Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1914 — ALL FEARED WITCHES [ARTICLE]

ALL FEARED WITCHES

WELBH PEOPLE ONCE HAD IM» PLICIT FAITH IN POWERS. Many Stories of Malevolent Deeds Have Been Handed Down Through Generations—Practiced Their Arts on Dumb Animals.

M. L. Lewes, in the Occult Review, tells some stories about witches. I must apologize to my psychic readers for repeating them, as no doubt most of them take that admirable monthly, a writer in T. P.’s weekly says. In. olden days Welsh witches used to “put spells” on the animals of neighbors who annoyed them. If a cow was the victim it would.sicken of no apparent disease, cease to give milk, and, if the spell were not removed, would die. The effect of “witching” a pig was to cause a curious kind of madness, something like a fit; this agaid ended fatally unless a counter charm was forthcoming. Qiiite recently I saw one of these "charms” quoted in a local paper by a collector of folklore. “An old witch living not far from Llangalock (in Carmarthenshire . . . on one occasion when she had witched a pig, was compelled subsequently to unwitch the animal. She came and put her hand on the pig’s back, sayfin ‘Duwa’th gad wo i’th berchenog' (God keep thee to thine owner).’* Which seems a mild way of calming a frenzied pig. "A noted witch,” says Mr. Lewis, “used to live about a mile and a half from my own home. She was known as ‘Mary Perllan Peter,’ from the name of her house, Perllan Peter, deep down in a thickly wooded ravine, or dingle, as we call it in Cardiganshire. This way of designating individuals is common in onr part of Wales, where surnames among the peasantry are chiefly limited to Jones, Davles and Evans. So that a person’s Christian name, followed by* that of his house, is far more distinctive than using a surname most probably common to half the people in a parish. So the witch was ‘Mary of Peter’s Orchard’ (‘perllan’ meaning orchard, though who ‘Peter’, was I could never find out, and she was undoubtedly a powerful one). “One day she asked a neighbor to bring her some corn which she required, and the man very unwillingly consented, the path down to the* cottage was very steep and the. corn heavy to carry. On the way he spilt some, and Mary was very angry and muttered threats to her friend when he left. And when he got back to his home and went to the table, what was his amazement to see his little mare "sitting like a pig” on her haunches and staring wildly before her. He went to her, and pulling at the halter, tried to get her on her feet, hut in vain; she did not seem to be able to move. Then the man, veryTrightened. bethought him of the witch’s threats, for he felt surC the mare was spellbound. So he sent off, and when she arrived Bhe went straight up to the animal and ‘Moran fach, what ails thee now?’ was all she said, and the mare jumped to her feet as well and lively As ever."