Loremen Podcast - S5 Ep8: Loremen S5 Ep8 - The Witch of Berkeley

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

Halloween may be over, but it is always spooky season on Loremen. With that in mind, James brings in a tale of a Berkeley Witch whose last request is as elaborate as it is ineffectual. Poor wee James is under the weather this week, so his deep bass baritone is even bassier than usual. And yes, Alasdair does dole out a couple of pity points. There's a chance James has touched on this tale before, but never in such detail, or at such a low octave. Get it down your ears! 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

Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cash back, the most savings on your shopping. So join Rakuten and start getting cash back at Sephora, Old Navy, Expedia, and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cash back. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save money at over 750 stores. Join for free at rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. 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. It's still kind of spooky season, because the nights are drawing in. It's still spooky out there. It's way spooky. Bats' wings, full moons. Saw such a mist the other day. Trees like crooked fingers. I've got a real witchy

tale for you. I'm delighted to hear that. It's the Witch of Barclay. Ooh, outstanding in her field. Staring at birds, divining. Oh, Alistair, how are you? I'm all right, but is that a note of weariness I hear in your old voice there, James? It is, it is. Are you a little under the weather?

I've fallen under the weather. It's not our old frenemy covid is it yeah i got the two lines i got the two red lines sorry well should we just wrap it up should we should we just call it a day just just leave this one well pop you back into bed i've actually i've got i've got a little something yeah i know that's the problem i just have to tell you okay story that's a story because alice i don't know if you remember we did the um we did that live show only the other day i actually remember that which is rare because i forget most of our episodes and i brought along a book from home witchcraft in britain by christ in a. It's Christina Hole, as illustrated by Mervyn Peake.

And I came wearing my own clothes and brought a board game like the last day of school. Yes, exactly right. That's about it. I got in trouble for putting Danger Do Not Cross hazard tape all over the teacher's toilets. Oh, you rascal, James. The statute of limitations has expired on that one so i can

admit to it here did you really i'll tell you what for it did you really do that last day of school james yeah james were you a bad boy no i thought i was the original bad boy you were the original bad boy we just watched neighbors they always did muck up day and we were heavily influenced by australian soaps so we did our own muck up day so we taped up the the staff toilets with danger do not cross tape and yeah let's cut that out and nothing else happened there's a good edit point oh yeah yeah that'll sound convincing in the edit people look will go, hmm, believable. But speaking of rules and not obeying those rules... Hmm, you're dealing with James Shake Shaft now. By the way, this Witchcraft in Britain book

by Christ in the Hole is Christina Hole. It's really good. Like, every page I've turned the corner over for, like, ah, something that I want to talk about on a podcast at some point, in a way I don't need to turn any pages over.'s just a whole book because it's just the whole book stop folding over pages like a maniacal origami expert james accept that the whole book is good it's real good this is how it opens chapter one witchcraft in england witchcraft was known in england as in most other countries of europe from time immemorial.

Boom. Yeah, right from the time memorial. She's setting a stall out in the little square next to the time memorial. And it says, the Romans had their own laws against the practice of magic, especially charms and incantations intended to harm ordinary people or any attempts made to discover the length of the emperor's life. Ooh. Yeah, centuries later, it's still a serious offence in England to try to divine how long the king will live.

Is it? Yeah. Really? I think I'm in trouble. I don't know whether the statute of limitations is on that because my kids keep asking me when he's going to die. Bonk, bonk, bonk. Kids, are you trying to work out how long the king will live in there?

No, leave us alone. Stop it. That's been a crime since Time Memorial. Since the Time Memorial. I think it was because the Queen died, and they're quite young. They're like, oh, that's what happened. Kings and Queens died, did they? When's the King going to die?

