Witch Posts In North Yorkshire farmhouses of the 17th and 18th centuries, hearths were screened by partitions ending in posts of rowan wood carved with X-shaped patterns, called ‘witch posts’. Lancashire farms had similar rowan posts, but without the decoration. Belief in their protective power continued into the 1920s, when Yorkshire builders made new ones when old houses were being rebuilt. A modern stonemason explained: The witch, in order to gain power over a dwelling house, must go through the house and past the hearth. The door and chimney were the only means of access, but she could not pass the witch post with its cross. Hence it was a defence at the hearth … a crooked sixpence was kept in a hole at the centre of the post. When the butter would not turn you took a knitting needle, which was kept for the purpose in a groove at the top, and with it got out the sixpence and put it in the churn. (Brears, 1989: 31) answers/ Witch Posts. It is thought that they were intended to protect the house or hearth from the influence of witches or prevent them from entering the house. Less than 20 of these carved posts are known, all in north-east Yorkshire, except for one found in Lancashire... The Huntleys fitted new improvement, a chimney and smokehood. The post supporting the smokehood is carved with a St Andrews cross and several raised bands. This is the witch post. As a relatively isolated hilltop village, superstition seems to have endured well into the Twentieth Century in Barkisland. A short distance from the Griffin Inn on Stainland Road stands Stocks House, so called because it was formerly the village lockup and an old set of stocks still survives beside it as a memorial to its former role. At some point it was converted into a private residence and it was probably during this process that a “witch-post” was added to the hearth to deflect the influence of baleful magic known as maleficium. Chimneys and fireplaces were regarded as a vulnerable location by which witches could gain access to a house and so to the superstitious mind, demanded such apotropaic contingencies. Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud explain, “In Yorkshire farmhouses of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, hearths were screened by partitions ending in posts of rowan wood carved with cross-shaped patterns, called ‘witch posts’… Belief in their protective power continued into the 1920s, when Yorkshire builders made new ones when old houses were being rebuilt”. en.wikipedia.org- Photo 1 ~by Forest Pines~flickr-Witch post, Stang End Cottage, Ryedale Folk Museum. Photo 2 Stang End Farm, Danby, North Yorkshire, now in Ryedale Folk Museum from & read more> In short, I believe the posts were NOT installed to ward off witches, most certainly they are NOT made of rowan wood and they do NOT exist solely within the North York Moors and Rawtenstall.onnicholasrhea.co.uk/postgate/witchposts.html An inglenook with priest mark Photo 3 by ~Lee Hadden St. Andrews cross carved in fireplace to prevent witches from entering a house Traditional stone fireplace in northern England. The carved St. Andrews cross in the left hand wooden post was to prevent witches from flying down the chimney. Witch post, Stang End Cottage, Ryedale Folk Museum, York.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 12:56:37 +0000
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