WITCHCRAFT IN DORSET. 43 



" century. In a parish where the counties of Devon, Dorset, and 

 " Somerset meet, a young man, being afflicted with scrofula, which 

 " caused at times contraction of the muscles of the right thigh and 

 " very considerable pain, formed the idea that a poor delicate 

 " woman living next door, wife of a labourer and mother of several 

 " children, had bewitched him, and one day in his agony rushed 

 " into her house with a large sewing needle, and before the woman 

 " had time to think, scratched her severely in the neck and in four 

 " places on her bare arm, drawing blood in each instance, then 

 " rubbed his hand on the blood, and ran off. The poor woman 

 " came to me to complain, showing the scratches, and I advised her 

 " to take out a summons before the justice, but time passed. The 

 " young man, as usual, felt relieved of his pains for a time, and 

 " his mother, a widow occupying a few acres of land with 

 " cows and pigs, tried to assure me that drawing the blood 

 " cured her son, for she considered the other woman had over- 

 " looked him. 7 



Another case, which came before the Sherborne magistrates, is 

 taken from the Western Antiquary (which does not, by the bye, 

 often deal with Dorset subjects) for December, 1884, p. 143, and 

 from a similar account in the Folk-lore Journal for 1884, p. 349, 

 from which it would appear that at Sherborne on the 19th 

 September, 1884, an old woman named Sarah Smith, who lived in 

 Cold Harbour, and was 83 years of age and in receipt of parish 

 relief, was violently attacked by a next-door neighbour, one Tamar 

 Humphries, a married woman, in order that the latter might draw 

 blood from the old woman on the ground that she had bewitched 

 her daughter, a confirmed invalid, suffering from rheumatism. It 

 appeared from the report that the poor old woman, who was well 

 known as a quiet inoffensive person, was in her garden digging 

 potatoes, when she was set upon by the defendant, who put her 

 hands on her shoulders and said " Oh ! you Sal Smith, what's thee 

 done to my daughter 1 I'll draw the blood of thee." The defen- 

 dant then repeatedly stabbed her with a darning or stocking- 

 needle about her hands and arms, making them bleed, telling her at 