That's going to raise some questions for them, yeah. Well, that's tricky for us because no monarch has died in our lifetime until that moment, so we weren't really ready for it. We were like, you mean the Queen can die? It's game over, man. get away from her you be um that's my only other experience of a queen dying aliens the film aliens the film alien 2 i think it was called did not like it sorry to alienate the entire male population of the earth but uh didn't yeah it's all right didn't really like it de-alienate the um oh wow i didn't even intentionally pun there on alienate did you accidentally watch the director's cut

i did watch the director's cut because that is 20 minutes longer well the thing but i looked up which scenes that they had put back in and i liked those bits like the they took out all the stuff about her daughter which is yeah that was to me that you would have taken those scenes out it absolutely needs that otherwise it would have been a film about nothing um that isn't very interesting as a tangent but that is my opinion you want more witch laws then yes please in the seventh century theodore the archbishop of canterbury i can think of two other good names for Archbishops of Canterbury. Is it Alvin and Simon?

Yeah, Alvin and Simon would be great names for Archbishops of Canterbury. Maybe the Pope could be called Dave. There's a squeak in their way through the Lord's Prayer. He drew up a number of punishments for forms of witchcraft. And as Christ in a whole says, none of them were severe so if you made sacrifices to demons you just had to do penance from one to ten years if you killed someone by spells you had to do penance for seven years that's it just penance just pet what is has penance got softer over the years or is it just saying sorry is it just praying i think it's

mostly praying although during three of those years you gotta only eat bread and water but still you're not in jail so you could get some quite good artisan loaves i imagine no seeds on the bread seeds aren't bread you can't have i've done my joke about the super seeded loaf it sounds familiar they do seeded batch and then they brought out like a super seeded batch but even at the point of buying it i felt that it was old hat because it had been super seeded the crowd enjoyed that very much i thought i was you running away bare feet always when we record never never wear shoes to a recording you're like the oh god damn it i wish i'd remember anyone's name that pop star i think as we age this podcast has moved through

a period of being middle-aged men remembering things to a point where it's middle-aged men not remembering things forgetting the the name joss stone the forgetting yeah i'm the joss stone of podcasts nice one, astrologers who invoke demons for the purpose of sending a man mad had to fast on bread and water for a year and then just four more years penance. General penance. Jen Pen.

Yeah, fine. Jenny Penny. I'm not sure that Archbishop Alvin, maybe he doesn't really believe in witchcraft. Simon North. I'm not sure which one. Is it all three of them? St in row yeah classic i think perhaps he recognizes that witchcraft is not a real thing and is choosing deliberately mild punishments it's the same punishment as that for sending a man mad with demons as raising storms what next so by the time we get to 1065 though that was a real kind of looking at your watch here yeah 1065 feels like it's like something's supposed to be happening

i just don't feel like i can start on any projects yeah not worth it no well william of malmsbury did willie malmsmes, the historian. The historian. He started writing down some of his history stuff. And he says he heard this story from someone who saw the whole thing happen in 1065. That's an unusual amount of detail for a historian around that time. This is the story of the Witch of Berkeley. Barclay. Sorry.

Thank you. The Witch of Barclay. Berkeley for Americans. I'm not sure if we've talked about it before. Barclay is a. Thank you. The Witch of Barclay. Berkeley for Americans. I'm not sure if we've talked about it before. Barclay is a village in Gloucestershire. Ousester for Americans. Yes. It's the home of the guy that invented vaccinations.

Is it? Jenner. Yeah, Thingy Jenner. I'll look his name up. Is this the puss guy? The putting a bit of puss under your skin? Yeah, Edward Jenner, who bravely put some puss on his servant's skin.

Yeah. Yeah, and luckily it turned out to be a vaccination. He was just a hilarious prankster. He's just a real grotty man. Yeah. Yeah, come in here. You're not going to make me have puss under my skin, are you? I am.

He first tested it on the eight-year-old son of his gardener. Oh, nice. But I think at that point, a bunch of other people had done it. You know, it was like a folk knowledge that if you'd had that, you wouldn't get this. Was it cows? Was it pigs? I think if you got cow, you wouldn't get small.

