Loremen Podcast - Loremen S5Ep46 - Gunter and The Witches

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

James talks Alasdair through the case of Anne Gunter's demonic possession... or was it all an elaborate hoax with lashings of wee wee? It's time for more Moreton! We're not talking Eleanor Morton, here. And We're not talking Moreton-in-Marsh either. This week's tale comes from North Moreton, and from from Mike White's book The Veiled Veil: Strange Tales from South Oxfordshire. Join us for this 17th century tale of murder, revenge and urine-bothering witch-hunters. Is that several pins coming out of your mouth, or are you just pleased to see us? Come see the loreboys LIVE in spooky West Norwood Cemetery on Friday 11th October 2024 (2024): https://choose-se27-comedy-festival.designmynight.com/66968247e76bce06372992c8/loremen-podcast-live-recording This episode was edited by Joseph Burrows - Audio Editor. LoreBoys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 @loremenpod youtube.com/loremenpodcast www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm James Shake Shaft. And I'm Alistair Beckett King. And Alistair, we're going to need to have a content warning on this one. We do. Not only does it unfortunately feature men being horrible to women, accusing them of witchcraft. Accusing them of being witches. Come on, fellas.

Yeah. But also, you probably you might want to have a wee before you listen to it. We do talk about wee-wees. Yes. Yes. I had to go part way through the episode. Pause. Go do that. Welcome back. Now enjoy the tale go part way through the episode. Pause, go do that. Welcome back. Now enjoy the tale of Gunter and the Witches. But Alistair, for once, I've not brought you here to talk me through your coffee journey.

I've got even more Morton. No, James, don't tell me that we're going back to Morton in Marsh. We're actually not, nor have we got another guest appearance from Eleanor Morton. Oh, yeah. Just to be clear, my, oh no, was based on the prospect of a return to Morton in Marsh, not Eleanor Morton. I prospect of a return to Morton in Marsh, not Eleanor Morton. I'd forgotten something again about Morton in Marsh.

No, but do check out those previous episodes. They are a lot of fun. Now this is even more Morton, but this is a different Morton. This Morton is in Oxfordshire, in the area of Oxfordshire, known as the Vale of the White Horse. Oh yes. I've actually got a couple of Morton stories. There's a North Morton and a South Morton and they both have tails, but I

think I've only got time for one Morton today. So we're going to go with the North one. Is that story a little bit shorter because they do say Leiceton is Morton. Hey, yeah, they do. They do. Um, this comes from the Veiled Veil, Strange Tales from South Oxfordshire by friend of the show, Mike White. Yeah.

An actual friend of the show. Nice guy. Lovely guy. And yeah, this is the village of Northmorton and Alistair, it's a tale of misrepresentation and alleged witchcraft. Ooh. That is almost, I'd say a hundred percent what people actually think about witchcraft is from the past, which is people settling scores and being

horrible to women, unfortunately. So content warning, it features a man not being, not very nice to a woman. But we're going to go back in time to the early years of the 17th century. So a 16-0 something has just gone four. We're going to zoom in on the Gunter family. The patriarch, Brian Gunter, he's a new to the town. He's new to the town? He's new to the town.

He's not a local. He wasn't born there. He's come from outside. And do you know what he's done? What's he done? He's bought up the impropriated tithes. I'm sorry. That's, I mean, that's a phrase that we're all familiar with, but just in case anyone didn't know what impropriated tithes mean, I did look it up. Is that impropriated? Appropriated?

Impropriated. I-M-P-R-O-P-R-I-A-T-E-D. I think for once I'm not mispronouncing something. Wow. So what it was basically, you know how tithes work to a church. You got to give 10% of your money to a church. Yes. It's kind of a church tax, Jesus tax. These had to be associated to a person. So someone had to deal with that. And basically if you were rich, you could buy the rights to that from the vicar, as

far as I understand it. And then you could, you know, pay for the upkeep of the church and what have you, what you're supposed to do out of those tithes. But you in essence get to keep the change. Okay. Right. Hmm. So this guy wasn't liked. That sounds bad.

