Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

Time once again for a seasonal special edition of Stratford Mail. Visitors to Stratford are often struck by the wards against witches and evil spirits incised into its exterior brick and interior floors. These marks are reminders of our ancestors’ belief that this visible world overlapped an invisible world that was a source of both palpable wonders and terrors. Witches and conjured spirits were believed to gain access to homes through hearths, windows, and other openings, and hide in the shadowy nooks, crannies, and corners of homes. Once inside they would vex the inhabitants and ruin their property. Wards like the hexafoil or ‘daisy-wheel’ incised on the nursery floor of Stratford were proactive countermeasures to supernatural mischief. Alternatively, folks might invoke the protection of Jesus’ virgin mother, inscribing AM (Ave Maria), VV (Virgin of Virgins), or simply M (Mary) in vulnerable locations–all of these are visible on the red exterior brick of Stratford. Think of it as our spiritual security system! Colonial-era Virginians believed in witches and conjurations, but extant records indicate that Virginians were reluctant to prosecute and convict for witchcraft. Join us this month as we consider witches and witchcraft in the Virginia colony–Listen to Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble now!

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Transcript

Stratford Mail

2:7 Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble 

Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble. 

The three “weyward sisters” [pronounced WAY-rrd] or weird sisters from Shakespeare’s Macbeth (referred to as witches in the stage directions) have fired our imaginations and cultural images of witchcraft and witches since that play was first performed in 1606. How easy to picture the three sisters stooped over the bubbling cauldron as they inventory ingredients for a “hell-broth”: fillet of a fenny snake, wool of a bat, gall of a goat, and the ground stomach and throat of a mummy [Macbeth Act 4. Scene 1]. Folks had witches on their minds in 1606; in part because the new English King James I was consumed by the topic. In 1597, James wrote a book titled Daemonologie, wherein he explained that:

My intention in this labour, is only to prove two things … : the one, that such devilish arts have been and are. The other, what exact trial and severe punishment they merit. 

Daemonologie was written in the aftermath of the North Berwick witch panic of the 1590s, the first major ‘witch hunt’ in Scotland. The use of the term ‘witch hunt’ by American politicians (who feel they’ve been wrongly accused) reflects a misunderstanding of American and European witchlore. Witch hunts rarely targeted the powerful. They targeted vulnerable and secondary populations of early modern society, typically women. Women described as argumentative, combative, or who exhibited some form of agency not expected of women or prescribed for them often found themselves on the business end of witch hunts.

Witch beliefs and warding practices crossed the Atlantic with the English-speaking settlers of the New World. They reflected centuries of cross-pollinating European traditions about witches, witch-finding, and witch wards, found in countless pamphlets, judicial transcripts, folkways, and even in artwork and entertainments like Macbeth. A result of all these sources pooling together is that witchlore tended to look more and more uniform over time. One feature of that uniformity was diabolism or the idea that witches are in cahoots with the Devil of Christian traditions. We see this in James’ Daemonologie with its reference to the devilish arts, but a 16th century pamphlet about four women and one man executed for witchcraft in Abington, England expresses the point best: The witch bears the name, but the devil dispatches the deeds—without him the witch can continue no mischief. Demonic compact, or allegiance to Satan in exchange for supernatural powers, is a vibrant theme of early modern witchlore, and nowhere more evident than in the 1692 witch panic at Salem in the Massachusetts Bay colony. But Virginians weren’t Puritans (even if as Protestant Christians they shared some core ideas and values). English settlement of Virginia lacked the overarching religious vision of Puritan settlements in the north. This isn’t to say that the Virginia Company of London didn’t pay lip service to broad Anglican Christian objectives, but those objectives routinely took a backseat to commercial interests. In his November 1622 sermon to the Company, poet and preacher John Donne needs to remind the shareholders that consideration of profit … and religion may well consist together. It was religion they’d neglected, not the profit. The point is that Virginians were much less likely than Puritans to see themselves as individual and collective combatants in some epically scaled metaphysical contest between God and the Devil in the American wilds.    

Virginians were nevertheless susceptible to fear of witchcraft, and the first witchcraft charges on record in British North America occur in 1626 in what would become Surry County, VA, long before any rumors of witches in New England. Left-handed midwife Joan Wright, who by her own admission had some knowledge of witchcraft and who her neighbors found to be a caustic, disagreeable person, became the community scapegoat for a series of adverse incidents, the death of a newborn, crop and livestock failures, and the like. This was the pattern generally: identification of a witch was a release valve for community anxiety about unlucky events and helped the community to reestablish some sense of control. Joan Wright was acquitted. 

