C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Witched Churn
By Myths and Folk-Lore of the Aryan Peoples
From the Folk-Lore Record. Contains a common superstition as to the fatal sympathetic sensibility of those possessed with powers of witchcraft. Halstead in Essex, August 1732
T
HERE was one Master Collett, a smith by trade, of Haveningham in the county of Suffolk, who, as ’twas customary with him, assisting the maide to churn, and not being able—as the phrase is—to make the butter come, threw a hot iron into the churn, under the notion of witchcraft in the case; upon which a poore laborer then employed in the farm-yard cried out in a terrible manner,
“They have killed me! they have killed me!” still keeping his hand upon his back, intimating where the pain was, and died upon the spot. Mr. Collett, with the rest of the servants then present, took off the poor man’s clothes, and found to their great surprise the mark of the iron which was heated and thrown into the churn, deeply impressed upon his back. This account I had from Mr. Collett’s own mouth.
Signed, S. Manning.
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