I have to say I'm picturing Gunter from Friends. Do Gunter from Friends, but the next evolution and an evolution that's evil. So he's, he's bulkier I'm thinking. His, his close cropped hair is not as close cropped. It's a bit unruly and there's a malevolence to his eyes. About the eyes. Yeah. I can see him.

He, his, one of his daughters is married to the professor of divinity at Exeter college in Oxford, and that actually does come into play later on, which is, so that's why I'm saying that now, but his, I'm not sure what, where she fits in, but one of his younger daughters, Anne, she lived in the village with him, the village of Northmorton. And the thing about this Brian Gunter, unlike the Gunter from Friends, he had quite a temper and he wasn't afraid to let it show. So in 1598, he was part of a crowd watching a football match and a fight broke out.

Now, I think in 1598, football matches were basically just fights. Are you imagining them were a bit more unruly? Wasn't it the thing where it was like from one church to another, you had to get the ball from one church to another by any means necessary. And there's like, the rule is there are no rules. Right. So in 1598, he's part of this crowd watching a football match and the fight breaks out and his sons got beaten in the ensuing ruckus.

And so he attacked the two men that did it. And these were the brothers, John and Richard Gregory. And he attacked them with such violence that they later died. So he's a bit bigger than Gunter from Friends, I'm imagining. And in 1598, the parish register states, These two men were killed by old Gunter, Gunter's son and the Gregory's fell together by the years at football. Old Gunter drew his dagger and broke both their heads,

and they died both within a fortnight after. Okay, so he had a dagger. That explains a little bit about the death maybe. That makes him seem less physically intimidating and more mad. Yep. Yes. Hmm. But he was not convicted for this murder.

How come? Money? Oh yeah. Big man about town. The boys' family tried to have him convicted, but the case failed in the courts. And even though it was him who'd done it, and clearly done it, like it says in the parish register that he did it, he stabbed, it basically says in the village, in the parish register, that he stabbed them both in the heads.

He, Gunter, vowed revenge on their family. What? The Gregorys. For trying to have him prosecuted for murdering two of them. Yes. And like that, in 1604, Brian Gunter was taken ill and sent to Exeter College to convalesce. And at that time, Anne, his daughter, who was only 14 years old, started to have fits and periods of paralysis. And she claimed that three local women, Elizabeth Gregory, the sister-in-law of the brothers,

and two other members of the extended Gregory family, Agnes Pepwell and Mary Pepwell, her daughter, said that they were witches. I don't want to victim blame, but if you're going to be called Agnes Pepwell, you have to expect a few allegations, surely. Well. Such a witchy sounding name. Hold that thought, Alastair. But yeah, Agnes Pepwell, Elizabeth Gregory and Mary Pepwell, they were investigated by

a local witch hunter from Newbury who was called John Wendor, and he diagnosed sorcery. Did he? Would you like to know how he did it? Ah, I don't know. I do want to know. Oh, some absolute nonsense. Some either pointless or cruel nonsense is my guess. It's not particularly cruel.

It is nonsense. All right. Let's hear it. It was by a method which involved examining Anne's urine. Oh, okay. All right, let's hear it. It was by a method which involved examining Anne's urine. Oh, okay. All right. So there was a, in the 19th century, there was a chap called Warlock Manning and his method for using urine to find a witch was, if you filled a bottle with it and turned it upside down and the

bubbles rose upward, then the victim was suffering from a curse. I've got so many questions about that. First of all, Warlock Manning. Yeah. As Mike White promises in his book, more about Manning later, I'm sure we'll come to him another time. Warlock Manning. And did you say in the 19th century? Yes.

In the 19th century, he was still capturing witches with flasks of whiz. Yeah. That's not the same person that's investigating our witches. No, but that's very late to be witch hunting. Isn't it? The 19th century. That's, we'd got most of them by then, I thought. Well, yeah.

