The Yorkshire Dales Witches

It’s the season of the witch, right?

OF COURSE IT IS! Are you ready to find out about the witches of the Yorkshire Dales? Well, if the answer is no… probably best not read on, because there is whole lotta Yorkshire and a whole lotta Witch headed your way!

‘Oh…. She deals in witchcraft….’

(Yes, that’s a quote from the classic ‘The Female of the Species by Space…)

‘Witchcraft’. A word that is loaded with significance, with history and if you think about it, a whole spectrum of meaning.

Back in the day (historic term, honest…) the word would have invoked an intense feeling of fear in the accusers and the accused.

Now? The word is used loosely, it’s cool, it’s edgy, it’s sexy.…. (Look at me being all deep and everything…)

But the witches that we’re about to meet all had one thing in common… they were the victims of fear, superstition and ignorance. Well…. the ones that have a foot in the history books (some might be more rooted in the legend category…)

But before we delve into the Witchy past of the Yorkshire Dales, let’s have a chat about witches.

A little bit about witches…

Did you know that witchcraft was not made a capital offence until 1563? And that the anti-witch laws were only finally repealed in 1951? 1951!!!! Most of the legislation against witchcraft was repealed in 1736, but even into the early 1900’s accusations of witchcraft were still being made….. that’s a really big thing to think about (in my humble opinion.)

But on that note…

There’s a lot of noise surrounding the persecution of alleged witches, but most of the sensationalised punishment of these poor women (and men, yes MEN) took place outside of England. All that burning at the stake? Actually, pretty rare on the whole. Certainly, none of the convicted Yorkshire witches suffered that fate. In fact in the UK it was mainly the Scots behind that malarkey, although they did have the decency to kill the poor unfortunate souls first. Gruesome stuff right?

That’s not to say the convicted witches had an easy ride AT ALL. Nor am I trying to diminish the horror that some of the accused experienced, particularly under the awful regime of East Anglian Matthew Hopkins, the self titled ‘Witchfinder General’ in 1645-1646 who himself was responsible for the deaths of over 300 accused ‘witches’.

But whilst there was a lot of horror, most of the stereotypical associations that were made with the punishment of witches was (thankfully) rare.

And whilst in England, we had our fair share of ‘headline’ stories, like the Lancashire Pendle Witches, it is a fact that only 25% of alleged cases of witchcraft across the WHOLE country were ever convicted.

Despite the accusations being made in their thousands (made mainly by women… make of that as you will), it seems that the judiciary were pretty sceptical towards the whole idea of ‘magical powers’, possibly because most of the accusations seemed to be sprung from petty local arguments, prejudice and bitchy spite.

I mean, MAN ALIVE, if you just looked at somebody’s cow in a funny way and it just so happened you WEREN’T the most popular chap in the village, then BAM you’re a witch! Or maybe you were just too pretty…..

What actually transpired is that a lot of these accused women and men, were in fact local wise people or healers…. trying to do their bit for their community. Or perhaps they were a bit of a loner, or had a particular penchant for animals, maybe they were envied, maybe they just didn’t fit in.

Whatever they were in actual real-life reality, I have LOVED learning about the Yorkshire witches!

And after that potted myth busting paragraph of history, here are our witchy tales. Take them with a pinch of salt (and perhaps an eye of newt… )

Clapham in North Yorkshire, the home of one of the Yorkshire Witches

Alice Ketyll of Clapham 1468

This is one of my absolute FAVOURITES, because this tale is not all that it seems, and I had a LOT of fun researching it (history geek at play!!!)

It’s a story that starts not in Yorkshire, but in Ireland….

Have you heard of Dame Alice Kyteler? The answer is more than likely to be no,

Alice Kyteler had the absolute displeasure of being heralded as the first woman in Ireland to be convicted of witchcraft back in the 1200’s (yes, the 1200’s bear with me….)

Why? In a nutshell (and with a HEFTY handful of my bias) Dame Alice was born wealthy, married wealthy, and stood to gain quite a lot from the untimely deaths of each of her husbands (all four of them… draw any conclusions you like, it was the 1200’s…) So ‘unfortunate’ was she in becoming widowed four times, she was known as the ‘Merry Widow', but it was only upon the death of her fourth husband that she became a tad ‘unstuck’. When he died shortly after signing all his worldly possessions over to her and her son (and thereby severely pissing off the rest of his family) she suffered from the wrath of said family and was on the receiving end of an accusation of witchcraft.

Sad times for old Alice, but luckily she was rich and therefore managed to flee. At least for a bit. She returned to protest against her accusations, but that didn’t go so well and she ended up being convicted of witchcraft… at which point she promptly disappeared, apparently headed to England, never to be seen again…..

BUT WAIT!

Let’s pick up that story in Clapham, North Yorkshire (famous for lying under Ingleborough mountaint, the Yorkshire Three Peaks and all that...)

