From a Shropshire Ghost Tale to Magic Cake
Via stories, horrible husbands, All Hallows’ Eve Food-based Divinations and Daffy’s Elixir.
Hello loveliest of readers,
How are you on this sunny October Tuesday (insert weather description and date you are reading as appropriate)?
Are you enjoying the gorgeous leaf changes? I actually jumped in a big pile of leaves on my way home yesterday and I just want to take endless pictures of trees in their beautiful autumn colours. I even like walking through the blustery showers that keep occurring and warming up and drying out with big mugs of hot tea.
Also good news, I have finally started on the 3 volume Victorian Folklore of Shropshire. It is fascinating but like many Victorian writers, the author or editor, I’m not sure which; prefers to use 23 words when 3 would do. The editor of this hefty, 3 part tome is Charlotte Sophia Burne and goodness know what got left out of the original collection by Georgina F Jackson. I say this in the full understanding that I am a person who likes to use flowery language when the occasion calls for it.
I think it is going to take some time before it gives up all its knowledge, possibly because I keep reading it before going to sleep and it is an excellent sleep aid.
However, I have found a ghost story that I would like to share with you as it is that time of year when we begin to see unexpected things in the darkening misty evenings. This ghost is a particularly tragic one but we should start at the beginning with a manor house that sadly no longer stands. There has been a manor there since Saxon times when one was built by Leofric, Earl of Mercia but the estate of Chetwynd near Newport in Shropshire is even earlier and appeared in the Domesday book.
However our ghost is not quite so early as that. The Saxon house was updated over time and eventually came under the ownership of the Piggot family. Squire Piggot eventually inherited and he was a hard man. He enjoyed his time in London, drinking and entertaining himself amongst all the enjoyments provided for a man of his time. He eventually realised that he would need to take a wife if he ever wanted an heir and, given how expensive his hobbies were, it would be a good thing if she was a rich wife. It might perhaps not have been so bad if he could have married a young widow for example who knew how the world worked but he didn’t. As so often in those times, he married a naive, much younger woman for her child-bearing potential and her inheritance and she became Madame Piggot in exchange.
She thought he loved her but he didn’t, and he soon made that clear. Leaving her in the old draughty, inconvenient pile of a house in the country whilst he returned back to London and his old ways. She, finally understanding that she was now in a lonely, loveless marriage, became bitter and hardened her heart to her husband.
Eventually she became pregnant with the hoped for heir, but alone in the house without friends or female relatives nearby she had a terrible time, becoming weaker and more ill by the day until her birth pains began. Her hard husband had actually returned for the birth of his heir so was there when the doctor broke the terrible news to him that he could not possibly save both the mother and the child.
‘Lop off the root to save the branch’ responded Squire Piggot with little care for his young and troubled wife. Madam Piggott heard this and cursed her cruel husband and the estate with her dying words. Having followed Squire Piggott’s blunt instructions the doctor turned his attention toward the baby, however it seems that the curse took hold quickly and the baby was also lost.
Soon after the lady and her child died, people visiting the house began to tell of sights of a ghostly woman cradling her child and combing his hair or roaming the house alone seemingly desperately in search of something. Some thought she sought her child who had died unbaptised so would remain forever in limbo, others considered she was seeking revenge on her horrible husband.
All would have been well if the apparitions had remained in the house as most of the neighbourhood disliked the Squire and considered him well-served having a haunted home due to his treatment of his wife. However, soon afterwards, when passing the estate on horseback or in a cart from twilight onwards travellers reported feeling cold breath on their cheek and across their backs as though something freezing was clinging to them. This carried on until they crossed the brow of the hill away from the Chetwynd Estate. This got increasingly worse until no-one would pass the Chetwynd Estate after nightfall and everyone agreed that something needed to be done as the spirit seemed to be growing angrier and stronger in energy with every attack.
The local clergyman didn’t feel up to dealing with it himself and summoned 11 of his fellows to lay Madam Piggott’s ghost to rest. They gathered around a table with a bottle in the middle and a lit candle in front of each of their number and began to pray until they stopped one by one as they became exhausted. Finally as the last curate, Mr Foy of Edgmond was about to collapse they felt her spirit enter the bottle and they corked it fast shut with sealing wax. They took the bottle out to the middle of the nearby Aqualate Mere and all reports of supernatural events came to an end.
There was a small scare several years after the death of Mr Foy when a spectre seemed to inhabit Chetwynd House again but a local folk tale tells of how the spirit was trapped into another bottle by a local man and was again thrown under water. It might well be supposed that would be enough for the spirit of a once frail tragic lady but there were instances in the 1970 and 1980s of local drivers feeling an icy presence in their car near what was once the Chetwynd estate. Who knows, she certainly had some cause to haunt the place of her misery and death.