That's it. It wasn't pigs. It was cows. And so the milkmaids didn't get smallpox because they'd had cowpox. You're listening to two men eventually remembering historical events slowly googling um yeah and i guess the eight-year-old had not had either he had to have someone who was young because then they'd not had either so yeah so he gave cow pox to the boy it was pogs in my day he was from barclay and that's where the witch of barclay was from really

yes now actually when i tell this story, Alistair, I've got a feeling I might have touched on it before. But in my defence, I've currently got COVID. He's ill, listener. And the time that I remember it, it seems like it was during our lockdown fever times. So you've been thrown back there by the infection yeah well look i'll let you do that superseded loaf joke again so i can't really stop you that's true let's do the

witch of barclay i did ask on the on the law folk discord and no one said that i'd done it no one seemed bothered no one seemed bothered interested at all yeah so uh this woman she was known so oh sorry my other source is oh mysterious gloucestershire by mark turner not peter andre no but he did write the whole book up to his waist in water yes and he it says here is dedicated to a baby girl. No, there is no dedication. I didn't think there would be. I thought you were joking there, James. The Witcher Barclay was a woman who was known for her ability to tell fortunes and interpret omens. You better not work out how long the king will live.

Yeah. She had a pet bird. Some people say it was a raisin. Jesus Christ. Oh, you can't edit it out. I enjoyed it. A little pet raisin and a couple of cocktail sticks. With wings?

Living in a matchbox. How you doing in there, Terry the Raisin? All right, get back in. No, I don't want to go in a box. Go back in the box. It was a raven. I misspoke, Alistair. No, I don't want to go in a box. Go back in the box. It was a raven. I misspoke, Alistair.

Sorry to shatter your dreams. Some say she had a pet raven. Some say it was a chuff. A raven, you say? And according to Billy of Malms, it was a jackdaw. A jackdaw, okay. None of which are as good as a raisin, I will concede. None of those are as good as terry the raisin in my view but one day that chuff raven jackdaw or maybe a raisin you know what it could have been died it took to the air flew three

times around the room then fell down dead and she said now this day is the plough come to my last furrow. Which is quite, I don't like poetry, Alistair. Sounds a bit dubious. I quite like the poetry there. The plough's come to the last furrow. You like that? It's got to the edge of the field, yeah. Could be a field of raisins.

I'm not sure how they grow. Oh, so she knew she was going to die. So she saw an omen in the flight of that bird. I'm interpreting this omen in the death of the bird or raisin. Quoth the raisin, nevermore. Oh, nice. Because it's dead. Yes.

Well, no sooner had she said this, then a messenger came into the house and declared that her son and his family had died. Oh. And she was like, yep, this is it, is it definitely right god's on to me i've been doing all this you know naughty stuff yeah he's finally caught on my son and his family my raisin slash raven yeah god naturally went i'll start with the raisin and work up from there you know like in the godfather where it's like a horse's head in the bed you're gonna notice a raisin and work up from there. You know, like in The Godfather, where it's like a horse's head in the bed,

you're going to notice a raisin. It might escape your notice for a few days. Yeah, yeah, it's a bit too subtle, really, isn't it? If you're sending a message. Yeah, if you wake up and there's a raisin in your bed, that just means you've been having a crumpet late at night. It's not necessarily a threat. A late-night tea cake.

From God, the ultimate Godfather. Mmm, nice. Who polices the police who who godfather's the godfather god god yeah probably god the father the thing is though you will come to his house on the day of your daughter's wedding though won't you because aren't all churches god's house yeah oh And most weddings take place in church. So, oh, get over it, God. Yes, we have come to the house on the day of your daughter's wedding. Stop doing the silly voice. To be fair, though, he is very unclear in the way he talks, God.

