During the Victorian era, the presence and perception of witches underwent significant changes. This period, which spanned from 1837 to 1901, was characterized by a revival of interest in the occult and supernatural. However, witches were often depicted as either sinister and malevolent or as victims of superstition and prejudice. The Victorian era saw the rise of spiritualism, a movement that claimed to communicate with the dead through mediums. This newfound fascination with the afterlife, coupled with a general interest in the occult, led to the popularization of witches as both figures of fear and objects of fascination. Witches were often portrayed as powerful individuals who could harness supernatural abilities for either good or evil purposes.

Inner Lives

Witches were often portrayed as powerful individuals who could harness supernatural abilities for either good or evil purposes. However, the perception of witches during the Victorian era was not wholly positive. The influence of Christianity, reinforced by the Victorian ideals of morality and propriety, meant that witches were often associated with immoral behavior and devil worship.

Emotions, Identity, and the Supernatural, 1300–1900

The Witch of Loddon and Changing Perceptions of Witchcraft in Victorian England

Loddon depicted on an 1886 OS map. National Library of Scotland (CC-BY-4.0).

There are many stories of witchcraft in rural England from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but it is rare to find accounts of self-professed witches who actually attempted to make a living out of this unusual profession. One such example is Mother Chergrave (pronounced ‘Chegriff’), the witch of Loddon, a village in southeast Norfolk close to the border with Suffolk, who died in the early 1870s. Chergrave’s story was first recorded by Margaret Helen James (1859–1938) and included in her book Bogie Tales of East Anglia (1891), my new edition of which has recently been published. A similar but less detailed account of the witch of Loddon, possibly from a different source, was collected by Morley Adams in 1914.

Holy Trinity church, Loddon, on a 1907 postcard (plus cows). Via HipPostcard.

According to Margaret James’s version, Mother Chergrave made a living by selling charms. One of these, a verse charm to reveal the name of a future husband, was shown to James by a woman in Loddon who had received it personally from the witch. The charm promised to reveal the husband’s name, but at the cost of taking a year of life from the user of the charm:

To gain a husband, name known or unknown,
Make your choice on a graveyard stone,
Quarter day’s night if there fare a moon,
Pass through the church gate right alone;
Twist three roses crosses from graveyard bits,
Plant them straight in your finger slits,
Over the grave hold a steady hand,
And learn the way the side crosses stand.
One is yourself, and your husband one,
And the middle one need be named of none.
If they both on the middle cross have crossed,
His name you win, and a year you’ve lost;
For he who lies in the namesake mould
His soul has sold – or, he would have sold,
And you give a year which the dead may use,
Your last year of earth-life that you lose.

The witch had a single daughter, Mara, whom she brought back from one of her frequent and mysterious long journeys. Rather than learning charms from her mother, Mara learnt charms ‘from morning dreams’. The witch claimed that her daughter was ‘bound over’ to Satan, and expected her to succeed her. On the night of her death, the witch gave her daughter a box containing her imps with the words, ‘Mara, take these imps, and let them bite your breasts, and you’ll be a greater witch than I have been. Don’t you let the devil be your master, but make him mind you’. Mother Chergrave also instructed her daughter that she was never to marry. However, immediately after the witch’s death Mara put the box containing the imps on the fire, without opening it, and went on to marry.

Graves and a rose in Loddon churchyard. Both featured in a charm sold by Mother Chergrave which promised to reveal the name of the purchaser’s future husband. Photos: James Brown.

Morley Adams claimed to have collected a version of the story of the witch of Loddon from an ‘old lady… particularly well up in the local history of witchcraft, and… a firm believer in the existence and power of witches’. Adams may have spoken to the same informant as Margaret James, but since he also heavily plagiarised James’s book, any claims he made to have collected folklore independently cannot be taken at face value. However, Adams added information about Mother Chergrave not found in the earlier account, such as the fact that she told fortunes by reading tealeaves (tassomancy). Adams also provided a description of the witch’s imps:

These imps were as large as a rat, and something like a human being, but with the wings of a bat. They had the power of either increasing or diminishing in size, but they usually were about as large as a small rat.