When you're using techniques such as this, like if bubbles go upwards... My other objection is bubbles always go upwards. Well, then everyone's always cursed. Jeez. I mean, did you not try it with some kind of... Do you not mean? You'd think there'd be a control urine. So that's what you do with the victim's urine, but do you want to know what to do with the

witch's urine to check if it's a witch? I don't know, flick it at a duck? What? Probably that could work. And if the duck goes, they're a witch. Definitely witch. Like whiz off a duck's back. If you, if you boil the witch's urine and it causes pain in the suspect, then they're

definitely in league with the devil. To be fair, that is quite suspicious. Really. It shouldn't hurt to have your wee boiled. No. Quite an easy one to avoid. Just don't go ouch while they're boiling your wee. And maybe that is the origin of the one of my favorite phrases to show annoyance, to say it boils ones. So John Wendor had examined Anne's urine, potentially boiled it and she'd gone ouchy. No, Anne didn't go ouch. Oh yeah. Sorry. I misunderstood Anne for Agnes. Yes. Yeah. So presumably he turned Anne's way upside down and the bubbles went up. And it's very important to only put the plunger part way down, if you're doing it right.

So Brian returns from Oxford and he reported suffering pains in his shoulder, which mysteriously vanished when he scratched Mistress Gregory on the head. So definitely a witch then. Sorry, just to jump back. I thought you'd said he went to Exeter. He went to Exeter College in Oxford. Oh, I've revealed my ignorance. I thought he was like some former polytechnic. Sorry, sorry. Exeter Met.

Sorry, Oxonians. I didn't know Exeter met. Sorry, Oxonians. I didn't know Exeter was a college of Oxford. It's one of the colleges. So Gunther returns from Oxford and he reported suffering pains in his shoulder, which he says vanished when he scratched Mistress Gregory on the head. Right. And why did he do that?

Well clearly a witch because probably something to do with wee. All right. So he scratched her on the head and his pain vanished. It's like a flow chart. And wherever you start on it, it all goes down to witch. It always ends up as witch. Like one of them in kids books that's kind of like, these flow charts are all stacked in favor of brushing your teeth or something. There's no version of this, which means don't brush your teeth. Just do what you want. Bedtime is more of a guideline.

Whilst Brian Simptons had lessened, Anne's, they'd got worse, they'd increased. She now frothed at the mouth and would at times be insensible to pain. She could exude pins from her mouth, fingers and breasts. Oh, okay. If anyone sounds like they're a witch, I think it might be the person producing pins. But have you looked at a wee-wee? I can't say that I have, sorry. No, no, you're right.

That should have been my first port of call according to the flow chart. So she was, a whole bunch of vickers and religious people visited her to try and see if they could cure her. It says, as Mike White says, quite the reverse. She was said to have impudently tugged 30 hairs from the beard of the vicar of Brightwell, which they counted. Yeah, they counted them. So that was clearly very important to them. The local vicar, Reverend Gilbert Bradshaw, he said that he watched as her

undergarments loosened without human aid and her shoes, stockings and garters came from beneath her. Gilbert! Gilbert! Gilbert! Gilbert! Gilbert! Gilbert! made, and her shoes, stockings and garters came from beneath her... Gilbert. Gilbert. Gilbert. Gilbert. Gilbert.

Put that flask of urine down for one second. But it is weird and freaky because her shoes, stockings and garters came from beneath her clothes crept along like worms and then returned again. It's very Beetlejuice to me. It feels- I can, it's stop motion animated in my imagination. Definitely. And they are-

A bit Jan Svankmajer. They're those striped stockings. So it's a bit somewhere between the Wicked Witch of the West ones that when, you know, when they like curl up or whatever in Wizard of Oz. Yes. Yeah. Quite like that. The Witch of the wet ones that when you know, when they like curl up or whatever in Wizard of Oz. Yes. Yeah. Quite like that. Which of the East, the one that gets hit by the house, but also a bit Betelgeuse.

Now I've said it twice now, so that's, that's that for references. Nice. A bit little otic. Huh? Just, yeah, just making a reference. Some people enjoy to the Jansvang Meyer film, which is a mixture of stop motion and live action, but also includes a questionable older gentleman. Ah, Marlon Brando.

Oh yeah. No, I mean a character he has, it has a pervy old man character in it. Oh, has he, has he got a couple of wee wee? Obviously word got round that this sort of stuff was going on and she was examined by a number of Oxford scholars, including Thomas Winif and John. Now something about this name, I can tell that I'm going to pronounce this wrong. What is the other, some of the other place names and surnames that we've had on here before like Chumley.