Like, he could have actually just been a bit more specific about a few issues and saved us a lot of hassle. And I'm being very vague about these instructions. So, yeah, so she sent she was worried, God's on to me. He's sending warnings, he's killed my favourite raisin. She sent for her two surviving children. Fortunately, these were

a monk and a nun. A monk and a nun? A monk and a nun. One's a monk, one's a nun. A nun and a monk. Right. According to Malmsbury she told them there was no hope at all of saving her soul from hell but if they would follow her instructions carefully they might be able to save her body okay i'm not sure what the point is of the distinction there surely surely the soul would be the priority at this point i would yes you but if i mean you've got all bases covered with a monk and a nun

so if anyone can do it it's a nun monk team they're the original odd couple you used to see nuns more yes have I already said

this to you before no on the podcast can't remember I just noticed today because I travel by train a lot in the old days

you couldn't get on a train without seeing a couple of nuns having a whale of a time having a little laugh together about some Christian business. Never see a nun. Are they all driving?

Getting minibuses? What are you doing, nuns? One of my favourite jokes is the two nuns in a car. Do you know the two nuns in a car? Is that the one with Dracula in it? I must have said. Yeah, Dracula jumps on the bonnet, and one says to the other, get out and show him your cross.

So she gets out and says get off the car love that it's a good joke it's a good joke maybe that's what they're telling each other they were that's what they were giggling yeah so what she did she gave a specific set of instructions to be followed out to stop the devil getting his devilish claws on her body so when she died they had to sew up her body in a stag's skin, then lay her on her back in a stone coffin. On top of the coffin, they had to put another heavy stone,

tie that up with strong chains. Strong chains, it says. Right, okay. And then they had to get someone to say psalms. Psalms? Psalms. Psalms for her for 50 nights without stopping and masses to be said on 50 mornings presumably also without stopping apart until it stopped

being morning i guess otherwise you've got psalms and masses going on at the same time that's gonna get annoying think of the din yes a cacophony around the coffin a cacophony brilliant well done hold on there we go oh he's run away again come back alistair i've got more raisins and if it's a result of all this her body remained quietly in the grave for three days and nights and was not disturbed they could be sure that all was well and then her corpse could be safely buried in the churchyard so how do you think it went, Alistair? I'm going to say badly. Yeah.

I don't know about her kids, but I stopped listening to those instructions. About halfway through. Yeah. There is a lot. There's a lot. Let's see how much I can remember. Stowed up in a stag, put inside a stone coffin, an additional stone put on top of the coffin. Strong chains, make them strong make sure and then

50 psalms a bunch of masses 50 nights of psalms not 50 psalms okay so what happened did they get bored because it sounds boring as hell as soon as they laid her in the stone coffin a demon of great height broke into the church with a bunch of other demons knocked the stone straight off the coffin snapping the chains and then the devil himself arrived on the scene the devil himself himself the devil himself himself the devil he commanded the dead body of the witcher barkley to rise threw her over his black horse which in some reports is covered in spikes and rode off a spiky horse a spiky horse wow and rode away with her and she was never seen again wow which is for the best given the circumstances quickly get on the blower cancel all those psalms yeah yeah we're not we're not gonna need them well you can keep the deposit but but we don't need it. Well, actually, no, no.

If we're paying you, you can come round and do the Psalms. Yeah, if we're paying anyway. It does smell of sulphur in here. Yeah, do it. So that, Alistair, is what happened to the Witcher Barclay. That's a really good story. I don't think you've told that story before. Also, in the church, there's this peculiar sculpture of a large toad

with the heads of two children beneath it. The toad is supposed to have devoured two of the children of the Lords of Barclay. There's a child-eating toad, and you tell me now. Yeah, sorry, just in case you want a little bit more local flavour. Flavour of children. There's a kid-eating toad. And apparently it developed a liking for human flesh and grew to a monstrous

size by feeding on the bodies of prisoners who were chucked in the oubliette we've definitely talked about oubliettes before because i didn't know how you said it i i think it's oubliette the distress on the final so i used to think it was oubliette in actual french but it's not it's it's english french is it is it one of those english french words like croissant croissant for our american listeners pastry wow that's like the early version of those uh crocodiles that were supposedly flushed into the new york sewers and grew to a monstrous size yes that's the oldest version of the thing grew to a monstrous size legend i've ever heard started off eating two children apart from from, now that I think about it,

the Lambton worm. Had your gob. Because that grart and grart and grart and grart. As well you know, James. I do, I do. But yeah, that sculpture of the big toad with the two kids beneath it is in the church still.

