Butter Charm

According to ‘The Folklore Of Lincolnshire by Mabel Peacock (December 1900).’ The survival in England of the belief in witchcraft is sometimes questioned. Lady Rosalind Northcote appears to doubt whether it survives in Devonshire. I think I may safely say that it still lingers in the Isle of Axholme. A few years ago a girl friend of mine, when staying in a farmhouse in the next village to this, noticed that before the farmer’s wife began to churn she threw a little salt into the churn and a little into the fire. When asked why she did this, she replied that it was to ‘keep the witch out o’ churn.’ She did not mean her butter to be ‘witched.’ Some weeks after this was told me, one of my neighbours asked me if I could take a pound or two of butter from her, as she had made more than she had customers for. – I asked, jestingly, whether it was ‘witched,’ and was surprised to find my question taken quite seriously. The woman assured me that she ‘ always took care o’ that,’ and when I asked how, she said she always used the salt-charm just described. When I pressed her to say whether she really believed in witches and charms she hesitated a little, but finally said that she ‘wasn’t sure’ that she did, but she had always known this charm used for this purpose and ‘thought it as well to be safe.’