Witch Marks

Witches aren’t superstitious. Witches are what people are superstitious about. (Terry Pratchett).

Heavy timber frame assembly marks which the original builder used to show what went where, are not to be confused with old apotropaic (Greek – turning away) witch marks, which tend to be more random, shallow scratched markings. These are discovered quite frequently on old bressumer beams across the head of a fireplace, or cross timbers in an attic room. These were symbols formed by the householder to ward off evil and dissuade witches from entering the property, indicative of deep dark past superstition. Yes, everyone knows a witch cannot cross an oak threshold uninvited, but what if they came down a chimney stack or through an unattended window? So, adding the marks drew the witch’s attention to the presence of the oak timbers nearby!

This was very common from say 1550 through to1750, when there was economic and political strife, Civil war and the Church in disarray and considerable hysteria about witches. An era when fear of witchery was so intense, occupiers literally barricaded themselves in their homes with boarded windows and shuttered doors. It bordered on hysteria and led to the rise of murderous bastards such as Matthew Hopkin, the self-proclaimed ‘witch finder general’ and his sidekick John Stearne, who together tortured and killed many poor old women.

Quite often these witch marks are found as incomplete daisy wheels (incomplete because only God is perfect), overlapping circles, letters, particularly W,V & M, or three to four vertical parallel lines, which were then cross hatched.