Warts

The archetypal witch is invariably depicted as a hag with a humped back and a large wart on her face or nose. During the persecutions it was important to be as unlike this depiction as possible, to avoid accusation. The wart caused by a viral infection was often seen as the "teat" from which the witch fed her devilish imp. Removal of warts was therefore important.

Many cures (some of which are used today) involved rubbing the wart with another object, perhaps a piece of bacon fat, a snail or frog, a horseshoe nail, a potato, a bean, or a piece of meat. Other cures involved transferring the wart to another person by direct contact or by touching an object to the wart and then ensuring that another person touches that object. One such old cure/charm states, "Buy a new, red, silk ribbon twenty-one inches long and tie as many knots in it as there are warts on the body. Drop the ribbon near a school or where many children or adults pass by. Whoever picks up the ribbon will take on the warts." Commenting on this, Dr. Henry E. Sigerist pointed out that there were no incantations and that the purchasing of a new length of ribbon, to be later discarded, involved a minor sacrifice. The disease was transferred to the ribbon through the tying of the knots and then further transferred by being picked up by another.

Professor H. J. Eysenck, of London's Maudsley Hospital, conducted an experiment with two groups of children. One group was given conventional medicine to get rid of the warts while the other group was led through a "magical" ritual, involving drawing the wart in progressively smaller size on a piece of paper. The group practicing the old folk magic had a far greater success rate in eliminating the wart than did the group with the medicine.

Vance Randolph said that warts may be disposed of by hiring a boy to "take them off your hands." He said that "two or three more warts don't matter to a chap who has a dozen or so already. Just give the boy a penny or a nickel for each wart and they will pass from you to him as soon as he spends the money."

Some people stipulate that a wart must be removed at a crossroads or, even better, where three roads meet, because such a meeting or crossing of roads is special to Witches. As a goddess of magical charms and enchantments, Hecate frequented crossroads where her image could be found, either as columns or as statues of the goddess, with three faces called Triple Hecates. Offerings would be left there for her, on the eve of the full moon, usually in the form of food, known as "Hecate's Supper." Three is considered a magical number in many ways, and the place where three roads meet was therefore a mystical spot, often the site of magical rituals and religious rites. Dame Alice Kyteler was accused of sacrificing cockerels at a crossroads at her trial in 1324.

One old folk cure for warts involved placing a grain of corn for each wart in the road at a crossroads, each under a small stone. The person or animal who moved a stone and uncovered the grain would take on the warts.

The exact number of warts can be important when using a spell to get rid of them. Randolph quotes an old farmer who would apply stump water to the warts and say "Stump water, stump water, kill these (number) warts!" The number stated had to be the exact number of warts that were there. If not, then none of the warts would go. Another countryman would squeeze a drop of blood from the wart onto two grains of corn. He would feed one of the grains to a rooster and carry the other in his pocket. At some point he would find that he had lost the grain from his pocket, and he then would find that the wart had disappeared.

Warts