VOL. XVII. (2) PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS 149 



quoth hee, ' but to thy woe ' ; and presently all the barres 

 being broken, he draweth her out of the Church, and setteth 

 her upon a blacke horse, neighmge before the doore, and soe 

 went away with loud soundinge cries heard four miles off." 



Only last year the newspapers recorded the following 

 notice which was issued to the people of Eckington, a village 

 on the banks of the Avon, about seven miles from Worcester : 

 " Whereas a certain M. . . J . . D. . . , wife of J . . D. . . of the 

 village named, has been repeatedly slandered in common talk 

 and gossip as a witch, together with other false and injurious 

 accusations against her character, whereby she has suffered 

 grievously in mind and body in the esteem and fellowship of 

 her neighbours, any repetition of these offences will result in 

 action being taken against the slanderer." Enquiries showed 

 that the chief charge against this unfortunate person was that 

 she had married a man some years her senior. A century or 

 so ago she would have been tortured and probably executed. 

 Archdeacon Scobell tells us that in the parish of Upton St. 

 Leonards, quite recently, an old woman used to charm away 

 thrush in children by an incantation, to which she very judi- 

 ciously added the application of borax. 



Even more interesting are the survivals of the seasonal 

 feasts which are to be found in our district. In pagan Europe, 

 human sacrifices were offered to the water spirits on Mid- 

 summer's Day to refresh the powers of Nature and stimulate 

 them to perform their benign fertilising powers. We have the 

 Greek tale of Andromeda which was probably based on some 

 beliefs of this kind, and the legend appears in many parts of 

 England. Here it is localised at Deerhurst, where the historian 

 Sir Thomas Atkyns tells how a serpent of prodigious bigness 

 poisoned the people and slew their cattle. A reward was 

 offered for the destruction of the beast, and this was effected 

 by a certain John Smith, a labourer, who laid out a quantity 

 of milk for the monster, and when it was gorged slew it with 

 his axe. When Sir Robert wrote his account in 1712, this 

 very axe was said to be in the possession of a certain Mr Lane, 

 who had married a widow in the Smith family.' It would be 

 interesting to trace its subsequent history. But why was the 



I For most of the following illustrations of folk-belief in the countv, I am indebted to County 

 Folk-lore, Printed Extrcu-ts, No. I., by E. S. Hartland, Folk-lore Society, 1892, and to the Gloucester- 

 shire volume in the Gentleman's Magazine Library, edited by Sir G. L. Gomme. 