Yes. Yeah. Fanshawe. It's spelt P-R-I-D-E-A-U-X. Oh yeah. I've seen that written down. So I would say, you know, just as on a site read, John Pridow or Pride Orcs, potentially this is some sort of midi system for the emotions. That sounds good.

I would say, I would say Pridot probably. Not Pride Orcs? Well, that would be my second choice. Pride Orcs. Pride Orcs line in. And he was a fellow, both of them were fellows of Exeter College Oxford. This is just like the Exorcist. Presumably that means they're linked, aren't they?

You could call it the Oxorcassist, because it's Oxford. Oh, lovely stuff. I think Mike, can Mike have that for free? Yeah, I'm surprised he hasn't thought of it already. Mike, I'm sure you thought of that already, but you can have that one if you haven't. Yeah, Mike probably thought that was a bit on the nose. When you're the author of the Oxfiles. You don't need help on that.

But the case against the women, it seemed watertight. Oh yeah, absolutely watertight. And they were dragged off to be prosecuted for witchcraft at the Abingdon Azize. And I think I got it right first time that time. Yeah, the Azizes. Azizes. Azizes. And then there was a sort of a twist because, I mean, we've all got an idea of what's going on

here. And it's that three women are being accused of witchcraft. Quite spurious. Because one person is able to get her underpants off without using her hands and spit pins out of her mouth and pull a man's beard. Distract a vicar with her underwear. Well, what happened next was Agnes Pepwell announced that she'd actually been a practicing witch for the past 14 years. Aggie Peps nailed it. I said that. I said that.

I said false, false accusation, but that woman sounds like a witch. Didn't I? Didn't I say? Did I say that? Aggie Peps. She says that she's got a familiar in the shape of a black cat. She doesn't tell us its name, which is annoying because the names for the other witches' familiars are brilliant.

She says that the other women's familiars, one had a bearded mouse called Sweat. Yep. Yeah, Sweat the Mouse. And the other one had a white toad called Visit. Visit? Visit, but with a Z and two T's at the end. Great name for a white tone. Yeah.

She probably wasn't a witch. Yeah, I suppose. Yeah. I was having a bit of fun there, but thinking about it is quite sad, really. Yeah, it's quite sad. She's probably trying to, you know, sort of whatever it's called in America, you know, where you turn states evidence kind of thing. Yeah, the king's evidence, I think.

Yeah. Turn the king's evidence. Yeah. States evidence kind of thing. Yeah, the King's evidence, I think. Yeah. Turn the King's evidence, yeah. I mean, it's very unlikely that in a naked gun style, they were falsely accused, but just turned out to be witches anyway.

Yes. Like the way Frank Drebin backs over a guy, but he turns out to be a drug dealer. So fortunately, in comes a cool head, perhaps potentially a Frank Drebin type in that this person does not notice the nonsense going on around. This is Thomas Hinton from Wiltshire and he sort of, you know, got caught up in a bit of the frenzy in the first place, like heard about the fuss, but he started to have doubts about how genuine the symptoms of Arn were.

Good. Yes, get in there. Doesn't say what he thinks about the wee wee. Yeah. Time to re-examine that wee wee. Yes. So the cool head of Thomas Hinton's on the scene. Now some people have said that he's actually a cunning man.

A cunning man, like a, like a male witch. Yes. Poacher turned gamekeeper, like a witch finder, but he's also a wizard. So how do you think he might have busted this case wide open? I'll give you a hint. It doesn't involve we. It's not a we based exoneration. There's no exculpatory urine involved.

It is urine less. Okay. I maybe could have like searched her for hiding pins about her person. You're on the right track. It does involve pins. It does involve pins. So what he did is he secretly marked some of the pins that he found in the Gunther household. And then later when Anne spits out some pins that he's marked, he's like, boom, these are the pins I marked.

This is obviously some sort of trickery. This is a pin from downstairs. Yes. The pin was in the house all along. The pin is coming from inside the house. Exactly. The pin is pinning from inside the house. Oh, so it was a hoax. Wow. Good for him. Well done. Tommy Wiltz. What's his name? Tommy Hinton. Thomas Hinton. No proof of witchcraft could be found and the three women were acquitted. Oh wow. Ah, embarrassing for Agnes to have said all that stuff about familiars at this point. Just coming up with some cool names.

