PS Also, about the witchcraft and witch bottles deployed as a folk practice within living memory .... Several years ago I gave a talk about magic and witchcraft in the Brecks to a variety of museum and historical society groups. It was truly amazing to witness how often an audience member would come forward afterwards to tell me shyly of something they’d witnessed as a child, or that someone they knew had found a witch bottle under their hearth during renovations.
It was great to read a slightly different version of the Happisburgh ‘ghostly smuggler’ story than the one I’d found when I was doing some writing inspired by Happisburgh cliff top, lighthouse, smugglers et al. Thank you! Just to add - I don’t think it’s mentioned here although I may have missed it - that of course the name Whimpwell (the hamlet) and Whimpwell Street derive from the wailing sounds the well is reputed to have made. That makes it all the more real, somehow, as you can see the name on the street sign to this day. And in the version of the story I found, the villagers found the rotting remains of a brandy cask under a patch of brambles at Cart Gap, where there are plenty of brambles still!
PS Also, about the witchcraft and witch bottles deployed as a folk practice within living memory .... Several years ago I gave a talk about magic and witchcraft in the Brecks to a variety of museum and historical society groups. It was truly amazing to witness how often an audience member would come forward afterwards to tell me shyly of something they’d witnessed as a child, or that someone they knew had found a witch bottle under their hearth during renovations.
It was great to read a slightly different version of the Happisburgh ‘ghostly smuggler’ story than the one I’d found when I was doing some writing inspired by Happisburgh cliff top, lighthouse, smugglers et al. Thank you! Just to add - I don’t think it’s mentioned here although I may have missed it - that of course the name Whimpwell (the hamlet) and Whimpwell Street derive from the wailing sounds the well is reputed to have made. That makes it all the more real, somehow, as you can see the name on the street sign to this day. And in the version of the story I found, the villagers found the rotting remains of a brandy cask under a patch of brambles at Cart Gap, where there are plenty of brambles still!