The Barritts of the Fenlands - Page 5
Sophia Attlesey, wife of Robert Barritt
Born about 1814, Sophia was the daughter of Robert Attlesey, a labourer of Paddock Street, Soham. After her marriage to Robert they lived on Feltwell Fen and her life was governed by the folklore of the area. Her grandson, Jack Barrett, has recorded some of the incidences of her life.
Friday seems to have been the traditional day for home bread - and - cake making. Sophia baked her bread on that day, having mixed the dough on the preceding day, when the brewer's dray visited the district and she could obtain the necessary yeast. The dough was left all night to rise in front of the turf fire.Visible from her windows in the mid-nineteenth century were a number of ~e wind driven drainage mills which maintained the level of the water in the Fen dykes, and she would look at the mill sails to see from what direction the wind was blowing. if it lay in the north - east she made only cottage loaves; if it was blowing from the south - west she baked her dough in tins.
To determine how long the loaves should be in the oven she used to insert a hog's bristle in a small hole at the top of her oven, leaving about an inch protruding. While the bread was baking the bristle quivered; when it remained still, showing that the part inside the oven had shrivelled away, she knew that the bread was ready for removal. Alternatively she would place a penny on top of a hard slab of beeswax which she put in an earthenware dish on the top of the oven; when the penny dropped to the bottom of the dish the bread was cooked.
Sophia, although a strict Primitive Methodist, always marked with a cross the top of one of the loaves she baked on Good Friday, Friday being her usual baking day. This loaf would be kept in a tin for twelve months in the belief that it would protect the family from want and hunger. On each Easter Sunday the loaf baked the preceding year was moistened with water, re-baked and eaten at tea time. It was considered a privilege to be invited to share it and the person who received the slice bearing the arms of the cross could look forward to a year of prosperity. After tea the two end pieces of the loaf, which bore no part of the cross, were taken down to the river and thrown in to protect the neighbourhood from floods and storms during the next twelve months.
Shortly before she died, Sophia told her grandson the following tale:When I was a gal witches were very real and everybody believed they had the power to do harm. I myself have never seen a witch flying through the air, but I did once see one being dragged across the river because she had bewitched a farmer's wife. She'd told her, you see, that all her children would be born with dog's paws instead of hands and this had so upset the woman that she went clean out of her mind. When her husband knew what had made her like this he was furious and one night he made four of his labourers get hold of the witch, strip her to her shift and tie her hands and legs together. Then they threw her into the river and dragged her across with a cart rope until she was three parts drowned, when they hauled her out and laid her on the bank, face downwards, 10 let the water drain Out of her. She recovered a bit and the men were just getting ready 10 give her another swim when she started begging and pleading for mercy and promising that she would take the curse off the farmer's wife. So they untied her and let her go after she'd promised to be at the farmer's house the next evening, after dark, when they were all to be there, too, to see her take the curse off.
Next morning the old witch, having her own ways of getting things done, ordered the Littleport blacksmith 10 make her a Trinity Bottle -that's a three-sided one, not a round one - out of sheet iron and she told him that while he was shaping it he was only to heat the iron three times. She stood over him as he worked and before he put the red-hot iron on the anvil she spat on it three times. The sweat poured off him as he shaped the bottle, for the old woman told him that, from start 10 finish, the job must not take more than three - quarters of an hour; if it did then he would have a cold hearth and a silent anvil because his strength would leave him and for the rest of his life he would be too weak to lift a hammer.
When the bottle was finished the blacksmith was told to take along to the nearby inn and have it filled with a quart of ale to see that it did not leak. The test showed that all was well, so then he had to drink the ale, emptying the bottle in three long draughts, no more and no less.
That night the witch went to the farmer's house where she found the four labourers, the farmer and his wife all waiting for her. First of all she ordered one of the men to go outside and bring in a hen from the yard, and she cut it's throat so that the blood ran into the Trinity Bottle. Next she cut a lock of hair from the farmer and his wife and took clippings from their toenails; these she sprinkled with salt before putting them into the bottle along with the insides of the hen and three of her tail and wing feathers. After that she rubbed some of the gizzard fat on the wife's forehead and bandaged her eyes then, putting her hand up the chimney, brought down some soot which she sprinkled on both the farmer and his wife who were ordered to go outside and fill the bottle with their urine.
When the couple came back into the room the witch stopped up the bottle with a piece of wet clay and put it in the middle of the fife. The candle was blown out and everyone sat in the dark waiting for the spell to be broken. Suddenly, with a loud bang, the clay cork and most of what was inside the bottle went flying up the chimney and a horrible smell filled the room The charm worked, though, for when the bandage was taken from off the woman's eyes she was as right as rain.
The farmer kicked that old witch out of the house, though, and picking the bottle out of the fire with the tongs hurled it after her. His wife had one child - a girl - and there was nothing wrong with her, but do you know that when her first baby was born, twenty - five years later, it had deformed hands, just like paws.
After her husband died in 1877, her elder son Elijah built her a house near the drainage engine at Ferry Bank, Southery and she died there on 12th March 1902 at the age of 88. Her son Elijah, who was present at the death, took from around her neck a holed stone that she always wore as a protection against witches, and threw it out of the window. Her grandson Jack retrieved the stone, kept it, and in later years presented it to the Cambridge Folk Museum.Sophia's life ran practically parallel with Queen Victoria, both were large women, both were widows for a long time, both became octogenarians and they lived into the twentieth century. Sophia was buried in the churchyard of Southery parish Church.
Lucy Attlesey, Sophia's daughter born at Soham before she married, had twins, Ebenezer and Sophia, when she was fifteen years old. Both twins died in infancy.
On 27th December 1860 Lucy married Edward Hensby, a widower and farmer at Littleport parish Church and they lived on Burnt Fen, Littleport.
© Ron Barritt - March 1995