Forum topic: Found in the Town Hall: the "Palmers Scream"

The reference in Chaucer is from the Canterbury Tales:

“And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame,
They wol come up […]”

It’s a little hard to tell in the Middle English, but whoso is a quantified expression, like whoever, that is syntactically singular, but then is paired to the syntactically plural they.

Obviously, without seeing the documents, I cannot say if they are genuine but I must say that they have the ring of truth. Your area of Middlesex had a reputation as a hotbed of supernatural activity in the Early Modern period. Most famous, of course, is the Witch of Edmonton: the witch in question was Elizabeth Sawyer, executed at Tyburn in 1621.

There are many other records of witchcraft accusations and trials in Middlesex… [I’ve omitted a fairly lengthy list here. MJ]

Most excitingly there is a passing reference to ‘the witches of Wynsmorehyll’ (Winchmore Hill) in an undated chapbook called The Most Wicked Worke of Wretched Witches.

Unfortunately there are no further details given about them. The chapbook is probably late 16th / early 17th Century.

I will do some more research, going through county records, assizes etc. etc. to find out more about your local witches. I’ll keep you posted!

P.S. The ‘charm’ against witches given in the manuscript is fairly elaborate but is not unheard of – off the top of my head I can think of at least three other rituals of a similar nature. It would be interesting to know if there were any other finds on the same site: shoes or ‘witch bottles’ were often built into walls as protection against witches.