Human Pixy-Leading in Suffolk September 24, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
As noted before in this place Suffolk, where this story took place, is part of East Anglia in which witch traditions were particularly strong. In fact, so strong were these witching traditions that sometimes they blotted out other parallel traditions. Fairylore, for example, are difficult to dig up in this part of England. Take this lovely nineteenth-century example here. What we see is a classic case of being pixy-led, though the man in question is led not by fairies, puck, piskies or even will-o’-the-wisp but by a witch.
The most famous man in these parts as a wizard was old Winter of Ipswich. My father was in early life apprenticed to him and after that was servant to Major Whyte who lived in Stowupland at Sheepgate Hall. A farmer lost some blocks of wood from his yard and consulted Winter about the thief. By mutual arrangement Winter spent the night at the farmer’s house, and set the latter to watch, telling him not to speak to anybody he saw. About twelve a labourer living near came into the wood-yard and hoisted a block on his shoulder. He left the yard and entered the meadow, out of which lay a style into his own garden. And when he got into the field he could neither find the style nor leave the field. And round and round the field he had to march with the heavy block on his shoulder, affrighted, yet not able to stop walking, until ready to die with exhaustion, the farmer and Winter watching him from the window, until from pure compassion Winter went up to him, spoke, dissolved the charm, and relieved him from his load.
If this had happened in Cornwall it would have been a farmer trying to cross a field from one gate to another who, somehow, impossibly, got lost. The pixies would have been blamed and might very well have been heard laughing. The spell would have been broken when the farmer remembered to carry out an anti-pixy charm, perhaps turning his pocket or taking his shirt off and putting it on inside out. The ordeal would not have been the farmer’s fault: it would have reflected the mischevious nature of the local hive of pixies. Here the victim is punished for a precise crime and is only released when the ‘wizard’ chooses. Can anyone else give human pixy-leading of this kind? drbeachcoming AT yahoo DOT com
