'Witch's cottage' unearthed near Pendle Hill, Lancashire

'Witch's cottage' unearthed near Pendle Hill, Lancashire

www.bbc.co.uk

Engineers have said they were "stunned" to unearth a 17th Century cottage, complete with a mummified cat, during a construction project in Lancashire.

Historians are now speculating that the well-preserved cottage could have belonged to one of the Pendle witches.

"We are just a few months away from the 400th anniversary of the Pendle witch trials, and here we have an incredibly rare find, right in the heart of witching country. This could well be the famous Malkin Tower - which has been a source of speculation and rumour for centuries.

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Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Calling On Folks From North West UK
The European Witch Hunts Were a Holocaust Against Women
The Legend of the Leyland Cat Creature

Wow this is amazing.

There are many strange goings on at this area and legends, UFO Hauntings, Mysterious creatures for a very long time.

The Pendle Witch trial was one of the most famous ever, and most gruesome, to be able to unearth these remains in such a good condition is unprecedented.

I am thinking also that Is this the only Mummified Cat ever found in the UK?

Do you think it was killed then Mummified as some sort of spell or offering?

Intriguing cant wait for more results in the months to come as they unearth the relics.

Kind Regards,

Elf

www.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by MischeviousElf


I used to be in Pendle "house" at school - just thought i'd throw in an irrelevent aside!

I love this sort of thing but i have to admit to having my reservations about this story - not about the mummified cat part but the fact it may be one of the witches cottages (or even that they were in fact witches rather than normal women).

Witch finding was rather a lucrative practice back in the day. Look what people do for money these days, i would bet that particular aspect of humanity has always existed sadly.

reply to post by MischeviousElf


The cat was embedded alive in the wall then covered over. The mummification was as a result of this, or so I read earlier in another article lol.

Fascinating stuff though. I don't know much about the Pendle Hill witches and this has inspired me to rectify that!

Some more info on this as its important in context of the importance of the discovery:

The trials of the Pendle witches in 1612 are among the most famous witch trials in English history, and some of the best recorded of the 17th century. The twelve accused lived in the area around Pendle Hill in Lancashire, and were charged with the murders of ten people by the use of witchcraft. All but two were tried at Lancaster Assizes on 18–19 August 1612, along with the Samlesbury witches and others, in a series of trials that have become known as the Lancashire witch trials. One was tried at York Assizes on 27 July 1612, and another died in prison. Of the eleven individuals who went to trial—nine women and two men—ten were found guilty and executed by hanging; one was found not guilty.

Wiki Pendle Witch trials

Did they indeed Kill anyone? maybe of all the witch trials this had validity if they were offering animal sacrifices etc...

This site as said above could be the famous:

The committal and subsequent trial of the four women might have been the end of the matter, had it not been for a meeting organised by Elizabeth Device at Malkin Tower, the home of the Demdikes, held on 6 April 1612, Good Friday. To feed the party, James Device stole a neighbour's sheep.[27]

Friends and others sympathetic to the family attended, and when word of it reached Roger Nowell, he decided to investigate. On 27 April 1612, an inquiry was held before Nowell and another magistrate, Nicholas Bannister, to determine the purpose of the meeting at Malkin Tower, who had attended, and what had happened there. As a result of the inquiry, eight more people were accused of witchcraft and committed for trial: Elizabeth Device, James Device, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, John Bulcock, Jane Bulcock, Alice Gray and Jennet Preston. Preston lived across the border in Yorkshire, so she was sent for trial at York Assizes; the others were sent to Lancaster Gaol, to join the four already imprisoned there.[28]

Malkin Tower is believed to have been near the village of Newchurch in Pendle,[29] on the site of present-day Malkin Tower Farm,[30] and to have been demolished soon after the trials.[29]

In December 2011, Engineers undertaking maintenance work on Lower Black Moss reservoir, near Barley unearthed a mound and found the remains of a 17th-century cottage, which could be Malkin Tower.[31]

There is a list on the following from an 16THC publication by the local justice of those who attended the Witchs Meeting at the Tower or Barn/Farm

The Meeting at Malkin Tower

The names of the Witches at the Great Assembly and Feast at Malkin Tower, on Good Friday in 1612: 9elf see link for list snipFrom Discovery of Witches, 1613 Thomas Potts (clerk of the court).

Pendle Witches .co.uk

Amazing story, history being brought back to life and also very strange goings on.