Keep reading, it gets better….

The bridge over Clapdale Beck in Clapham

Now, in the 1400’s (yes 200 years later…) an Alice Ketyll pops up to play.

(That’s a familiar sounding name right?)

Now Alice was said to live in a pretty standard cottage at the end of Trow Gill (that’s just up from Ingleborough Cave). Her foster son (stepson, dependant on what you read) was based at the far more important sounding Clapdale Hall (or castle, again dependant on your source)

The story goes, that she was asked by her stepson to aid in the Lancastrian cause in the War of the Roses by calling upon the aid of the devil himself. What did she have to do? Sweep the dust off the bridge in the direction of Clapdale Hall and then stand in a circle of 9 dead cockerels on the bridge in the upper part of Clapham (near the church). Simple standard witchy style stuff, right?…

So notorious is the story of Old Alice, that her ring of cockerels is immortalised on the millennium stone near St James’ Church in Clapham. She’s that bloody famous…..

Or at least Dame Alice Kyteler is. Because there are some striking similarities between the story of Alice of Clapham and the famous first witch of Ireland. So similar, it’s almost as if the story was …. very influential in the creation of the story of Alice of Clapham….

SO similar that the incredibly well documented trial and history of the famous witch in Ireland was pretty easy to research (even back in the day) and so compelling were the allegations that even several hundred years later it was the perfect story to create a bit of a tourist spin to draw some lovely folk into the area perhaps.…

But I don’t like to speculate of course……

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story I say, but a good story this seems to be…. as after investigation by a couple of local historians, there is absolutely no factual basis at all for our witch of Clapham.

Still a good story though! And if you fancy a trip to Clapham, check out our Gaping Gill walk!

Swinsty reservoir, where the site of Newhall lies submerged

The Timble Witches 1621

Where on earth is Timble?

Well, it’s a teeny tiny hamlet located just above both Fewston and Swinsty Reservoirs (which obviously weren’t even dreamed of back in the 1600s!) The accuser in this story lived in Newhall, the location of which is now beneath the depths of Swinsty Reservoir.

Edward Fairfax was an educated man, born in Denton Hall, and who was a member of the esteemed Fairfax family (a member of his family, Sir Thomas Fairfax was a Civil War general, so like…. right up there in terms of important stuff and that….)

Now, I have read a few versions of this story and whilst the Fairfax family is a constant, Thomas and Edward are both mentioned as being an accuser to the Timble Witches. (Without spending a whole lot of time researching the sources I cannot be 100% sure as to which Fairfax it actually was - or perhaps it was both in a fit of brotherly support)

Anyhoo… the common facts amongst the versions are that the daughters of Sir (or Mr) Fairfax were allegedly ‘bewitched’ by six local women. The accused were, a widower, Jennet Dibble, Marjery (Peg) Thorpe, Margaret Waite and her daughter, Elizabeth Fletcher and Elizabeth Dickenson.

The witches were accused of being responsible for the eldest daughter being ‘slow of speech’ and were behind her periods of ‘strange disorders’ (which were actually indicative symptoms of epilepsy) and sadly, they were accused of being behind the death of the youngest daughter who was in her infancy. One such accusation was that they let one of the children fall off a cart, whilst they should’ve been watching (been there with my own kids!)

Fairfax had them arrested and taken for trial in York.

The ‘evidence’ was so weak and circumstantial, that all six were acquitted of their charges and returned to Timble to partake in an alleged ‘Devil’s Feast’….. because …. of COURSE!

Want to walk around the submerged property of Fairfax? Well check out our Swinsty Walk!

Cowper’s Cross on Ilkley Moor

The Unnamed Man 1651

Representing for the men, this alleged witch was wandering around Nesfield just up the road from Ilkley, ‘pretending to be deaf and dumb’. He was allowed to stay at the house of Lancelot Milner, and reportedly became some kind of wizardly consultant answering queries and solving the problems of those who came to see him.

He answered the queries using gestures and writing answers down and aapparently his customers were very satisfied by his service.

Quite why Mr Milner thought he was pretending to be dumb and deaf, and quite why he then reported him to the authorities as a witch is a mystery.

Check out one of our Ilkley walks here!

Ann Greene 1653

Heading over Skipton way, and to the village of Gargrave.

Ann Greene was accused of witchcraft after a chap named John Tatterson claimed to have been ‘disabled in body’ a couple of weeks after Christmas (don’t know about you, but I’m pretty disabled in body after all the Christmas feasting….)

Anyway, old John claimed that not only could he not move from his bed…. But he was visited by ‘spirits’ persuading him to worship the Devil. One such spirit, being Ann.

Oddly, despite Ann plaguing his dreams, John headed straight to her afterwards to complain of an earache and to ask her for help. Turns out she was the local healer. This being the 1600’s and all, the classic treatment for earache was black wool (of course) and so Ann treated the earache with that. She also allegedly took hair from his head to treat a headache.

