Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1876 — Witchcraft in Pennsylvania—Granny Tribble’s Mummeries. [ARTICLE]

Witchcraft in Pennsylvania—Granny Tribble’s Mummeries.

We had a long drive, nearly down to the borders of Berks, past log bouses a hundred years old, past people w ho had never traveled by railway and who have lived their years upon the same farms where they were born. We w ere in quest of the homestead of Granny Tribble, the most famous of backwoods sorceresses, and oiie of the most successful in the practice of primitive black art. She it visited, feed, and believed in by hundreds of simple people in her part of the country. “ f*ow -wowing” is an institution in this section of the State. Nearly every town, hamlet, l>orough', or village in Lancaster, Lebanon and Berks lias its witch or sooth-’ sayer, and these people reallyderive large incomes from their reputed powers. They profess to heal the sick, detect crime, reveal the past, present and future, bring about pestilence aud famine, destroy crops, put spells ou horses and cattle, and plagues on individuals, restore lost articles, and in all.these specialties their pro-, sessions are received with implicit faith by those who patronize them. Granuy Tribble is said to be the most successful of them all. Her works are known far and wide. 0 Our drive let us past Knauer’s, a small post village of Brecknock, and the landlord of the White Hall inn there, in great seriousness aud earnestness, directed us on our way to Granny Tribble’s. The house was half fnime, half log, with a chimney, on one end containing enough material to build / a dozen small houses. We were invited to enter, not with a pleasant bow or a glad smile, but with a haughty sway of the head aud a sweep of the hand, which seemed to say: “ Come in, if you want to.” The woman was tall, and straight to her shoulders, but her head bent forward until her chin nearly touched her breast. She was more than eighty years old, with gray hair, dark eyes, a fair, white skin, aud regular features. She must have been beautiful once. She rested upon a heavy cane, and, half turning, told us to be seated. She seated herself in an old hickory chair, and said: “ Well, well, what is it ye want? Are ye crossed in love, sick or unhappy? What is the trouble?”

