Witch Way to Enter the House...and where to store your broom

"Witches Hut" photo by Sunblade 1500 via Wikimedia Commons

Today I am writing this post to the sound of workers installing a new front entry door on our old house. Since most everything about our century-plus-old Buttercup Cottage is just a wee bit crooked and out of plumb, installing a twenty-first century door is like pounding the proverbial square peg into the round hole. It can be done but it takes a lot of time, creativity, and a fair dose of stubborn willpower. So...drawing from this inspiration, I researched the role of doors in legend, lore, and superstition. I ran across a wonderful resource in the form of a book you can read online: 
The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore-- Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from North Carolina. Duke University Press, 1964.

https://books.google.com/booksid=Oudc1sjV6cgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Read and heed these important rules relating to home doorways. There is a surprising number of rules involving witches. Apparently North Carolina witches are a particularly wicked group. Not one word about witches bringing good luck or granting wishes. 

"Broom" photo by Schmidti via Wikimedia Commons

Hang onto your hats. Here we go!

--"If you want to keep witches away, lay a straw broom in the doorway."
     -Don't leave a broom propped up beside the door because a witch might take it to ride on.
     -If you have a witch in your house, lay a broom in the doorway and she can't budge.
     -Apparently, witches can enter your house by stepping over the broom so if you visit a neighbor and see a broom in the doorway, don't step over it or you might be accused of witchcraft. (Yes, it seems to negate the whole witch-barring-doorway-broom thing to me too.)
    -Along those contradictory lines: if you are bewitched, lay a broomstick in the doorway and the first person to pick it up and enter is your witch.

--"If anybody comes to your house and acts crazy, go out to your front door and scatter salt, for he's a witch and it will keep the charm away."
    -If you sprinkle salt in front of your door, a witch cannot enter.

--"By hanging a sieve on the door of your home you could be assured a witch could not enter while you were asleep, because she had to go through every hole in the sieve."
    - If you fill the sieve with dirt, it makes it even harder for the witch!

"Clitheroe Museum Lucky Horse Shoe" photo by 
Clem Rutter via Wikimedia Commons

--"If you are shown a piece of hair near the door and you do not pick it up, the witches will overtake you soon."

--"If you find a horseshoe in the road, cover it with tin foil and hang it over your door. This will ward off witches."

--"If a door opens of itself, a ghost is the operator."

--"If a rooster comes up to the front door and crows five times, it is a sign of death in the family."

"Cockadoodledoo!!" by Steve Selby via Wikimedia Commons

     -There are many variations on this theme and it doesn't seem to matter whether the rooster crows at the front door or the back door, head in or head out, once or many times. Anyway you look at it, a rooster at your door is ominous!

--"If you make a window out of a door, one of your family will die." (Doesn't appear to be a time limit for this one so it's probably true. Might just take a while...)

--"If someone dies in the family, it is bad luck for everyone to go off and close the front door." (There are many rules about leaving doors and windows open following a death at home so the deceased person's spirit is free to leave the house.)

I know there are many more superstitions and "rules" regarding doors but I think this is enough to keep me and my new door busy. (Now...if you hear me complaining because I can't find the sieve to strain the tea, just remind me to check the front door.)

Have a good couple weeks, dear Reader. Thanks for stopping by...y'all come back now! 

Kate

Ducking the Witch...Grace Sherwood's trial by water

"Grace Sherwood, the Witch of Pungo"

Having spent my formative years in the City of Virginia Beach, Virginia, the words “witch duck” were ubiquitous and, pretty much, taken for granted: Witchduck Road, Witchduck Point, Witchduck Post Office, etc. You might wonder if Virginia Beach is the home of some kind of spell-casting duck or if it is a city where witches frequently duck in or are in danger of bumping their hats against low hanging branches. In fact, Virginia Beach was the scene of the eighteenth century witch trial of one Grace White Sherwood and a ducking into the river was part of the proceedings .

Grace White Sherwood was born in 1660, in what was then called Princess Anne County and is now called the Pungo area of Virginia Beach, to John and Susan White. When Grace married respectable, small-time farmer James Sherwood in 1680, Grace’s father gave them fifty acres of land and when he died a year later, the remainder of his one hundred forty-five acres. Grace became a widow in 1701 and never remarried. Contemporary accounts described Grace as tall, attractive, and with a good sense of humor. It was also noted she often wore men’s trousers when working on her farm. She was a mid-wife and a grower of medicinal herbs that she used in the healing of both people and animals.