Kind Regards,

Elf

My wife has been up there for some of the day today, so will get her take on it all when I get home tonight.
Not the best of weather for her, but im sure it added to the atmosphere.

reply to post by Plumbduff


No id say hope any of the dig is not damaged by the weather.

Is she working on the site part of the dig?

Please if she is would love her to add any knowledge.

Kind Regards,

Elf

reply to post by Kryties


Because of the nature of witch hunting practices, anyone could be considered a witch, and had virtually no chance, once accused, of avoiding the grasp of those who would have burned, tortured, or outright terminated them, certainly not if they were not women of a certain class or below. The powerful have always had a touch for removing themselves from the dangers affecting others however.

The reality of the witch trials, is that the accused ranged from women who simply used old knowledge of herbs and plants to brew cold remedies, or help heal bruises and cuts, to women who had intimated that they had been raped. The vast, huge, overwhelming majority were likely as not innocent of anything even remotely approaching the involvement with dark arts that they were accused of, and as much can be discerned by observing what little record there is remaining about that period of history.

Salem was not the only place that a massive injustice against the female members of society was enacted. As a Chrisitian, it galls me utterly that so much harm has been done to people down the years because of a misguided , and over powerful church. Even the women who practiced old medicine, women who kept people well, tended to the sick, treated the injured, and the women who taught good sense to entire villages, were put to death wrongly.

My nation lost a lot of its ancient culture, that which remained after being embuggered by the Romans, in the witch trials. Even those who WERE believers in the ancient ways of this nation , should never have been treated so poorly, because even those who WERE involved in what would have been called witchcraft, were merely of a different religion to the one advocated by the Church. No one should ever be killed based on faith. Its a terrible thing to have in my nations history.

As this is ATS,I am going to say that one of the witchfinder's mummified the cat,and planted it in this poor lady's house.
So they could try her as a witch.
No I do not have any proof-but I bet that sort of thing went on.

Originally posted by Kryties
reply to post by MischeviousElf
The cat was embedded alive in the wall then covered over. The mummification was as a result of this, or so I read earlier in another article lol.

Fascinating stuff though. I don't know much about the Pendle Hill witches and this has inspired me to rectify that!

edit on 8/12/2011 by Kryties because: (no reason given)

I have read of this practice, yes. In earlier times in Europe, it was (I'm a "cat person" so I really don't approve of this) common to bury a cat alive in a building to keep the devil away. There's a number of reasons behind this belief -- although there are tales that witches did this, there's not any hard evidence that it was a common folk practice of someone who called herself (or himself) a witch.

In medieval times in Europe, children were sometimes buried alive in a castle wall or under a large building.

Interesting topic! I will have to go poke around some more and see what I can find!

Originally posted by Kryties
reply to post by MischeviousElf

 

The cat was embedded alive in the wall then covered over. The mummification was as a result of this, or so I read earlier in another article lol.

Fascinating stuff though. I don't know much about the Pendle Hill witches and this has inspired me to rectify that!

edit on 8/12/2011 by Kryties because: (no reason given)

The mummified cats in the wall thing is a custom or superstition.. happens here in the US as well. You buy an old house and find things (talismans) in the walls when you remodel or restore. Many times the positions of the bodies or the extended claws are not a natural position in death, so it indicates the cat was placed there in this position on purpose. If you have a double brick like ours, you find all kinds of weird things in that space between the bricks.. even shoes with things in them. LOL! We just left everything in place.
Im sure there are a bunch of stories and info on this because its been researched for a while. Some guy in Australia was doing a study on it last time I checked, may be done with it now.
In our historic home we found many weird things and thats how I came to know that this is a common old custom. To me it gives no more evidence the cottage woman was a witch. Then again, our own home was built by a the first spiritualist family in the area who started the first spiritualist church in the area here.

reply to post by Byrd


BAH! Cross posted
Look for an autralian guy who did a study on it all. There were something like 16 cases of this found by him and he researched it. I cant recall the guys name for the life of me..

Originally posted by MischeviousElf
Did they indeed Kill anyone? maybe of all the witch trials this had validity if they were offering animal sacrifices etc...

Actually, it's more likely that the buried cat was as a reaction to "OMG! WE HAVE A WITCH!" hysteria. The thought then was that the witch would take the soul of the buried cat instead of harming any of the good folk of the household.

