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Witch · Sible Hedingham

Dummy, the Last Witch Swum in Essex

In the age of trains and telegraphs, a village still feared a witch. They tested him the old way, in the brook.

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Illustration: Dummy of Sible Hedingham
The legend
Witch

Dummy of Sible Hedingham

1863, and a village still threw a witch in the brook.

Stand where it happened

What's there
Village main street near the old Swan inn
Legend from
Victorian, 1863
Tone
Dark history
WitchesTrialsPubs

Before you go

Swan Street is a public road through the village. The brook spot is not exactly located.

  • Swan Street, Sible Hedingham
  • Near Swan Street
  • The pin marks the village; the exact spot isn't recorded.

Sible Hedingham, 1863: a deaf-mute fortune-teller was dragged from the Swan and thrown in the brook as a witch.

Dummy was a mute old fortune-teller of about 76 who lived in a hut in Sible Hedingham. In late summer 1863, Emma Smith of Ridgewell blamed him for her illness and confronted him at the Swan inn. That night a crowd, including Smith and Samuel Stammers, dragged him to the brook and threw him in to 'swim' him as a witch. He was beaten and soaked, and died on 4 September in the Halstead workhouse. Smith and Stammers were tried at Chelmsford and sentenced to six months' hard labour in March 1864. The case shocked Victorian England as a witch ordeal happening in the age of the railway.

Sources

  1. HN 10. The Sible Hedingham Witchcraft Case, Essex Police Museum —
  2. Witchcraft case at Sible Hedingham, The Guardian archive (11 Mar 1864) —
  3. Dummy, the Witch of Sible Hedingham, Wikipedia —

Legends nearby

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