According to Adams, the witch would let her imps bite the breasts of any woman who wanted to become a witch.

The story of the witch of Loddon is of interest primarily because it shows that beliefs similar to those that appear in seventeenth-century witchcraft accounts persisted into the nineteenth century. The centrality of the imp (or familiar) is characteristic of English witchcraft in general, and East Anglian folklore in particular, while the idea of imps being passed on to another female family member to ensure witchcraft ran in families seems to have been distinctive to the eastern counties; Enid Porter recorded twentieth-century accounts of the inheritance of imps from Horseheath and West Wickham in Cambridgeshire, which likewise featured white mice in a box.

The witch of Loddon, as presented by Margaret James, seems to straddle the boundary between a witch and a cunning woman. Owen Davies has shown that the idea that cunning folk gained mastery of the devil (rather than allowing themselves to be mastered by him) was what often distinguished them from witches in the popular imagination. The witch of Loddon clearly made her living partly as a service magician, specifically a charmer. Possession of imps was a feature of some cunning folk as well as witches, such as the wizard of Aldeburgh in Suffolk, ‘Old Winter’. On the other hand, the idea of a person becoming a witch by allowing an imp to suckle his or her blood derives straight from the demonology of the seventeenth-century witchfinders.

The story of the witch of Loddon, in its two versions, is evidence that ideas of witchcraft and service magic were confused and entangled in the popular imagination in late nineteenth-century Norfolk, in quite complex ways. The word ‘witch’ itself may have been used with multiple senses: as a straightforward term of abuse against a woman; as a synonym for a cunning woman or service magician; or to refer to a person suspected of causing supernatural harm by ill-wishing (the ‘malefic’ witch). By the second half of the nineteenth century, however, these latter two meanings seem to have become confused. I am reminded of a former colleague whose family had lived for centuries in a fenland town who told me that the women in her family were hereditarily inclined to witchcraft, suggesting that she might be descended from people persecuted by Matthew Hopkins. She then gave me examples of elderly relatives who had practised fortune-telling. ‘Witchcraft’, in this context, seemed to mean any interest in obtaining supernatural knowledge – and the formerly exclusive association between witchcraft and supernatural harm was nowhere to be seen.

A pathway leading from the east of Loddon churchyard. Photo: James Brown.

However, the tendency of rural people in nineteenth- and twentieth-century England to use the vocabulary of witchcraft even when they were not speaking of traditional malefic witches is revealing. ‘Witchcraft’ became a progressively ‘greedier concept’ in seventeenth-century discourse, sucking in all kinds of magical practice. This trend continued into the eighteenth century, when belief in witchcraft frequently stood in for any kind of ‘superstition’ unacceptable to the intellectual values of the Enlightenment. In the nineteenth century, Jules Michelet’s suggestion that the witch trials were a campaign of political persecution directed at people who possessed knowledge of healing cemented the idea that any and all magical practitioners were (or were at least accused of being) ‘witches’. Some or all of these cultural factors seem to have contributed to a widespread use of the vocabulary of witchcraft in nineteenth-century England that went well beyond its original, more restricted meaning.

The folkloric portrayal of the witch of Loddon straddles the imp-suckling witch of the East Anglian witchfinders and the cunning woman who has gained mastery of the devil. The co-existence of these apparently contradictory elements reveals the extent to which the witch-lore of nineteenth-century East Anglia, although rooted in the seventeenth century, had developed its own distinctive emphases.

Francis’s new edition of Bogie Tales of East Anglia by Margaret Helen James, featuring the original version of the story of the witch of Loddon, is out now with St Jurmin Press.

Double, double, toil and trouble Witchcraft methodology in nineteenth-century Britain and the U.S.