...yes... I did say "good folk" with just a trace of irony, there.

reply to post by MischeviousElf


No, she's not working on the dig.
She was reporting on it for the media.

Originally posted by Byrd

Originally posted by MischeviousElf
Did they indeed Kill anyone? maybe of all the witch trials this had validity if they were offering animal sacrifices etc...

Actually, it's more likely that the buried cat was as a reaction to "OMG! WE HAVE A WITCH!" hysteria. The thought then was that the witch would take the soul of the buried cat instead of harming any of the good folk of the household.

...yes... I did say "good folk" with just a trace of irony, there.

Pretty much, yeah. The ole' cat-in-the-wall trick was more Christian tradition than it was hearth magick. It was mostly old church superstition.

reply to post by Byrd


Byrd & All,
Thank you for your expertise and replies fascinating, I never knew this was common practice as such, especially by those who were maybe trying or "scared" of the witch's as such.

It seems almost cruel that maybe an "healer" or an person who just used Herbs and such like to offer old remedies to illness, and not actually be involved in any witchcraft, is then treated to the same practices they are accused of.

Burying dead cats in walls/castles to take on board the "evil" spirit of the supposed witch is closer to witchcraft then many of the accused, I am sure.

How sad and Ironic really.

I am really excited by what the rest of the Dig/Excavation finds.

Some thoughts as well on the way that in the UK many structures, houses or old farms are converted into modern dwellings, esp like in the case of Barn Conversions, they are very popular in the wealthy plot, a "Life in the country" and all that.

I dare say many are unaware in the UK they may be drinking their cuppa in their £1 million Quant but new and clean inside luxury life in the country, and 2-3 ft away a 500 year old or more mummified cat or who know what else may be in the wall!

Kind Regards,

Elf

reply to post by TrueBrit

Salem was not the only place that a massive injustice against the female members of society was enacted. As a Chrisitian, it galls me utterly that so much harm has been done to people down the years because of a misguided , and over powerful church. Even the women who practiced old medicine, women who kept people well, tended to the sick, treated the injured, and the women who taught good sense to entire villages, were put to death wrongly. My nation lost a lot of its ancient culture, that which remained after being embuggered by the Romans, in the witch trials. Even those who WERE believers in the ancient ways of this nation , should never have been treated so poorly, because even those who WERE involved in what would have been called witchcraft, were merely of a different religion to the one advocated by the Church. No one should ever be killed based on faith. Its a terrible thing to have in my nations history.

I highly applaud your candor, TrueBrit, especially coming from a professed Christian. Most Christians, sadly so, harbor much hatred and loathing for Wiccans, they see us as Devil Worshipers, when we do not even believe in a Devil, or ultimate author of Evil. They also seem to have a lot of loathing for anyone who believes in, or has had the ET experience, always telling these people the ones they saw were Demons, of Fallen Angels.

As a Wiccan of many years, I salute you, and applaud you.

reply to post by autowrench


The organised Church , the global machine that it is, was never supposed to exist in its current format, was never supposed to conquer or force itself on anyone. It was supposed to be more like a community of loose knit friends and preachers, without political or military power of any nature.

It is liars and fools down the centuaries which have transmuted what could have been a history of loving intent toward man, into an organisation designed to take what it could and destroy its every opposition. That is not an organisation I have trust in.

Some of the most Christian people I have ever met, people who would invite you in from the cold, people who would ensure you are fed when hungry, clothed when cold and shirtless, safe when endangered, have been believers in the old ways. My very best friend practiced wicca based faith for years. Didnt stop her being kind, understanding, and caring. People like this are rare, and no matter what a person so rare believes, that intent, that care, is worth befriending and returning.

No, being a Wiccan, or of any religion, or lack of same, or not being a Christian does not make one evil, greedy, or mean. During the years, I have taken in 22 people and families in distress. In my mechanical career, I often worked for free with the working class, the ones who need their cars to get to work and back. Now that I repair computers, I often fix a computer for free for poor people who have no job, or nothing else to do with their time. I sometimes replace a defective piece of hardware for free just to help someone who needs it. Even with that, people in my own town label me evil, and devil worshiper for not being a Christian. Evil is in the hearts of human beings, not in a religion, and everyone needs to see that clearly. Sadly, though, some never will.

Aunt Lizzie loved that cat.
Still it ended up lasting longer than she did.