On the top of the fourth pillar eastwards on the south side of the church for anyone who's in the Barcl Berkeley area, wants to check it out. If it even is a sculpture. What, just a very still toad? I think it might be biding its time, waiting for a particularly appetising child to come past. And then the tongue.

What happened to Jasper? According to Mark Turner, the official guide to the church makes no mention of the toad's flesh-eating reputation. Well, it wouldn't. They don't want people to know. They're in the pocket of Big Toad. Yeah, this is the official guide of the church. James, you've got to have more media savvy.

Of course, the official narrative is that this toad is not eating children. The MSP, the mainstream pamphlet. Yeah. Oh, no. They've pulled the blooming wool over my eyes again i am a sheeple so i'm such a sheeple yeah that's the tale of witch of berkeley with a shorter side to a kid eating toad well i'm glad you swerved frogwoods right at the end there thank you unlike those kids should we do the score so you can uh snuggle back into your matchbox there james alongside my raisin my favorite alongside your raisin yes you ready to bring the scores yeah yes i'm ready hold on let me just turn my baseball cap backwards nice okay ready to go first up naming names um there weren't many about that

barclay the witch of barclay do we do we even have a name apart from the there? Barclay The Witch of Barclay Do we even have a name apart from The Witch of Barclay? No, she's just known by her job Sandra the Witch Billy of Malms William of Malmsbury

William of Malmsbury that's quite good Yeah Theodore The Archbishop of Canterbury Well, the other two Alvin and Simon Yeah, it's potentially

one third of a great name Yeah Alvin, Simon and Theodore I'd third of a great name yeah Alvin Simon and Theodore I'd have to hear something pretty good to go up over two at this point

no I've got none I've got none don't even know what the names of Raven was or Raisin we don't know the Raisin's name

I think it was Terry no Jackfruit or Jackdaw sorry no it's a two it's a I'm making you

an offer and it's two and I think you should take it yeah i'm making it i'm making you an offer and it's two and i think you should take it yeah i'll take i'm making you an offer you can't refuse like god would some raisins some fish i don't know if it is just literally the brain fog but i've all i'm starting to feel that we've we've even done the raisin riff before have we somehow i don't know my god if we have double riffing a lot lately well look we're a couple of tired boys just doing our best okay james oh yeah if anything we're saving the listeners time so they don't have to re-listen to episodes we'll just do the same riffs yes okay two category the second category the supernatural supernatural very high yeah uh which having kids monk and a nun that's just a weird situation tough at christmas yeah very awkward very awkward at

christmas general witchcraft omens in the flight of birds that's very supernatural plow in your last furrow yes um uh rise raising storms killing people people. And then it was fairly mild throughout, but then right at the last second, a whole rabble of 80s-style demons, 80s movie demons, probably all with motorbikes, and vaguely counter-cultural aesthetics, because in every 80s film, the villain always look kind of punky and counter-cultural,

even though in the actual 1980s, the real villains were... Go on. The suits. Yeah. Well, that's your two baddies. Those are your two baddies. Your two classic 80s baddies. The guy with the glasses and the suit

and the guy with the spiky knuckles. You often find, though, the guy with the spiky knuckles, he's working for the guy in the suit. No way, James, you're blowing my mind. What? I'm blowing your mind like blooming Clarence Boddicker might in the film Robocop. Mm.

Rob-o-cop. Is that how Americans pronounce it? Yeah, for the Americans. And Rob-o-cop for the Irish. Yeah. So what was this? What were we talking about? What was it?