│By André Buller, Gale Ambassador at the University of Portsmouth │ Ideas of sorcery, witchcraft and incantations have persisted in intriguing me throughout my years of study. The ways in which the supernatural arose and manifested alongside historical events has always fascinated me, and consequently I’ve found myself studying subjects that considered the mystical in both the literary and historical units of my degree. The topics I’ve studied in these classes have ranged as widely as manifestations of the supernatural have in the past. One week I’d study the seventeenth century, witch-hunts of Salem and the pursuits of Matthew Hopkins, but by the next week be focusing on the rise of Occultism. Though definitely interesting, the famous contention between sceptical magician Harry Houdini and stalwart believer Arthur Conan Doyle did not discuss specific methods of magical practise at that time, leaving something of a gap in my knowledge of how the mysticality of witchcraft persisted in the nineteenth century. However, Gale Primary Sources proved bountiful once again, and through exploring this wealth of documents it is possible to answer methodological questions – such as how people cast spells – to those of a more analytical nature, such as how witchcraft was defined in the Victorian era. Bodily Magic A notable distinction I found in the sources were those that discussed witchcraft in relation to the body, either inflicted upon or released from it. The Morning Chronicle of 1828, one of the periodicals in Gale’s British Library Newspapers collection, describes the actions of one Rose Pares, who “enjoyed the reputation of being a witch,” as she treated an ill peasant girl. Marching into the room, Rose was swift to diagnose the child as “bewitched” before ordering those present to help her arrange the room for her magic. The writing is useful in showing contemporarily agreed constants of witchcraft; “Little as we are initiated into the secrets of magic, we know that odd numbers, and especially the number three, have singular virtues; therefore, three, multiplied by three, must be a number prodigiously powerful.” For this reason, the witch used nine heated stones to make a mystical vapour, before using coins to extract the spiritual malevolence from the girl’s body.

“CASE OF WITCHCRAFT.” Morning Chronicle [1801], 28 Sept. 1829. British Library Newspapers, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/8AAYQ3#.XGq77cQL-Yc.link

Similarly, in 1848, the Boston Investigator, a periodical in Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers, provides more magical constants that witchcraft ascribed to the body. It describes the energies that emit from the body, as a form called “effluvia,” and determines that the eye, an imperative tool in the craft of sorcery, manipulates and slings this energy in order to cast spells. In these ways, methods of witchcraft persisted through relation to physical needs and attributes, either in illness or in physiology.

“Witchcraft.” Boston Investigator, 12 Jan. 1848. Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/99LZj9#.XGq7mB87H3I.link

Occult ideas In addition to physicality, witchcraft methodology often found itself inexorably linked to idiosyncratic ideas of occultism. For example, Gale’s Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers archive includes an article from 1851 that described supernatural communication in occultist terms, linking interactions with “spirits” to certain sounds and knocks. Individuals would “establish confidence” in a “guardian spirit”, using pencils and sounds to inquire questions toward the supernatural entity from beyond the grave. Indeed, nineteenth century preternatural methodology built upon a mixture of such occultist and traditional ‘witchy’ concepts.

“Spirit Rappings.” Cleveland Daily Herald, 21 Feb. 1851. Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/8AAhD1#.XGrDw5ALT38.link

In the Portland Oregonian in 1892 an article discussed hypnotism and puppetry: “It will be remembered that the genuine “witches” of the Puritan era had, or were alleged to have had, a tantalizing habit of maltreating their victims by making little dolls or “poppets,” as they were called, giving them the names of the persons whom they wished to persecute, and then sticking pins in them”. Though aged by the time of authorship, such methods had persisted – albeit evolving over time. The column describes how a Dr. Luys “claimed to have succeeded in transferring the sensibilities of a hypnotized person to an inanimate object”. Apparently, he managed to place a woman’s mind into a glass of water, who winced when the water was touched or drank. Thus, it becomes clear that these supernatural methods and views survived the century, though evolved to mirror the trends of the times.

