To Counteract Witchcraft

The following account of the story is extracted from‘Legends Superstitions of the County of Durham’ by William Brockie (1886). ‘A case occurred in old Dundas Street, Monkwearmouth, twenty-four years ago, of a child believed to be witched, so that it was shrivelled up to anatomy. The afflicted mother procured a black hen’s heart, stuck it full of pins and roasted it in the prescribed mode, and while the roasting was going on, the woman whom she blamed came in and asked for the loan of a “Bit o’Tea,” to make herself a cup, as she felt so bad. The loan was granted, the spell was broken, and the child recovered.’