Beneath the Roots

Content warning: animal death

Spring is currently purging the remnants of an icy winter in the UK and all across the nation people are cracking choccy eggs and watching King of Kings on BBC2.

If you were in pre-18th century Leicester, Dane Hills specifically, you might be out on Easter Monday, or Black Monday, watching the mayor drag an aniseed-drenched cat corpse through the streets from the back of his horse.

The route of this morbid procession began at a cave and ended at the mayor’s door. The cave’s name gives a clue to why this springtime ritual began in the first place: Black Annis’ Bower.

Black Annis is a Leicester legend: a fanged crone with mottled blue skin, iron claws and a penchant for snatching children away through their windows, no doubt returning them to her cave for untold fiendish devilry. Annis joins the likes of Peg Powler, Nelly Longarms and Jenny Greenteeth as a warning from parents to their children to behave. In the case of Annis it was to not venture out after dark and probably to generally do as they were told. She could transform herself into the beastly Cat Anna, which explains the cat-bait drag hunt that continued up until the 18th century. Aniseed was generally used in drag hunting as a bait scent, but it offers a pun on the Annis name in this case. Cat Anna was likely a corruption of the name Black Annis and with referenced to Annis’ huge talons it’s no wonder she became known as a shapeshifter.

Various theories have been expounded about where Black Annis originated. Archaeologist and explorer T.C. Lethbridge believed she was derived from the Celtic goddess Danu, while others saw her as an amalgam of the Greek Demeter, the Indic Kali and the Irish Cailleach: devourer mother goddesses. Ronald Hutton dismisses these theories, positing that it’s more likely she was based on a late medieval anchoress called Agnes Scott who lived in a cave in solitude, dying in 1455. Along comes the Protestant Reformation and suddenly this Catholic cave-dweller becomes a figure of evil.

In the 19th century Annis became the classic Shakespearean witch who offered the following prophecy of King Richard III:

The boar that has silver hue/ The king’s return shall change to blue/ The stone that tomorrow his foot shall spurn/ Shall strike his head on his return.

Apparently King Richard stayed at the Silver Boar Inn before the Battle of Bosworth. Hitting his heel on a pillar, he tumbled over the Bow Bridge to his doom.

None of this happened, of course. In fact, it’s unlikely that anyone was referring to Black Annis prior to the 17th century, but the wonders of folklore have amalgamated tales to give a new narrative.

And as with all good folklore there’s no way to know the origin of Black Annis for certain. For some she’s the witch who predicted the death of a monarch, to others she’s a pagan goddess. What is known is ears still prick up if you mention the name Black Annis in Leicestershire.

On the perennial programme Antiques Roadshow this week, one of the experts glugged port from a blackened bottle. Only, it wasn't port, was it? It was 180-year-old urine, with rusty nails, hair and a cockle-like beast submerged in its foisty waters. In almost sinister glee Fiona Bruce, the presenter, revealed to the expert, who had now turned a rather sallow shade, that this was a witch bottle. A show that usually has its experts running their seasoned peepers over a Lalique dish or a suspect early Lowry had suddenly turned into something more eldritch.

Witch bottles are most often discovered in the hearth, thresholds or snugly nestled within the foundations of mid seventeenth century homes. They were apotropaic items – objects that were used to deter evil spirits and witchcraft from entering the home. Iron pins or nails were the most common ingredient placed within the bottle, some of which were Bellarmine stoneware bottles, and a quarter of those discovered had traces of urine inside. Other occult garnishes included bone fragments, teeth, bits of wood and thorns. The bodily essences would magically link the reagents to the owner, while the sharp objects would be the sympathetic items that cause pain. If all these pieces are in the right place and the receptacle thusly buried, any witch who would crawl into one's abode on a stormy night would find themselves in pain and unable to move any further.

People were largely turning to folk magic due to the law's handling of witchcraft at the time. Around two-thirds of every witch on trial in England were acquitted. It's possible that people saw this as leniency towards the black arts and took it upon themselves to craft their own deterrents. There was a clear desperation here – digging up the hearth or foundation in order to place a magical charm would have been no mean feat. People would have been deadly serious about keeping themselves and their loved ones safe. After all, according to lore uncorking or breaking the bottle would break the spell.

If one should find a witch bottle, MOLA has some advice for what to do next.

One thing that you shouldn't do it what our hapless expert, our Jamesian scholar, did and open the bottle and drink from it. There are still forces at work in this land, centuries-old magic buried beneath its skin. The cursed arteries still channel their rotten blood through the foundations of this kingdom. Please handle with care.

Hi, I'm Scott and I have a lifelong love of folklore, the occult and general creepiness.

Beneath the Roots is all about the darkness that lies under the veil of reality. The lone gothic castle swept by frozen winds whose creaking chambers tell stories of tragic love and ghostly happenings. The mossy hand that reaches from the black waters, dragging a wanderer under the surface. Ragged shoes concealed in hovel walls, an apotropaic ward against the witches in the gloom.

This blog will contain art, stories and articles about all of the above, along with interviews with artists, writers, and sorcerers.

Art: Arthur Rackham