A while ago I discovered an incredibly strange piece of Cornish folklore that dates from 1687 which seemingly reports a case of teleportation and abduction in North Cornwall. This tale has appeared online in recent years, but it never made complete sense, as the details of the setting have been confused and distorted from the original account,* incorrectly placing the weird events at Cardinham. After some additional research and place name identification, I have now put it all together, and have re-written the folktale, placing the story in its correct location at Washaway. 

The Washaway Teleportation
by Alex Langstone

Strange Events near Bodmin. May 1687

The narrative begins at the manor of Park, where Jacob Mutton was a young servant employed by local landowner William Hicks. Park stands in the hamlet of Washaway, just off the main road from Bodmin to Wadebridge. Jacob was honest and hardworking and was well regarded and respected around Bodmin and district. He had arrived at the farmhouse, parts of which date back to the 14th century, with many local recommendations to work for Hicks, who also served as rector of St Meubred’s church in Cardinham. 

Park Farmhouse

Piskies in the cellar

The tale of the Piskies in the Cellar, collected by Thomas Quiller Couch from the mining communities of Mid Cornwall, springs to mind, because of the phrasing of the piskies cry, the perceived teleportation, and a similar sounding place name.

The story begins with John Sturtridge, from Luxulyan, who was walking home one evening after visiting the local hostelry. Walking along the narrow lanes, he soon reached Tregarden Down without too much bother. However, here he came across an unnatural sight. Lit by the moonlight, upon the rough grass between the track and the moor, he stumbled upon a party of the little people. Assailed by shouts of derisive laughter, he increased his pace through the rough downs, but soon became bewitched. He was puzzled and confused, when a chorus of tiny voices shouted: "Ho, I and away for Par Beach!" John repeated the chant and was in an instant transported to the sands of Par. After a brief dance, the cry was given: "Ho! and away for Squire Tremain's cellar!" A repetition of the Piskie cry found John with his elfish companions in the beer cellars at Heligan. This delighted John, and he partook of an ale or two. In the morning John was found by the butler and was subsequently arrested and charged with theft. He was convicted and sentenced to death. The morning of his execution arrived; and John was standing under the gallows, when a commotion was heard within the crowd, and a little lady dressed in green made her way through the throng to the scaffold. In an enchanted voice, which John recognised, she cried: "Ho! I and away for France!" which being replied to, he was teleported away from the officers of justice, leaving them and the crowd wondering where John Sturtridge had gone.

So, here we have two tales of teleportation. One matter-of-fact and one overtly supernatural. The only hint we get from Jacob Mutton, is that he vaguely remembered being carried by a tall man, possibly travelling a distance of 27 miles, between Washaway and Stratton. We get no real sense of timescales involved.  In the tale of the piskies in the cellar, John Sturtridge is mazed by piskies, and the supernatural elements of pisky-enchantment is fully realised as the mechanism behind the teleportation. 

NOTES

* A pamphlet entitled "Strange and wonderful news from Cornwall: being a miraculous accident that lately happn’d near the town of Bodmyn, at a place called Park".  Printed by J. Wallis 1687. (Bodleian Library archives). This story was later reprinted in the Western Morning News on February 8, 1926. It was first exposed to the internet by author Brian Langston in 2013.

Part of this article was first published in my regular Cornish folklore column in Meyn Mamvro Vol. 2. No. 13 Spring/Summer 2026

   

by Alex Langstone

A vast expanse of tidal power punctuated with mysterious, secretive and impenetrable islands. Here the highest tides bring overspill and nervous excitement. The red ochre sails of traditional barges once plied their trade upon this waterway, which links land, river and sea to generations of my maternal family. The Blackwater estuary, at the heart of the Essex coast, brings me home. It was here, on this eastern shore that in pre-Roman times the Celtic tribe of the Trinovantes held sway. Collaborators of Boudicca and the Iceni, there isn’t much now to show they were here, but the ghosts of this lost British tribe survive deep within the land and on the tides. Later, much later, the Saxons arrived, and the kingdom of the East Saxons was born, from whence the modern county name can be traced.