In keeping with the 1604 witchcraft statute of James I , Virginia courts recognized two types of witchcraft. 

If any person or persons … shall use, practise, or exercise any invocation or conjuration of any evil and wicked spirit: or shall consult, covenant with, entertaine, imploy, feed, or reward any evil and wicked spirit, … or shall use, practise, or exercise, any Witchcraft, Inchantment, Charme or Sorcery, whereby any person shall be Killed, Destroyed, Wasted, Consumed, Pined, or Lamed, in His or Her body, or any part therof; that then every such Offender, or Offenders, their Ayders, Abettors, and Counsellors, being of the said offences duly and lawfully Convicted and Attainted, shall suffer paines of death as a Felon or Felons, and shall lose the priviledge and benefit of Clergy and Sanctuary.

In addition to felony witchcraft, the statute set a term of one year imprisonment for petty witchcraft, which involved the misdemeanor use of spells, charms, and incantations. Several years before Stratford was built, Parliament repealed the 1604 statute (1736) to reflect the rise of the new science and a widening spirit of Enlightenment characterized by rational inquiry and thought. The 1604 statute was nevertheless the law of the land for almost 150 years, notably during the founding and early formation of British North America. This law of the land could be supplemented so long as it wasn’t countermanded or contradicted. In 1655 the justices of lower Norfolk, Virginia supplemented the law to better suit emerging Virginian sensibilities about witchcraft:     

Whereas diverse & scandalous speeches have been raised by some persons concerning several women in this County, terming them to be Witches, whereby their reputations have been much impaired and their lives brought into question … It is by this Court ordered that what person soever shall hereafter raise any such scandal, concerning any parties whatsoever, and shall not be able to prove the same, both upon oath, and by sufficient witness, such person so offending shall in the first place pay a thousand pounds of tobacco, and likewise be liable to further censure of the Court. 

Thus the only uniquely Virginian policy pertaining to witches wasn’t about witches as such, but responded instead to the social instability caused by allegations and accusations of witchcraft. The existence of this policy suggests that Virginia courts and the elites who staffed them were more circumspect about witchcraft allegations than the commonfolk. In 1659 Ann Godby of Norfolk was convicted under this statute for defaming Mrs. Nicholas Robinson, “terming her a witch,” and her husband Mr. Godby was ordered to pay 300 lbs of tobacco in fines and legal costs. Ann Godby had a history of litigations, and in 1648 was sentenced to receive 15 lashes for “grossly defaming” a Mrs. Lloyd. And only a week before the Norfolk justices passed the 1655 statute they heard a suit brought by Mrs. Thomas Daines against Ann Godby for defamation. What we learn from this is that to Virginia courts witchcraft charges were pragmatically secondary to social cohesion in a hostile, forbidding environment. 

What you rarely see in the extant Virginia record is any talk of demonic compacts or deals with the Devil. So far as we can track this in the courts (and our records are incomplete in the aftermath of the Civil War), the Devil wasn’t a problem in Virginia, but the social stress caused by accusations of witchcraft and witch trials was. As a rule, Virginians were more pragmatic than doctrinaire–Virginia wasn’t some grand theological experiment in the way Puritan New England was intended to be. Virginians opted for socially cohesive behavior over unity of beliefs (and that would till the field for religious toleration and freedom); theology can get in the way of making money in an unforgiving environment in a way that behavioral unity doesn't. I’m not saying Virginians didn’t believe in the Devil: I’m saying they don’t seem to have an appetite to talk about it and their investigative and legal apparatus certainly show no appetite to prosecute women and others for diabolical entanglements.