"The Three Witches from Shakespeare's Macbeth, "1775, by Daniel Gardner

Such a combination of qualities, which sound quite benign and positive to our twenty-first

century eyes, may have been the core of jealousy and ill-will which assailed Mrs. Sherwood and sent her to court a dozen times between 1697 and 1706. Some of these court cases were for accusations of Grace’s witchcraft and others were her own suits for slander against her accusers. The cries of witchcraft blamed her for actions such as bewitching farm animals and crops to die and for bewitching a woman to miscarry her baby. One woman, Elizabeth Barnes, accused Grace of entering her bedroom one night in the form of a black cat, scratching and attacking her then departing through a keyhole. 

Although these varied accusations were dismissed or declared inconclusive, the courts of Virginia apparently grew tired of it all and considered Grace Sherwood a nuisance. In 1706 they allowed her to be tried for witchcraft by means of being examined by a jury of “ancient and wise women” to determine if she had marks on her body indicative of the Devil’s brand. These women, led by Elizabeth Barnes herself, did indeed decide Grace had two markings unlike any found on themselves or any other woman they knew. This opened the door for the final trial by water.

On July 10, 1706, Grace Sherwood was taken to 

Illustration from "A Popular History of the United States" by William Cullen Bryant

Lynnhaven Parish Church, set upon a stool, and ordered to ask forgiveness for her witchcraft. Her reply was, “I be not a witch, I be a healer.” The unrepentant “witch” was taken down a road (now called Witchduck Road) to the shores of the Lynnhaven River where five women searched her naked body for any devices she may have had to free herself, then covered her with a sack. Her right thumb was bound to her left big toe and her left thumb was bound to her right big toe. Thus bound, six justices rowed the bound woman out two-hundred yards into the river and threw her overboard. The idea was not to drown her but just to test her. The thought was, if she floated she was considered a witch and if she sank, she was innocent. Grace was apparently quite buoyant and floated on the surface. Then to give her the benefit of the doubt, the Sheriff of Princess Anne County tested her a second time by tying a thirteen-pound Bible around her neck and casting her overboard once more. This time she did sink but was able to free herself and swim to the surface. Aha! Proof-positive: Guilty!

Intersection of Witchduck RD and Sherwood LA
(Photo courtesy of WikiMedia Commons)

Grace was sentenced to about seven years in prison and served out her time in a jail adjacent to Lynnhaven Parish Church. In 1714, she paid back-taxes on her land which Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood then helped her secure back from the County of Princess Anne. Grace Sherwood lived out the rest of her days in relative peace and quiet before dying at the age of eighty. 

Tales cropped up after her death including a story that the Devil came down the chimney and claimed Grace’s body before her sons could bury her. There were also claims of unnatural storms and lingering black cats. Soon, men were killing any cat they ran across in the county. This may have led to the

"Black cat (2901924188)" by mwanasimba from La Réunion (WikiMedia commons) 

infestation of rats and mice recorded in Princess Anne County in 1743. Grace’s body (assuming the Devil didn’t actually carry it away) is buried in an unmarked grave beneath a group of trees in a field near the intersection of present-day Pungo Ferry Road and Princess Anne Road. Local residents of present-day Virginia Beach say a strange moving light can be seen each July over the water where Grace was tried.

July 10, 2006, on the three-hundredth anniversary of Grace’s infamous trial by ducking,

Official Congressional Portrait of Tim Kaine
 (Governor, Senator, and Witch Pardoner)

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine granted her an official pardon. A statue of her holding a basket of rosemary and a raccoon by her side is visible from Independence Boulevard near the current Sentara Bayside Hospital and not too distant from her place of trial. This commemorative statue by sculptor Robert Cunningham was unveiled on April 21, 2007.

So…next time you happen to be in Virginia Beach, riding down Witchduck Road or visiting a friend living on Witchduck Point, give a nod to the lady who endured so much during one of Virginia’s less gracious moments.

Have a good week, dear Reader. Thanks for stopping by...Y'all come back now! 

Kate