Towards the the end of the 18th century, Farmer Oughtred and his household were sitting snugly in the farm kitchen at Hob Hill, a couple of miles outside the village of Marske. Suddenly, a thunderous knock at the door broke the silence so the young maid servent arose from her sewing to answer the door, pulling back the heavy bolts she opened it and screamed. The little maid ran back into the kitchen crying 'master, tis a demon at the door'.
The farmer angry at the girl leaving the door open and more than a little nervous, went to the door himself, looked outside then shut and bolted the door and came back into the kitchen and sat by the fire. 'There's nought outside,' he said 'what didst see?' The maid was now sobbing and replied,' Twas a demon from the bad place, like a pig but all a-fire.' Then followed a crash from the parlour. This time there was something to be seen when they went in. Mrs Oughtred's best china tea service was in pieces on the floor.
'Evil has come into the house,' declared Oughtred. 'We've not seen the last of it.' He was right. This was only the beginning of many breakages in the Oughtred household.The farm suffered too. The horses went lame, cattle were sick and the milk yield went down.
Oughtred and his family had no doubts that this was the work of the local witch, Peggy Flounders. She must have sent that demon in revenge for something they had done to displease her, they thought. Peggy lived alone in a little cottage at the top end of Marske High Street. She was a strange looking woman with hair growing from her chin, like a mans beard it was said. The older villagers could remember her coming to the village as a young woman, remembering also her three children, all born out of marriage. The eldest, George Davison, was still in the village and had taken the trade as a shoemaker, and was considered a respectable man. When Henry Flounders, a market gardener, had taken her as his second wife after the untimely death of his wife, everyone had hoped she'd settle down and become a respectable wife and mother.
Henry, unfortunatly, disappeared soon afterwards. It was thought the press gang may have got him as it was very active on the north-east at the end of the 18th century, or maybe he had taken to sea to get away from Peggy's notoriously bad temper, no-one was quite sure. Left on her own, Peggy's temper had not improved and she gained the reputation of being able to make all sorts of nasty things happen to those she disliked.
Farmer Oughtred considered it was not necessary to call the law. In previous centuries there had been laws against the practice of witchcraft, though there was remarkable few prosecutions in North Yorkshire, far fewer than the rest of England. Now, after 1736, witchcraft was no longer a punishable offence. The law no longer believed in the power of witches but the majority of people living in country districts had different ideas. Witchcraft, to them, was a real menace, and they wanted a remedy.
Farmer Oughtred's remedy was only a mile away, at Upleatham. Jonathan Westcott (or Westwick as he appears in local records) was a gamekeeper who ran a side-line, practising as a Wise Man. There were quite a number of these Wise Men in North Yorkshire during the 18th and early 19th centuries. They dealt in the supernatural but were known to use it only for good, not evil, purposes. They offered magical cures for a variety of ailments, offered to trace missing articles, particularly those stolen, and to trace missing persons. They cast horoscopes, predicted the future and most important they offered to deal with any problem caused by witchcraft.
So Farmer Oughtred made his way to Upleatham and called on Master Westcott. The sight of Jonathan in his magicians robes, surrounded by his equipment, would have been reassuring to his witch - ridden clients. He listened to the tale and agreed that Peggy was responsible. He would come over and perform some counter - magic to neutralise the spell, and all Farmer Oughtred had to provide was a black fowl.
Jonathan arrived at Hob Hill farm and ordered that every door and window be closed and tightly sealed. Meanwhile the black fowl was pierced with 9 new shiny pins, then placed on the fire in the farm kitchen. It had to be reduced to a cinder exactly at midnight, which must have taken a bit of careful timing but he had done this many times. An incantation was said along with the burning, and his clients discouraged from talking about what happened during the ceremony, explaining the counter - magic would not work if details were made public.
After Jonathan's visit, all was well in the Oughtred household, but the Upleatham Wise Man now had other clients from Marske. Hannah Rothwell and Mary Parker were neighbours of Peggy Flounders and too had trouble. Both had argued with the old woman and no-one in the village were suprised when Mary's cow went dry and Hannah's butter would not thicken in the churn she made it in, though she said she turned the handle till her arm was tired. Jonathan again agreed it was Peggy who was the culprit and counter - magic was required, though this time less spectacular.