They just got pets with cool names. So yes, they're acquitted. Well, that's something at least. Yes. Being falsely accused of being witch is still pretty bad. Gunter, however, he hadn't given up. Oh, this guy. The King James I came on a visit to Oxford. He was a big demonologist. He literally wrote the book on it. He was well into his witches.

And knowing this, Gunter tried to get an audience with him to kind of say, look, going to try to get an audience with him to kind of say, look, look at my bewitched daughter and pleaded for royal intervention. I think as we have discussed previously, whilst James did used to be into witches, he kind of moved through his witch phase by this point. And he passed the case over to Archbishop Richard Bancroft. This Archbishop was very skeptical, re-witches, and his inquiry was very thorough. It basically discovered that Gunther had been forcing his daughter to drink wine and salad oil, sack and salad oil, and some other unknown green mixture to give her these convulsions.

Oh. Basically been poisoning his daughter to make it look like she was bewitched. And that's not going to be good for the wee either. No, no, no. What that's going to do with the bubbles. He gave her drugs and bullied, basically bullied her and put her in trances to demonstrate this immunity to pain. This guy's the worst.

to demonstrate this immunity to pain. This guy's the worst. He coached her on how to spit pins and just was horrible to her, basically. I mean, there's probably some sort of hysteria, some sort of group hysteria going on there with that vicar who saw the walking around undies. Yes. Embarrassing for him now. Yes. To have gone along with this obvious facade. Yeah.

And then Gunther was hauled up before the star chamber, which was a sort of a legal court, one of the highest legal courts in the land, semi-legal courts in the land at the time, and annoyingly for us, the final verdict has been lost, but it seems it's pretty, it would have been pretty bad for Gunther. He annoyingly did live to quite an old age to his eighties. Of course he did. All of these people get away with everything, don't they?

Anne fortunately managed to disappear into obscurity, although some storytellers assert that she married a servant of the archbishop that had tried her father and lived happily ever after. Oh, well, let's hope that's true. So that is the tale of Gunter and the witches. What a horrible guy. But also because there has been absolutely no supernatural stuff in here. On July 20th, 1900, some repairs were being carried out on the church in

North Moreton and a skeleton was discovered under the pavement and in its skull was a big toad. Oh, do we know the toad's name? It doesn't say. No. It was a yellow toad, not a white toad. Right there. You ready to score it?

I am. I am. Great. First category, naming. Very good. I am. Great. First category. Naming. Very good. Now there were some very good names. Agnes. Agnes Pepwell.

Agnes Pepwell. A classic witchy name. Thomas Winniff and John Pride Orcs in. Tommy Hintz. The cunning man. Archbishop Richard Bancroft. What about wasn't one of them called Warlock Mackenzie? Oh, well we had an aside about Warlock Manning.

Warlock Manning? Yeah, who wrote the book on boiling one's wee. Mmm. Or boiling a witch's wee. The Reverend Gilbert Bradshaw, who saw the moving underwear. So very moving. And who could forget visit and sweat. A white toad called visit and a bearded mouse called sweat.

The original odd couple. Yeah, I like that. That's a really, and the star chamber where you have to collect all the stars to get in there. I think it's in Mario 64, right? Yeah. You only get access once you've got over 40% complete. That's a lot of good names.

Isn't it? That's a lot of good names. What you reckon in? I think it's a four. Yeah. I think it's a four because while a lot of those names were quite pedestrian, Warlock Manning and Visit the Toad are real standouts. Definitely. I can't agree I can't agree more.

So next category. Yeah. What's your second category? Supernatural. Well, they weren't witches, were they, James? No. And a frog in a human skull, you said it yourself, it's the most natural thing in the world. It is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

It's just a wonderful, wonderful thing. It's the happiest place for in the world. It is a wonderful, wonderful thing. It's just a wonderful, wonderful thing. It's the happiest place for a toad to be. Whom among us would turn our noses up at that life? What about some pants dancing around the room by themselves? Yeah, yeah, no, I think that is the fevered imagination of repressed local curate, whatever his name was. The extremely dubious Gilbert Bradshaw.