I think it was supernatural somehow. And at the end, a spiked horse of the devil himself. Surely, surely, James, any episode featuring the devil himself must be a high scorer. So I think it's five. Yes. I mean, really, it's four, but you're not well and you've tried your best. So it's five. Okay.

There's an extra one left for you. All right. What's your third category? It is the spirit of the law. Ooh. Explain that. I hear people say category? It is the spirit of the law. Ooh, explain that. I hear people say, it's not about the letter of the law, it's about the spirit of the law. And I think I don't know what that means.

No. But there's a lot of laws about spirits in this one. I feel that it's justified. Yes, so you had all the rules about what the punishments would be for various types of witchcraft. The various years of penance for various types of witchcraft. The various years of penance for killing someone through witchcraft or sending them mad. Which, to be fair, you can't do. And then there were her laws, rules, her very, very specific set of guidelines.

Which either were not actually followed through by the children. They'd forgotten some which have lost to history. Or they were sold a bum steer, they weren't going to work. Yeah, the first one was probably close the door to the place this is happening, and then do it. It didn't work. Do the singing first. Get a few psalms in. A few psalms up top, ish bash bosh, and then start on the rest of it. Exactly. But they didn't work. The devil came. The devil themselves. I'm not sure that's, strictly speaking, a matter of law. But it would be wrong for me to cleave to the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the score.

Yes. So I think it's four. Yeah, okay. Or I've confused myself. It's four. Thank you. Well done. And the final category. My finger's myself. It's four. Thank you. Well done. And the final category...

My finger's bleeding. That sounds like a bad sign. What? James, have you cursed me? Um, no. Has the storm reached you yet? There was a storm here just the other week. James?

Well, for the fourth and final category, before I get served with four years of penance, it is actually a category. It comes from the law folk. From when I asked the question, have we done this before? Plarsen suggested, have the category, I toad you so. Because you told me about a toad. I may have told you about this toad before okay

so it depends really on how many times you've told me about this toad and neither of us know could i tweak it to i told you i was ill okay all right so that's a spike milligan reference yes she saw foresaw her own death. She did foresee her own death. To be fair, she did foresee the devil trying to steal her body. She was right about that. It seemed over the top at the time. And you are ill.

And I am ill, and I told you all about it, and... Yeah. There was a toad in the story. And there was a toad in the story. It's five out of five. Well tweaked, because you were looking at a one there, James. Ah, thank goodness. Thanks, Plarsen. I was standing on the shoulders of giant toads.

Sorry, Plarsen, I've just called you a giant toad there as well. Sores. So, yeah, I hope I didn't tell you that one already. Yeah, I hope so too. I'm sure we'd have remembered that toad. I would have remembered a toad that eats children. I'm sure. I'm sure I would have, unless the toad has a way of making us forget.

If you, who are listening to this... Not me now. No. The listeners. But if you, who's listening to this... That's you. ...wants to give... Not me.

No, them. What about them? If they want to give a piece of their mind, because we have told this before, if they want to get in on that law folk discord, how can they do it, Alistair? They have to sign up to the Patreon. They have to.

Patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod. Is that correct? That is absolutely bang on. Let's stop this recording because I've lost the ability to speak. And like Marlon Brando, he moved in mysterious ways. Yes, yeah. Without trousers on in his later work. Everyone knows that story about Marlon Brando not wearing trousers in films

so he wouldn't be shot from the waist down. You do now. I made an inference based on you saying that. Otherwise it sounds like I'm having a pop at God or saying that he just did a silly walk. But no, he didn't wear trousers in his later films because he didn't want to be shot from the waist down. That's the story.

He was notably very lazy, wouldn't learn his lines. I think he did wear trousers because he couldn't be bothered to put on trousers. Or they had all his script in. Yes, he had his script written on his legs. Screw you, Marlon Brando, do your job.