Tuesday, July 15, 2008

• Deliberately Concealed Objects

  Well, as you probably guess from my pulses, today I spent a lot time--wasted a lot of time more like--looking at weird art history-related websites.  And I found this one incredibly interesting website called The Deliberately Concealed Garments Project.

  

  Location of the second Lawshall cache found in 2001 down the side of a brick chimney stack.

  Image © Copyright 2001 Paula and Barry Harber

  In the Early Modern Era, it was a common practice of folk magic to conceal objects within your home in order to protect it.  The places objects were usually concealed were within the walls, in the chimney or under the hearth, in the foundations of the house, or underneath windowsills.  The more personal the object, the more magical power it potentially possessed. 

  

  A child's cap and a mid-18th century pocket from the Abingdon cache in Oxfordshire, discussed with other garment finds by Dinah Eastop.

  The kind of garments found in old houses include gloves, shoes, corsettes, doublets, hats, and many other types of clothing.  If there was a rhyme or reason as to why some garments were chosen over others, it's been lost to history, although shoes were probably the most popular piece of clothing concealed in homes.  All the clothes were worn before concealment.

  

  This bellarmine witch-bottle was discovered beneath the hearth in an old cottage in Felmersham, Bedfordshire in late 2001. After being x-rayed, photographed and examined it was found to contain hair, pins, and it tested positively for urine.

  Not just clothing was hidden in houses--other popular objects of concealment were witch bottles, dried cats, written charms and ritual marks, toys and broken dolls, and skulls--of both the human and animal variety.  Witch bottles contained some type of protective spell, and usually have nails (iron), human hair, and urine sealed inside them.  They were placed at the major entry points of houses--either the front or back doors, and the hearth, which was open to the sky and thus a potential entry point for spirits.  A lot of effort was made to conceal witch-bottles within a home (imagine having to deconstruct and rebuild your fireplace, or cut a hole in your floor and then re-tile, -board, or -carpet it, just to hide one of these).  Some witch-bottles are made from glass and date from the mid-19th century, which is a considerably modern date for English folk magic.

  

  A dried cat which is on display in the bar at the Red Cat Hotel in Norfolk.

  Dried cats are usually found in the roof, under the floor boards, or plastered within the walls.  They're typically posed in a position that suggests they're hunting, and they could have been meant to hunt for "spiritual vermin" to protect the inhabitants of the house.  They weren't dried when they were concealed in the walls, and they probably weren't alive, either.  But were they killed in order to serve as an apotropaic charm against evil?  Are these animals surviving (but not...) examples of sacrificial magic?

  

  Charm from Ceredigion, West Wales.

  Written charms were for the more hoity-toity residents, as they had to written by someone educated in the more magical arts.  They frequently contain a mixture of Biblical verses, Latin, astrology, and magical symbols (the example shown here has an abracabra triangle to the right), and were placed in gaps between the masonry and timber.  A typical charm found in Powys, Wales, reads, "Lord Jesus Christ be the preserver of William Pentrynant his cows, calves, milk, butter, cattle of all ages, mares, suckers, horses, of all ages yews, lambs, sheep of all ages, pigs, sows and prosper him on this farm to live luckily saved from all witchcraft and evil men or women spirits or wizards or hardness of heart amen." [from Merrifield, The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic, 1987, Batsford, p151]

  But the flip side of the written charm was the written curse, which people put into the cursee's house to drive them away and bring ill luck.  One of the most famous curses is that of Sarah Ellis.  Found in a cupboard at Wilton Place near Dymock (Gloucestershire) in 1892, it has Ellis' full name written at the top, backwards, and then some astrological signs which refer to the moon.  After that is the invocation of 8 demons.  For example, "Hasmodait Acteus Magalesius Ormenus Leius Nicon Minon Zeper make this person to Banish away from this place and Countery amen. To my desire amen" (Merrifield, 1987: 147-8).  Creepy.  You sure wouldn't want that to be in your house, whether you believe in curses or not.  Another curse, from the 18th century, was pinned to the skirt of a broken doll, buried in the floorboards of bedroom, and read, "Mary Ann Ward. I act this spell upon you from my holl [whole] heart wishing you to never rest nor eat nor sleep the resten part of your life I hope your flesh will waste away and I hope you will never spend another penney I ought to have. Wishing this from my whole heart.’ (Hereford Times, 22 Jan. 1960).  That is just nasty.  I couldn't find any mention on the internets as to whether Sarah Ellis or Mary Ann Ward suffered any ill-effects from their curses.

  So now I'm beginning to wonder--should I conceal a protective charm in my house?  And would my parents actually notice if I cut a hole into the drywall????  Probably not if plastered and painted over it.  But perhaps I should be more worried about finding curses.

  For more information about Early Modern witchcraft and concealed objects, check out Brian Hoggard's excellent website, Apotropaios.

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