The main port of Maldon, world famous for harvesting sea salt, with its beacon tower of St Mary’s sitting snug upon a hillock above the quay. Where secret political plotters once met to plan the downfall of Lady Jane Grey and just along the harbour on the Bath Wall, a secretive guild of fishermen held 'The Tin Shed Parliament'. A more distant history recalls that Earl Byrhtnoth lost his battle against Olaf Tryggvason and his Viking army nearby on the causeway to Northey Island and the famous poem The Battle of Maldon, originally written in Old English, chronicles the epic battle. Even more ancient and on the opposite bank of the river, arcane barrows were once excavated on the Goldhanger marshes.

My maternal family’s past feels near here in the old Saxon town of Maldon. The town’s name is from the Old English Maeldun, which translates as ‘monument hill’, and the town is indeed a monument to my own ancestors, where great grandparents were welcomed into the world at the fisherman’s church above Hythe Quay, grandparents married at All Saints in the centre of the town and parents sailing on the Tondeleo in the 1960s.

Maldon waterfront. Image © Alex Langstone

“Break a Lapwing’s egg into a cup of tea”. Country cure from 1950s Tillingham.

Standing by the lock gates, which separate the Chelmer and Blackwater Canal from the tidal river you can view Northey Island on the horizon and beyond towards the sea, lie the two larger islands of Osea (Old English: Ōsgȳþes īeg, ‘Osyth's island’) and to the north, Mersea (Old English: meresig, ‘island of the pool’) . Both of which like to keep their secretive interiors hidden from mainlanders. All three islands have tidal causeways, which can only be crossed at certain times, and this creates an otherworldliness that gives each island its unique identity, the isle of Mersea even has its own ghost infested round barrow, that looms from the tree line as soon as you have crossed over the water.

Mersea barrow. Art © Paul Atlas-Saunders

Causeway to Northey Island. Image © Alex Langstone

Weirdness abounds in this place, and you don’t have to go far to find it. Just a couple of miles to the south of Maldon, you can witness an ancient and petrified Oak grove, reputed to be 900 years old, and which was said to once have been a sacred enclosure of local druids, and to the north beyond Salcott Creek and Cobmarsh Island, where in the summer the saltings are purple with sea lavender, many folk have witnessed a ghostly Roman centurion walking across the Strood, an ancient tidal causeway, which links Mersea Island to the mainland. 

An early nineteenth century haunted cottage hides in a wooded copse just beyond the sea wall, where wildfowler and fisherman Walter Linnet once lived with his family, harvesting the Dengie Flats in true Victorian hunter gatherer style.  Living close to the harsh frill of the land in his traditional Essex weatherboard cottage, he and his wife raised a family in this tiny abode.  These days it is a bird hide, where folk come to watch the wildfowl, rather than shoot them. As a child this spot intrigued me. As a young man I came back here numerous times to investigate the ghostly activity and to enter the folkloric magical realms of the land itself. I even heard the invisible ghostly galloping horse one moonlit night. 

However, Wentworth Day was a High Tory, with extreme racist and homophobic views. As a teenager coming to terms with my own sexuality, I found this both disturbing and unhelpful, to say the least. He once described himself as ‘an antediluvian, a reactionary, an out-of-date ’.

For more eerie tales, click the book cover below

"Thoroughly steeped in a sense of place...all in all it's a cracking book, 

and a must be for would-be marsh wizards, psych geographers and 

folklorists alike"  Steve Patterson The Enquiring Eye

“a poetic, insight-packed examination of the dance between lore and land”  

David Southwell. @HooklandGuide

"Highly recommended - a very good and informative read"  Nigel G Pearson

Photographs and words © Alex Langstone. Illustrations © Paul Atlas-Saunders.

   

 

Yesterday marked the feast of St Bega, and today heralds the release of the brand-new edition of Spirit Chaser: The Quest for Bega. Published by Troy Books, this version is available in both a resplendent dark blue, limited-edition hardback, and both an unlimited edition paperback and dust-jacketed hardback The special edition hardback is richly embossed in copper, depicting a triple ring and ouroboros motif. This motif, which shines and glistens upon the deep blue background, is one of the central symbols of the veneration of Bega and is often used in the folk-magic surrounding her cult of healing and visionary enchantment. 