You can go and visit if you like, the house no longer exists having fallen to ruin and many believe it was as a result of Madam Piggot’s curse. The Estate is still there but is no longer in private hands. It is the home of one of the most beautiful show grounds in the country and has a 200 year old herd of fallow deer which roam the park and are used for teaching purposes.
So that’s our first Shropshire Ghost and if you enjoyed that you can also listen to my slightly scary story special podcast which has three food related tales and absolutely no analysis. It will launch on Friday so the link won’t work until then! One of the tales may be of special interest to readers of this tale.
As I have given into the temptation of telling scary tales at the end of October I may as well go the full hog and have some share some All Hallow’s Eve superstitions and food adjacent divinations as our folklore this week:
If you place two nuts on a metal plate and place them over a fire you can find out how happy your potential marriage will be. If the nuts lie together you are possibly onto a good thing but if they fly apart you may want to consider a little. A similar superstition suggested you could find your preferred love by naming two hazelnuts and throwing them into the fire. The one that burned the brightest would be the better husband.
A third and final nut based superstition that comes from Scotland and the North of England: A pair of nuts are named for each member of a couple, then placed on a fire. The couple then say the rhyme ‘If you hate me spit & fly; If you love me burn away’ If they burn to ashes, the couple will have a long and happy life together; but if the nuts spit & roll apart, they will separate soon.
A now sadly neglected way of finding out the size and the figure and disposition of a future spouse was by pulling cabbages or Kale plants up blindfolded under the moonlight of All Hallow’s Eve. The size/shape of the cabbage or kale was indicative of whether they would be plump or slender, tall or short. If any dirt clung to the roots they would come with money and depending on whether the heart of the stem was bitter or sweet would indicate the degree of their good temperedness. The leaves were then balanced over doorways and the christian name of the person who caused them to be disturbed would be the same as your future beloved.
A similar vegetable based divination was also more effective on All Hallow’s Eve although it could be done at any time: A girl must first steal a turnip (it can’t be bought or given) and peel it in one continuous strip and then bury the peel in the garden. The turnip must then be hung behind the door and she must go and sit beside the fire. The next man through the door will bear the same name as her future husband.
You could also do as they used to in Derbyshire and put a sprig of rosemary and a crooked sixpence under your pillow on the night of All Hallows Eve, so that you can dream of your future spouse. A slightly creepier version is to eat an apple, whilst brushing your hair looking in a mirror in the light of a single candle and the face of your lover will appear behind you in the mirror. This was apparently a Shropshire tradition.
You can also bury ring and thimble charms in Colcannon (not that anything containing potatoes and that much butter needs any further reason to eat it) If you get the ring then marriage to the person of your dreams should happen within the year; if you get the thimble then there is no wedding for you, at least in the next twelve months. A messier (and more wasteful option) is to put the first and last bite in a stocking and hang it on the door. The next person through the door would be your future spouse. If you have a hawthorn tree handy, you can also leave a bowl as an offering to the faeries, it's not for divination but it can’t hurt.
I think we should probably bring the folklore section to a close here as there are definitely enough romantic divinations to be getting on with. There are definitely worse ways of finding out about a life partner if everything I hear about modern dating apps is true.
A remedy is now due after all that hard divination work. As per usual please seek medical advice before considering a herbal remedy from an 18th Century cookbook even if as in this case it seems fairly benign (although the amount of senna is worrying). I assume this works because you are essentially drinking a double spiced brandy morning and evening no matter what the actual herbs & spices do.
Finally because it’s a magical time of year we have Magic Cake from The Suffrage Cookbook. It will certainly be magic if you can make cake with only those instructions. Maybe bake in a 20cm tin at 170 degrees for 35-40 mins. Maybe check earlier? It’s certainly a sponge like mixture anyway but seems a little low in fat and sugar. You could just not bother and buy a big chocolate eclair and enjoy it all alone, possibly in a bubble bath, definitely with tea.
With that, Gentle Reader, I must bring this letter to a close. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch via the comments or via any of my social media profiles/my website . If you have enjoyed this and would like to read further such nonsense and have not yet subscribed, please don’t hesitate to subscribe for free at the button below. You’d be very welcome and it would be a joy to write to you.
Those divinations are quite creative! I especially like the one with the apple and mirror. I heard of one where you peel an apple without breaking it and see what initial the skin forms. That’s supposed to be the name of your future spouse 🍎