely what one thinks it to be.

As Tertullian once said: “Certum est quia impossibile est” – “It is certain because it is impossible!”

Steve Patterson, Cornwall, Plough Monday 2016

13

Old Joan's Book of Spells Some 19th Century West Country Cunning Charms

I

n the ‘Wise Woman’s Cottage’ you will hear an imagined monologue from a 19th-century white witch or ‘peller’ to a client or a curious antiquarian. But make no mistake – these are all genuine charms, told by genuine cunning folk and collected in the West Country by genuine antiquarians in the late-19th and early20th centuries.

Imagine the scene – a small granite cottage, just outside the village, on the edge of the moors somewhere in North Cornwall. He, the visitor, comes from a brave new urban world of science and reason while our cunning woman is from the tail end of a fading lineage in a vanishing rural world. And, sure enough, after two world wars and the 15

Spells from the Wise Woman’s Cottage

onset of modernity, by the middle of the 20th century, the wayside witch and the communities that she served were all but gone. Much of what we know of the ways of the old cunning folk may well have come from encounters such as this.

You, like the antiquarians that came before you, may be surprised by the content of some of the charms. They may not be the words you expect to hear, but as far as we know these are some of the charms that were actually used by the wayside witches.

I am sure you will agree that there is something both eerie and quite moving in hearing these voices from another age speaking to us from down the centuries.

Just remember, as the old Devonshire wise woman once said to Cecil Williamson, the original founder of the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic: “Look up, look up – there are other places and other things”.

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