Hannah was told to wash out her butter churn three times, once with boiling water, once with boiling water with salt and again with boiling water with a handful of Rowan berries. It was known he said that salt had magical properties and the Rowan tree (or mountain ash) was equally known to protect people from being affected by a witches spell. Farmers used to keep Rowan wood in their cow byres. Jonathan told Hannah to cut little plugs of Rowan and drive them into her churn at certain places. When this was done he then told Hannah to turn her churn nine times as if she was making butter, reciting as she did so, the following 'nominy' (jingle):
'This time its thine,
Next time its mine,
And mine for evermore.'
His cure worked. Now whether it was because Hannah's churn had got an extra special clean or it was the salt, Rowan wood and incantation that did the trick cannot be said, but Hannah and her friends were without doubt that it was thanks to the Wise Man. Jonathan was less sure about Mary's cow. He advised her that it should be given a dose of opening medicine and then it was to have gentle exercise. She should lead it up and down the gras covered roadside where it could graze. She should give it only a mild milking for nine days and on the tenth day she should milk it as usual, but first before milking she should whisper in its ear, 'I'm milking thee for Peggy Flounders.' However if this remedy failed he went on to say, the fault lay with the cow, not the witch and she must make the best of it or get rid of the animal at the market.
Peggy though was known to perform her own counter - magic on occassion and so rubbing out as it were her own spell. Farmer Pearson vexed her and she 'wished a bad wish on him.' When his cattle started dying off one by one, for no apparent cause, the village knew who was to blame. The losses put Farmer Pearson out of business and the farm was handed over to a cousin. When the cousin arrived to take over he found Peggy waiting for him by the gate. She suprisingly had a smile for him and said. 'You have my good wishes,' and then took off her cloak, laid it on the ground and jumped over it, muttering some words he could not make out. The new farmer never had any problems and the village put it down to the fact Peggy had cancelled the spell laid on his farm.
In 1835, Peggy died at the age of 85 and was laid to rest in the churchyard of St. Germaine, overlooking the sea. Rev. Joseph Harrison, Marske's Vicar, knew of her reputation but gave her a Christian burial. Like the law, the church had ceased taking witchcraft seriously.
There were plenty of witches in Guisborough at the time when Marske was suffering from Peggy Flounders temper. In those days, the chemist shop was kept by a Quaker gentleman who found his customers superstitious in their views. It distressed him when, one morning, an elderly lady called at the shop and became very agitated when she dropped something out of her purse and could not find it. 'Its my bit of witch wood (rowan wood),' she said. 'It will never do to be without my bit of witch wood,' and got on her hands and knees to look for it. 'Why Mally, you surely do not believe in witches do you?' 'Not believe in witches!' She replied indignantly, 'I tell you there is eleven of them in this town at this moment.'
One of the witches referred to by Old Mally was known as Jane Greer. In her youth she was thought to be a great beauty who 'could show a pretty ankle' and was popular with the men. She was to be looked on with less favour as the years went on. A local man wrote of her, 'She's ugly as muck with black blood in her heart, Old Scrat (the Devil) bought her soul, so they say.' Oddly enough in spite of gaining this reputation, the only piece of witchcraft recorded of old Jane was said to be her ability to turn into a hare, something that most witches were credited being able to do, Peggy Flounders included. Some of these witches did damage when they scampered about the countryside in the shape of a hare but Jane does not even seem to have done that and was also known to give the locals a run for their money. A tale is told of how a group of men chased a hare from Scaling Dyke to Stanghow, a distance of 20 miles. When after strenuous efforts, by both men and dogs, they still had not catched the hare, they concluded that the only explanation could be witchcraft as this went against natural laws. They nearly got Jane once. She reached the door of her cottage, she leapt through an open window, with the dogs hard at her heels. A dog grabbed her ankle as she leapt and Jane bore the scar for the remainder of her life.
As a point of interest - in Europe in 1645, a woman claimed she had seen a ufo (as she called it, a 'sky ship'). She was accused of witchcraft and promptly burned at the stake.