“Modern ‘Witchcraft’.” Portland Oregonian [Oregon Territory], 22 Dec. 1892, p. 4. Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/99LZ48#.XGrFKYuTp5g.link

Undeniable humanity Though supernatural methods shifted in mysticism, in some ways witchcraft remained a distinctly human affair. Recorded in the British Library Newspapers archive is the violence of Annie Gilroy, who was charged with assaulting Jane Forden in 1874. According to Anne, she acted out of defence; “The defendant fancied that she was “bewitched” by the complainant, and determined to “draw blood” as the approved method of dispelling the witchcraft. This she succeeded in doing by committing the assault.” Though there is no real supernatural discussion, Anne felt she could make the case for her actions with witchcraft, giving credence to the idea that it was, at least to some extent, still a believed phenomenon with rules and exceptions to subvert.

Witchcraft, magic, and society in nineteenth-century Somerset

Although we often think of witchcraft as a practice rooted in medieval and early modern social systems, popular belief remained alive and well in South West England long into the Victorian era.

In the 1990s Owen Davies conducted systematic newspaper surveying and record linkage research regarding the continued belief in witchcraft and magic in nineteenth-century Somerset.

This revealed a wealth of court cases and ethnographic material about the complex relationship between the supernatural, agriculture, neighbourly relations, urbanisation, policing, and rural change.

Since then, he has worked with a number of other historians to conduct similar research on other parts of the country. In this talk he will explore these county comparisons. Why is it that there were so many assaults on suspected witches in Somerset? Why were so many cunning-folk prosecuted compared to other parts of the country? There are more questions than answers perhaps – so far.

Speaker: Owen Davies, Professor of History at the University of Hertfordshire. He is the author of numerous books and articles on witchcraft, magic, ghosts, folklore and popular medicine, including A People Bewitched: Witchcraft and Magic in Nineteenth Century Somerset and most recently A Supernatural Struggle: Magic, Divination and Faith During the First World War.

How to take part

This free, online talk will be held over Zoom. Please book your place below. Details of how to join the session will be in your registration email. Please check your spam folder if the email does not arrive. Bookings close at 4pm on Thursday 17 February.

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This is a UWE Regional History Centre talk in partnership with M Shed seminar series.

This negative portrayal was further perpetuated by the media, where witches were depicted as old hags or evil temptresses seeking to corrupt innocent individuals. At the same time, the Victorian era witnessed a growing interest in the history and folklore surrounding witches. Scholars and writers sought to document and preserve legends and practices related to witchcraft, often romanticizing the figure of the witch. This led to the rediscovery of traditional folk beliefs and rituals, and the recognition of witches as practitioners of herbal medicine and other forms of natural healing. The Victorian era also saw the persecution and ostracization of individuals accused of witchcraft, although not to the extent of the infamous witch trials of the previous centuries. Accusations of witchcraft were often tied to fear, superstition, and paranoia, with many innocent people falling victim to rumors and prejudice. In conclusion, the Victorian era was a time of paradoxical attitudes towards witches. While there was a revival of interest in the occult and a romanticized view of witches as supernatural beings, they were also associated with negative stereotypes and persecution. The fascination with witches during this period reflects the wider societal interests and anxieties of the time, encapsulating both the allure and fear of the supernatural..

Reviews for "The Witchcraft Parlor: Victorian Era Witchcraft Practices in Everyday Life"

1. Emily - 2 stars - I really didn't enjoy "Victorian era witch". The story felt slow-paced and lacked excitement. The characters were one-dimensional and lacked depth, making it hard for me to connect with them. Additionally, the writing style was dry and lacked descriptive language, leaving me feeling uninterested and detached from the story. Overall, I was disappointed with this book and would not recommend it.

2. Jacob - 1 star - "Victorian era witch" was a complete letdown for me. The plot was predictable and full of clichés, making it difficult to engage with the story. The protagonist lacked development and seemed to possess unrealistic abilities without any explanation or backstory. The dialogue felt forced and unnatural, making it hard for me to connect with the characters. This book simply did not live up to my expectations and I would not recommend it to others.

3. Samantha - 2 stars - I found "Victorian era witch" to be a tedious read. The pacing was incredibly slow, and the plot lacked originality. The magical elements felt underdeveloped and poorly explained, leaving me confused and disinterested. The romantic subplot was forced and unrealistic, adding little to the overall story. I struggled to finish this book and was ultimately unsatisfied with the lack of depth and creativity it offered.

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