This was very much like the soothsaying of 200 years ago. Her story, which she did not give us until after some solicitation, was equally old-fashioned in the simplicity and assurance of its pretensions. It was hard to believe that the woiqan who was talking lived in Pennsylvania and in the nineteenth century. Her father, Heinrich Tribble, she said, was a seventh son, born among the Hartz Mountarns. His grandmother had inherited from her grandmother a rare and mysterious book, which for nearly 800 years had been handed down in the family, and never looked into except by the owners. When the last grandmother was dying she called Heinrich Tribble to her bedside and predicted that he would marry a seventh daughter, and that in course of time his seventh child would be a daughter, and to that daughter she would leave an heirloom, a book more precious than gold. She further stated that that seventh child would he horn with a “ veil on,” and that when she reached the age of seventeen she should receive the book andvall its contents. The aged sorceress died, and, according to her prediction, everything came truly to pass. The father was enjoined to keep his word and follow out her commands to the very letter, “ and ever since,” said the woman, “ I have been in the possession of the book left to me by my father’s grandmother. “ When I had read it tnree years I made up my mind to commence business, and I went to work; and since then I have been doing lor myself and have managed to get along without a husband. “In that book I can see anything I wish. It is not printed, but written. How old it is 1 cannot say. Tjie first tiling I ever learned from it was to stop the flow of blood. It is all in Dutch and I must say the words in Dutch. 1 can stop a wound from bleeding by saying : ‘ Blood, blood, was not made to flow", the Lord himself hath willed it so.’ (This is the translation.) I say these words, pass my finger over and |cross the cut or wound, blow on it three times and the blood will stop flowing, the wound heal up, and there will be m> inflammation. 1 hare three words yet -to say when I dy this. Those words I cannot tell you.” To cure scalds, burns, bruises, sores, ring-worm, scrofula and kindred diseases the old woman has another “pow-wow.” It consists of two verses, which are repeated while the sores are smeared with grease rendered from the weasel. “ Wildfire, small-pox and the itch must be treated with grease rendered from a black cat that has died with its throat cut.” “ These are the commonest uses of powwowing,” she went on. “ I almost forgot to mention the falling fits and ‘falling away.’ Babes waste away to skin ana bone and their mothers don’t know wliat’s the matter with them. They bring the little things here and I take'the spell off them and tltyygetfat and healthy. ‘ Spells’ site put on babies by evil spirits, and the innocents waste away and die, just like a plant that withers for want of water. My book tells me what evil spirit bangs over the child, and that spirit must first be killed. If that is done the little one lives to very old age.” Granny was asked whether she had faith in it. “Faith in it!” said she; “ indeed I have. Nothing would work unless I believed and knew it would under the charm. I have never failed. I have brought back stolen horses, and cattle and money. I have brought back menls wives, and daughters, and sons; ana I have brought back husbands from the paths of vice to their firesides.” The granny stretched up her thin, bony arm, and mysteriously shook her head. “ Yes, indeed! on the wish-bank over the meadow, many and many a time have I sat with my hazel rod and studied the moon and the stars, and read their signs, and heard the voice of the spirit telling me this and tills and this. I djd as I was told, and I have yet to know of a single man, woman or child 1 ever deceived = er ever advised wrongly. “ i~es, lam often asked to do wrong. I can conjure, to be sure. I had an enemylong ago. and he pulled frogs ana worms out ol liis hide for blasphemin' l * me. A farmer cursed me, and his stock and children died. A toll man rented me, and he was carried oft' by unkuown hands to the hills, where he nearly starved to death. How he got there he does not know.” She was asked where she kept her book. “That is buried and it will be out of sight many days. 1 dare not look at it myself. It is wrapped in the veil that came over my face when I was brought to earth, and everything is buried in ashes from the wood of the cypress-tree. I have made my peace with Heaven and I do no more injury to others. Their crops may flourish for all I care, but some must be punished. Many a midnight I have walked around their farms and made them

barren for a season. I have cured a horse by rubbing his tongue with birclfftianc and repeating a German appeal to the Most High. I have‘cured St. Anthony’s dance by the ‘ fire-stone,’ and have relieved peo- ; plu from all bodily complaints by the lilyroot. ** Salt in the stocking prevents toothache ; a piece of pappr with ‘ Hear me, hear me, tiy not from me,’ w-ritten with a raven’s quill with lamb's blood, is a sure protection from assault or danger by flood, or war, or pestilence or disease; four eyelashes wrapped in muslin and carried in the left shoe will increase the sight aud the spfced of walking; dried snakeskin about the wrists prevents apoplexy;” and at this granny pulled up her sleeves and exhibited two ornamented bracelets made out of the skin of beautiful rattlesnakes. Several years ago, she said, she had two fine copperheads stuffed and mounted on a spiral wire that wound around her arms or neck, just like a real serpent. This was to aid the free circulation ofblood and tcTkeep off' nervousness and dyspepsia. “ For luck at sea carry the hazel blossoms, wet or dry; for chills, the fire-fly; for contagions diseases, such as smallpox, etc., black fur from the left tore foot of a cat. : % • “To cure ring-bone on animals, take'a chicken that is perfectly black and less than a year old, and cut his head off. The blood flowing is put on the sore every five hours for three times. To prevent erysipelas from spreading use the blood of a black cat. This has done its work when doctors have failed. “A child lost the use of its arms and limbs. 1 bathed it in the rain-drops under the eaves, dried it with a dish-cloth, burned a shoe found on the wayside, and that child got well.” These and many other cases were related by this strange woman. She lives alone and makes a comfortable living. She has no charges, but tikes what is given her as a present. The farmers tear her and have great confidence in her powers. She has lived among them for fifty years, and has never been known to be sick. —Lancaster (Pa.) Cor. N. Y. Sun.