Take the case of the most famous of the Virginia witches, Grace Sherwood, the so-called witch of Pungo. Grace was in and out of the courts pursuing defamation charges and damages against folks who put it about that Grace was a witch. Her litigious and fraught relationships with her neighbors culminated in 1705 when Grace was awarded damages in an assault case filed against neighbors Luke and Elizabeth Hill. In what looks to be a retaliation, the Hills later lleged that Grace was a witch responsible for Elizabeth’s miscarriage. Princess Anne Co. justices did everything they could to dissuade the Hills from pursuing the suit. To no avail–in March 1706, Grace was searched by a jury of women for incriminating bodily marks (they found spare teats and other unspecified marks, likely proof of a witch). What did the justices do? They referred the case to the governor’s council in Williamsburg, who ordered an investigation before promptly referring the matter back to the county for additional inquiry. By July the justices had decided, and Grace had consented, to a trial by ducking (the infamous water test no longer in use in Europe), but the trial was postponed due to inclement weather and concern for Grace’s health. On July 10 Grace (bound hand to foot and weighted) was tossed into the Lynnhaven river. She managed to free herself from her bonds and swam to shore, all of which meant she was guilty (everyone knows that witches float!). Yes, yes, because the purity of water (think Baptism) won’t embrace an impure entity. Grace was convicted and sentenced to 7 odd years in prison. Let’s put that in perspective: in Salem (which admittedly was a limit case), 4-year-old Dorothy Good was imprisoned and shackled for 10 months on the mere suspicion of being a witch (because her mother Sarah Good had been convicted of witchcraft and hanged). By contrast, the Virginia court did not act precipitously on the allegation against Grace. Again Virginians believed in witches, and took their own measures, including the use of protective wards (apotropaics) like those incised on the exterior brick and interior floors of Stratford Hall, or witch jars like the one found in York County, Virginia in 2016. A practitioner would place metal pins (sometimes hair) in boiled urine, seal it in a small jar and bury it upside down in the belief that any malevolent spell would boomerang onto the witch who cast it (who would be IDed by and suffer from bladder discomfort). An overwhelming majority of persons formally accused of witchcraft in Virginia were acquitted–Grace was an exception (she was pardoned by former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine on July 10, 2006). The only known execution for witchcraft in Virginia wasn’t in Virginia, but rather en route to Virginia. In 1654 Katherine Grady, an elderly Englishwoman bound for Jamestown was executed by hanging for witchcraft after the Captain of the ship on which she’d booked passage identified her as the source of a perilous storm. 

While demonic compact isn’t really a feature of the Virginia Witchscape, let’s consider an outlying case, which happened right here in Westmoreland County. In 1695 Henry Dunkin accused his brother John’s wife Elizabeth Dunkin of suckling the Devil. The charge wasn’t carried; Elizabeth and John countersued for damages totalling 40k lbs of tobacco and were awarded 10 lbs. Several things to note here (and our records in this case are more complete than in any other criminal or civil witchcraft trial in VA): first, as I’ve said, this kind of accusation was rare, but you can learn something about Chesapeake witchcraft from it, namely, that neighborly conflicts and feuds were often at the heart of it; second, the court ignored the sensational charge (that Elizabeth was suckling the devil) and awarded just enough on the countersuit to make a point but without putting Henry Dunkan in the poorhouse and adding fuel to the spiraling feud; third, the Dunkans came from Scotland (as had James I) and there witchcraft was tied to demonic compact–consider that from 1542-1735 there were ~1k executions for witchcraft in England, but in the same period in Scotland (1/5th the size of England) there were ~4k executions; fourth, this is 2-3 years after Salem, when most colonists are running away from the kinds of sensational claims involved in the tragic and embarrassing Salem witch panic (Elizabeth Dunkan was accused of literally smelling of fire and brimstone); fifth, the 3 witnesses in the Dunkan trial were awarded a total of 640 lbs of tobacco (the justices placed a premium on evidence); and sixth, only a year prior John Dunkan unsuccessfully sued his brother Henry Dunkan for an outstanding debt of 3k lbs of tobacco.

Virginians preferred what English reformer Thomas Cranmer called a “cheerful and comfortable faith,” nothing too controversial, nothing too challenging. The Virginia wilds were difficult enough to master without the problem of social instability caused by fear of rampant supernatural powers. Neither Anglican theology nor Anglican preaching inspired people to take up religious practices that were keyed to close self-scrutiny, studying oneself for marks of election or damnation, grace or sin. Generally speaking, Virginians weren’t on the lookout for that in others either. The extant records pertaining to witchcraft in Virginia lack the seriousness of the New England records. New England Puritans were at war with the devil and their own lower natures. For Virginia Anglicans, being religious was largely about shoring up order and stability in an explosive hierarchically ordered slave society, but that is a story for another day.   

Outro  

Opening background recitation by Jane Montgomery Griffiths and courtesy of Melbourne Theatre Company and Simon Phillips’ 2017 production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Sound effects courtesy of Pixabay
Music is William Ross Chernoff's "In Shadows"
AI voices courtesy of Play.ht and Easy-Peasy.ai (except Dr. Steffey)

© Dr. Gordon Blaine Steffey, 2024