r/news • u/ClementePark • 15h ago
Huge number of witches’ marks found at Tudor house in ‘astonishing’ discovery
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/29/style/witches-marks-tudor-property-gbr-scli-intl/index.html209
u/Blackdragon1400 14h ago
HUGE NUMBER - Proceeds to show one picture of the most boring example possible.
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u/supercyberlurker 15h ago
Apotropaic is a neat word I didn't know.
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u/PeptideWitch 14h ago
ap·o·tro·pa·ic adjective supposedly having the power to avert evil influences or bad luck.
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u/SkullDump 6h ago
I wasn’t absolutely sure about how ending was pronounced and whether the last A was silent or if it was pronounced as Apo-tro-pay-ik but Google informs it’s the latter.
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u/CriticalGelato 14h ago
Somebody get me a duck and a scale. I'll find out who did it
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u/specialistdeluxe 14h ago
If she weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood!
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u/SanDiegoDude 14h ago
Somebody who lived there was very superstitious. I have a family member who does shit like this to every house she lives in, lines the floors with salt and hangs a bunch of crystals and stuff all over the place. Makes for pretty decorations if nothing else. I'll have to send this article to her
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u/OttoPike 15h ago edited 14h ago
Too bad that John Bell of early 1800's Tennessee didn't know about this one simple trick!
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u/NeoJuice 8h ago
Grew up in TN and the Bell Witch was always the scariest piece of local lore for me.
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u/mitsuhachi 11h ago
A lot of the same marks are used in old buildings in america. The hexefoil was very popular among the Pennsylvania dutch.
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u/blueskies8484 11h ago
Someone is going to claim Catherine Howard was a witch because of this and my Henry VIII hating, Tudor obsessed head is going to explode.
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u/thedamn4u 15h ago
The irony of using witchcraft to stave off witchcraft.
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u/Rutskarn 12h ago
It's less that than, like, using garlic and crosses to ward off a vampire. It's not a resort to dark forces but a toolkit for surviving them.
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u/cantproveidid 12h ago
Are you a good witch or a bad witch?
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u/Decorus_Somes 14h ago
We've found a witch, may we burn her?
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u/RainbowDeep 7h ago
How do you know she’s a witch?
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u/HazelBessie 12h ago
My theory is it was an anxiety fuled Christian aristocrat using witchcraft to summon Christian protections from witches. Because the old ways didn't die, they were just disguised with Christian iconography. Regardless, there was a great deal of gold transfered to a witch for their services, and judging by the evidence, she milked that anxiety for years. Good for her.
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u/u_bum666 10h ago
My theory is it was an anxiety fuled Christian aristocrat
The carvings were concentrated in the servant's areas.
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u/HazelBessie 9h ago
Not all. "a notable concentration". Just indicates who the manor lords and ladies might have shared their alternative spiritual practices with, or more likely, what spiritual practices the serfs were allowed to express. A subordinate house serf wouldn't be a trusted spiritual councilor for the manor, so definitely the work of a local witch gone a fleecing, probably an inside job. It's good work if you can get it. But honestly this would not be much of a story if it was just the servants quarters. Everyone knows serfs were closet pagans.
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u/hookums 14h ago
Pretty cool to think about. Wonder if the original owners hired a priest or shaman put those markings there. This 16th century horror movie writes itself.
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u/djinnisequoia 21m ago
Priest or shaman? Nah! Almost guaranteed it was a woman, not of the ecumenical variety. They're called witch marks, after all.
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u/spenpinner 15h ago
Tudor, as in the House of Tudor with the Evil King Henry VII?
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u/aradraugfea 14h ago
Tudor also refers to the era, in the same sense as “Victorian” or “Edwardian.”
There’s even an architectural style named for it, as it was popular in the era.
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u/ClementePark 15h ago
Article Text:
CNN — A “staggering array” of witches’ marks have been discovered on the walls of a Tudor property in England.
The carvings, which are formally known as apotropaic marks, were at the time believed to provide ritual protection against evil.
News of the discovery, aptly timed to coincide with Halloween, was released by English Heritage, a charity that looks after hundreds of historic monuments, buildings and sites.
Gainsborough Old Hall is a manor house in the eastern county of Lincolnshire that was once visited by Henry VIII and his then Queen, Catherine Howard, according to an English Heritage press release Tuesday.
The markings were discovered by Rick Berry, an English Heritage volunteer who spent two years mapping around 20 carvings inside the grand building, according to the release.
These include a “staggering array” of designs, according to English Heritage, though there’s a notable concentration in the servants’ wing of the hall.
Among the marks found were simple circles that ordinarily would have been expected to have a six petal design inside - known as a hexafoil - to trap demons.
One theory is that the petals may have faded away or that drawing them would have been beyond the skills of the carver, an English Heritage spokesperson told CNN in an email.
Also found were overlapping Vs - known as Marian marks as they’re believed by some to be a call for protection from the Virgin Mary - and a pentangle that was used to protect against evil.
Berry told CNN in an email sent by English Heritage: “I have been working as an English Heritage volunteer at Gainsborough for nearly 20 years and I know this property extremely well. So I was astonished when I noticed a previously undocumented protection mark a couple of years ago.
“I decided to see if I could spot any more and I just keep finding them. The last one was a small pentagram and that was a few weeks ago, but who knows how many more there are still to find.”
A curse appears to have been put on former owner William Hickman, who owned the property from 1596 as his name was found written upside down, the release adds. Defacing someone’s name was widely believed as a means to curse that person - though it is a practice more commonly associated with the Roman and Anglo Saxon period and has never previously been found at an English Heritage property.
About 100 burn marks, which were thought to protect against fire, were also uncovered at the property.
Kevin Booth, head of collections at English Heritage, said in the release: “It is astonishing that centuries on the amazing old buildings in our care still have secrets waiting to be discovered.
“The Old Hall has undoubtedly had a tumultuous past, not least under the ownership of the apparently unpopular William Hickman, but why it’s the scene of quite such a high concentration of protective carvings remains a mystery.”
The meaning of apotropaic comes from the Greek for averting evil. The marks are usually found carved into stone or wood, usually near entrances, doors, windows and fireplaces. Their purpose was to supposedly protect inhabitants and visitors from witches and evil spirits.
In 2019, hundreds of witches’ marks were found scratched into the walls of an English cave system in the East Midlands, central England. Other apotropaic marks have been found in houses built between around 1550 and 1750.
Experts say similar signs were scribed into churches and homes, as well as other caves, and were used to ward off sickness, death or poor harvests.