It is a well-known fact that witches have a decided aversion to a stone with a hole through it. So one hanging in the house goes a long way towards keeping them outside; and an old horse-shoe, which has been picked up and nailed on the door, has even greater power. Again, any girl, whilst a maiden, who was so fortunate as to find three horse-shoes in one year, if she threw them over her left shoulder, and walked round them three times, being careful to preserve all three, not only she, but when married her children, could never be witch-held. This, be it observed, only protected the person, it did not extend to property of any kind.
Dolly Ayre, the Carthorpe witch, died within the ken of many now living. Richard Kirby, an old inhabitant of Carthorpe, gave me the following only a short time ago. I must really give it in his words. Filling his pipe, he began, ‘Aye! Ah ken’d her weel; she yance witched sum coos ov au’d Tommy’s, an’ sha wadn’t tak ’t off.’ I inquired what it was she would not take off, and was promptly informed it was ‘summat sha’d deean tiv ’em: a spell o’ sum soart ’at sha’d warked on ’em.’ Old Tommy, it seems, hurried off to the wise man, Sammy Banks o’ Mickly, who, after Tommy’s story had been told, ‘did summat, an’ Tommy did summat, an’ atween ’em tha baith did summat else ’at completely flustrated Au’d Dolly intiv a cocked hat, bud nut afoor sha’d mannished ti spell t’ leyfe oot o’ yan o’ t’ coos—ya see, iv a waay, sha ’ed t’ fost ho’d.’ On asking what they had done to master Dolly, he replied, with a shake of his head, ‘Naay, noo, Ah deean’t knaw; that war kept a dark secret. All ’at ivver war knawn, war ’at Tommy ’ed driven a peg o’ wickenwood inti summat, an’ ‘at he’d thrussen summat thruff t’ au’d witch’s latch slit, but what it war no man nivver knew, bud it mun ’a’e been summat varra larl, or else he c’u’dn’t ’a’e thrussen ’t thruff, an’ he bo’nt’ (burnt) ‘summat at midneet ’at stank warse ’an nowt. Aye! an’ noo ther war yance a queer thing happen’d at Ness, near Pickhill.’ A man, it seems, took a farm over the head of the then tenant. The man who had been so shabbily treated had once done a great kindness to Dolly, though, according to my informant, it was a most risky thing to offer a kindness to a witch, as they might take offence even at that. However, in the case mentioned, the kindness had been graciously accepted. When the new-comers arrived with their goods and chattels, they found written in blood-red writing on every door and shutter, these words, BAD LUCK; there was also something written underneath, which no man could make out. ‘Aye,’ said the old man, in words which there was no gainsaying, ‘an’ afoor they’d gitten hauf ther sticks in, doon cam a lahtle bit ov a shelf they’d putten sum pans on, an’ it tumm’l’d reet on t’ top o’ yan o’ ther bairns, an’ killed it wheer it stood, an’ ther’s neea gitting ower that; noo, is theer?’