This month’s blog post has been provided by our volunteer Margery Dunlevy. Margery made a fascinating observation in the attic of the Museum, and has been finding out more.
I recently helped with a sixth form visit to the Birthplace. Standing on the landing of the top floor, waiting to move one of the groups to another room, I suddenly became aware of a ‘daisy wheel’ carved on one of the doorposts.
As I also volunteer at Baddesley Clinton – a National Trust property near Solihull, I recognised what this was – a medieval witches’ mark.
Witches’ marks can take a variety of forms. Some are just wavy lines that intertwine. Some take the form of a capital M and a capital V carved on top of one another – standing for “Virgin Mary”, but the most easily recognizable is the so-called “Daisy Wheel”.
The idea is that the evil will get into the wheel but will be trapped there, going round and round, and be unable to get out again, protecting the house. They can be carved on stone or on wood – Baddesley Clinton has several of both types, and are usually placed on chimneys or on entrances to houses so that the evil will not be able to come in.
The mark on the doorpost at the Birthplace is unusual in two ways. Firstly it is nowhere near the entrance to the house, and secondly we know that the house was not built until 1708, long after you would think the practice of carving witches’ marks had died out. This suggests that the timbers were originally from a much older house. This might have been the previous house on this site, or they may have been brought from somewhere else.
If you look at the timbers in the attic you can see that many of them have been reused as they are carved to take mortice and tenon joints but are now not in a position to connect with other timbers.
There were other ways in which a house could be protected against witches. Witch Bottles were small pottery bottles which were filled with amulets, small scrolls herbs, feathers or seashells hidden in the roof timbers were believed to keep witches away. People hung ‘witch balls’ – brightly coloured glass spheres – in their windows. It was also believed that if you put a pair of old shoes or a dead cat behind the chimney this would protect you.
I don’t suppose we will ever find out where the timbers at the Birthplace came from originally, but it would be fascinating to find out!
By Margery Dunlevy
The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum Blog 