Apparently, the wool didn’t work (can’t think why) so John headed back to Ann to express his annoyance and because he was pretty rude, Ann complained about his remarks to another villager.

Well, surprise, surprise a couple more people complained about Ann plaguing their dreams, something about black dogs and general hysteria and all that nonsense…. and before you can say ‘when shall we three meet again’ Ann was accused of witchcraft. BOOM. (Never saw that one coming.)

What is far more likely was that Ann became an unfortunate victim of what was essentially a poor review on Trip Advisor…. just back then rather than venting your rage on the internet, people just accused them of witchcraft!

As a healer in the village, she tried her best to help the residents. When she was acquitted and headed back to Gargrave, she carried on trying to help said village.

Let’s just hope she continued to avoid miserable old John!

The ruined church of Stalling Busk at Semerwater

The Witch of Semerwater

Let’s take a step away from historical record and move to the more fanciful….

This legendary witch wandered into the dry dale of Semmerdale looking for charity and shelter. Having been turned away by every single resident in the village, she climbed higher onto the hill and found a friendly couple who took her in.

In punishment for their selfishness, she drowned the village of Semmerdale under the water, and that is how Lake Semerwater was born.

The story goes that you can still hear the bells of the old church rising from the water.

Another version of this legend is that the Witch was in fact an Angel disguised as a beggar. Equally as unlikely, but lets not let that get in the way of a good old fashioned legend eh?

Janet Burniston 1639

This tale moves across to Ripon and Janet who was accused of witchcraft after she stole a skull from the churchyard.

Skulls were pretty renowned for being used in spells by witches, and Janet didn’t deny that she intended to use it to help charm somebody who was suffering from insomnia to sleep.

Seeing as her intention was seemingly innocent and indeed helpful, she was simply told to put it back!

Like. Put that Skull back from where it came from or so help me…….. (If you know, you know ….)

Ibbeth’s Peril

Let’s head over the border to Cumbria, to the far reaches of the National Park and the Westmorland Dales, Dent.

Ibbeth was a witch. Apparently (or a cautionary tale… whatever you choose to believe!)

Hidden away in plain sight is Ibbeth’s Peril. The name give to the waterfall and plunge pool where Ibby used to live. The legend goes that she took a pretty intolerant approach to drunks and should you be drunk, she would come and find you in your inebriated state and lure you to her cave, where she would leave you in the dark to find your way out again when you had sobered up. You had to be a man apparently…

That, or she’d simply drown you in the pool…

Either way… HANGOVER FROM HELL RIGHT?

The pool is pretty temperamental and the river that feeds it, is regularly dry. You can see the waterfall in full flow one day and the next it’ll be none existent.

I love how moody this place is, it’s the waterfall equivalent of a teenager. You cannot possibly predict what it’s going to be like!

The pool of Ibbeth’s Peril

Mother Shipton 1488 – 1561

Ah come ON! I couldn’t do a Yorkshire Dales witch blog without mentioning good old Mother Shipton, a witch so famous that she has her own tourist attraction?!

Born one stormy night in a cave in the woodland around Knaresborough, Mother Shipton (named Ursula Sonteil) had a really rough start in life. Her mother was only 15 when she was born and despite being accused of prostitution, she had the case dismissed thanks to her admirably ballsy approach to the judge by all accounts. Despite reportedly raising Ursula in their cave for a while, she was later sent to Nottingham and spent the rest of her life in a convent there. Ursula was left in the care of foster parents.

Ursula was born with a curved spine and large nose, and her appearance meant she was shunned and bullied as a child. It was early in her childhood that she was accused of being a witch and her pleasure in playing tricks on her foster mother and her talent with herbs and potions served to add fuel to those accusations.

She was married to Toby Shipton, but because of her appearance, she was accused of securing her husband through the use of a ‘love potion’ rather than because they shared any companionship or affection. Rumours continued to grow when Toby died only a few years later.

Mother Shipton became renowned as a prophetess, which has cemented her as THE most famous of the Yorkshire Witches.

Mother Shipton’s Cave has a Halloween event going on over the half term, so why not pay a visit? Check out the Mother Shipton’s website.

Holding Mother Shipton’s hand

So I hope you enjoyed out Witches of the Yorkshire Dales.

I have thoroughly enjoyed researching it for you guys!

And with that, I have to credit all of the sources for this blog, because they are many and because without them, I wouldn’t have had SO MUCH FUN!!!!

SOURCES:

Print: Yorkshire Witches: Eileen Rennison / Haunted Yorkshire Dales: Summer Strevens

Online: (Alice Kytell/ Dame Alice Kyteler) The Witch of Clapham? Helen Sergeant Historic Kilkenny (The Timble Witches) thefewston