Collectanea, 291
Old Mrs. Snow, aged seventy-six, of Stanton St. John, says that when she was a girl, her father, John Turner, used to tell her of an old woman named Betty Cann, who was a witch, and lived at the top of the village in an old thatched cottage long since pulled down. When she met the villagers she always had something to say to them. She once asked Turner where he was going, and he told her, " To the wood to get some services " [service-berries]. When he got to the wood old Betty was up in the tree, and shouted out, " Hold your hat, here's plenty ! " And she filled his hat.
The boys and girls were afraid to go past her cottage for fear of being bewitched. Some of the older boys and men would go and look in at her window, or through the keyhole, and said as a fact that the old woman was dancing half-naked, and her old chairs were dancing too.
In summer time she would meet the farmers and tell them not to carry their hay ; if they did so after being told not, something was sure to happen — a horse would go lame, or a waggon would break down. She would also ride on hurdles, and send the cows and other cattle full tear down the village. She would tell the young men and girls where they had been last night, and what time they got home. — (17th February, 1898.)
About sixty years ago there lived at Tetsworth an old gipsy woman called " Mother Buckland," who got her living by begging.i She was known as a witch, and it was thought unlucky to refuse her anything, as something bad would happen to those who did. One day she called at a house where a woman called Phoebe Hawes was hanging out a shawl to air on a clothes-line in the sun, and Mother Buckland said she would like the shawl. She was refused, and then she threatened the woman and told her " Look out ! You'll know ; look out ! " From that time the woman was bewitched, becoming like one lost, and this went on till the old gipsy came back some weeks after ; then the shawl
' [The following obviously imperfect story among Carter's MSS. comes from Buckinghamshire, but as its locale is only a mile or so from the border of Oxfordshire it may be added as a note.] — Forty years ago an old gipsy woman called "Old Pretty Maid" was used to beg at Marsh Gibbon. She was a witch, and she bewitched a boy called Helton, who lived in a cottage now pulled down, at the top of the town, so that he became a perfect pest to the town through his mischievous tricks. After she bewitched the boy she could not rest, and she could not make water. Being in much pain she came to the house again where the boy lived, and found him up the chimney. So she took pity on him, and then she soon found relief. The boy got well, and she died. — (lOth September, 1897.')
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