And the Reverend Gilbert Bradshaw. And many, many questions to ask about him. No, I'm afraid it is a one out of five. And that's generous, really. Just one for a frog being somewhere vaguely macabre. A toad, I'm sorry. A toad. Give him his due.

Okay, then. So what's your third category, James? Well, I'm nabbing it from you. It is. No, that's, I was trying. It's the Oxorcist. The Oxorcist. And what were you singing there? I was trying to do tubular bells, but I think, it turned into this morning.

Can you do tubular bells? It can't be done. The knowledge has been lost. Yeah. Very well, first of all, excellent pun. Not quite Mike White standard, but pretty good. Oxalant pun. An oxalant, an oxalant, oxalant pun. A vicar who may not be questioning his faith, but who I have a lot of questions about.

A questionable vicar. Yes, a questionable vicar rather than a vicar having a crisis of faith. We've got a horrible little girl with all kinds of special effects. Pulling out 30 hairs from the beard of the Vicar of Brightwell. Yep. Very scary. Your bearded mouse does stuff in her. Yeah, which doesn't really appear in the film.

Maybe it was sort of a fun subplot. They got, they cut out in the end. Yeah. It's got very, yeah. Lots of visiting things as a, it's probably a bit where they put her in a MRI machine or something, the 1600s equivalent of an MRI machine, which is someone looking at your way. Yeah. Yeah.

Just getting someone from Oxford university to just go through your business. To mark your pins. Yeah. Well, I want to give it a five, but I feel that would seem arrogant since the listener will know I came up with this as a, as a bit of wordplay. So I'm going to say a four out of modesty. Four out of five for Oxysyst. Damn your humility, Alastair.

Damn it to heck. Right then, final category. Ready with the bleep. Boils my... Yes! They were taking the... They were, weren't they? They were boiling it.

And it really boiled... This... It inverts my... It does all of those things. It's so... What a cheeky so-and-so Brian is. It does all of those things. So what a cheeky so-and-so Brian is. What a horrible, horrible man. He's taking the wee, they're boiling the wee.

The whole thing is a series of injustices that infuriate me, you and presumably the listener. I should hope so. Outrageous miscountage of justice. Can I just remind you this all started because Brian murdered two people. And then sought revenge. Yeah, then went on a revenge quest. What are you doing, Brian? It's like if the guy who killed Gladiator's family had tried to get Gladiator.

I think that did happen. Oh, right. I don't know. I haven't seen it. Also, I don't think the character is called gladiator. He doesn't start out as a gladiator. He's an army man. The Spaniard, they call him. Maximus, da da da da da da. He's got a special set of skills or something.

I may be mixing up some films. Anyway, what was that? How many points for Boyle's mo- Five out of five. Yeah, baby. Thank you very much. Yeah, well earned. Well earned in that case. What an infuriating tale. Of injustice and wee. What a bad, what a bad, bad man. And I've got more, I've got even more, more Morton as well for another time from, there's a South Morton.

Well, that's a tale for another episode there you go good stuff lovely stuff what a terrible guy join us on patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod where you can get access to bonus episodes and you can join the law folk on the discord. Thank you very much to Joe for editing this episode. Thank you very much to all the people who have already joined us on Patreon and for your support. We've got a new live date coming out soon.

Oh, have we? Yeah. It's the 11th of October at the West Norwood Comedy Festival from 8 till 9.30. And do you know where it takes place, Alastair? I believe it's some kind of spooky environment. West Norwood Cemetery? Yes! Join us.

It's time to re-examine that wee wee. Well, that wittle. Piddle? Piddle and wittle. To me, it's only piddle once it's landed on something. Oh, really? I feel like piddling is the action. You can have a wittle. Wait a minute, is piddling the action?

Well, for me, widdling and pidd are both the action of it coming out, I think. Oh, but once it's like magma and magma lava. Yeah. Asteroid meteorite. Yes. Whiddle, piddle. You can't, you can't, can you have a puddle of whiddle? You can't have a puddle of piddles.

Can't have a whiddle of puddle. That'd be nonsense. James, can I stop you there? I need a wee...