Spirit Chaser is the true story of a spiritual quest that turned into an inspirational occult pilgrimage. In June 1989, the author began following a series of psychic messages and significant synchronicity that led him to discover the enigmatic mystery of St Bega, the sacredness of the British landscape and ultimately to experience the divine reality of the Celtic tradition of mysticism, miracles, and magic. Spirit Chaser takes us on a magnificent journey into the twilight past of seventh century Britain and Ireland, and on a contemporary expedition of re-enchantment. This ultimately led into the heart of a modern-day quest, which uncovered the mystery that is the Sancta Bega, the sacred ring at the mystical centre of the British Isles.

Originally published in 2012, this new edition of Spirit Chaser features a foreword by renowned Ogham Grove author and prolific Glastonbury artist, Yuri Leitch. Plus, a brand-new preface, some amendments and new information by the Author. 

Copies can be ordered from Troy Books

   

The Witchcraft and Cunning of St Osyth, Essex

Alex Langstone

Sixteenth century witchcraft features to the fore in the history of the coastal parish of St Osyth in north-east Essex. The history of Mother Kemp and her contemporaries is well documented and for the most part is typical of the way sixteenth century witchcraft cases were recorded, with hearings and evidence from all and sundry who had any grievance. However, Ursula Kemp did have a reputation as a cunning woman, nursemaid and midwife in St Osyth before the rumours of more malevolent practice were presented. She was often called on for her services, which included removing spells, helping young mothers, midwifery, and healing. All these practises were very risky in an age of high infant mortality, superstition, and paranoia. One healing charm she is known to have used is one that she was taught by a local cunning woman called Mother Cocke.(1)  This particular arthritis charm used a piece of hog dung and a bunch of chervil. These were mixed and then held in the left hand whilst the mix was pricked three times with a knife held in the right hand. The mix was then thrown on the fire.   The knife was then used to make three cuts under the kitchen table and was left there until the arthritis went away. Meanwhile, a jug was then filled with ale, three sage leaves and some yellow flowers of the St John’s Wort. A sip was drunk early morning and before bed until it was all consumed. (2)   The arthritis would then be cured permanently. Ursula used this remedy to cure her first recorded clients, Mr and Mrs Page, who had consulted Kemp to cure their lameness. Ironically, the lameness was believed to have been caused by another witch in the village, and this shows that Ursula Kemp was consulted to provide counter-witchcraft charms and cures as a service to the village. Many other villagers were involved in this business of cunning versus sorcery and were subsequently accused of witchcraft. These were Alice Hunt, Alice Newman, Elizabeth Bennet, Margery Sammon, Joan Pechey, Agnes Glascock, Cicely Celles, Anne Swallow, Anis Herd, Joan Turner, Alice Manfield, Margaret Grevell, Mother Ewstace and Mother Barnes. Kemp reported some of them herself during her trial, as did others. 

Ursula’s downfall seemed to start when she was consulted to help Grace Thurlow’s son Davy recover from an illness. Mother Kemp was successful in helping Davy, and Grace later consulted Ursula to help cure her arthritis, and Kemp used the old charm that she had learned from Cunning Cocke, the wise woman she had once known, and from whom she had learned much of her cunning craft. However, Grace Thurlow fell out with Ursula Kemp when she was charged a shilling for her services and refused to pay. Grace then started to make witchcraft accusations against Ursula and was apparently advised to do this by another (unnamed) village wise woman. Kemp also worked with cunning woman Alice Newman, and both were charged with bewitching Edna Starron. The trial at Chelmsford on 29th March 1582 saw fourteen women from St Osyth on a charge of witchcraft in front of local magistrate, Bryan D‘Arcy. During the trial most of the women blamed each other or made accusations amid a complicated web of deceit, where the witches’ familiars seemed to have been kept remarkably busy with lots of ungodly misdemeanours going on. The familiars included satanic cats, dogs with horns, evil toads, and lambs of Lucifer. The grand finale seems to have been at Michaelmas 1581, where several spirits (familiars) were conjured and raised by various St Osyth witches and were instructed to take a trip out one dark night to burn down the barn belonging to local farmer Richard Ross. 

By the end of the trial, only two of the women were convicted to hang: Ursula Kemp and Elizabeth Bennet. (3) Of the others, it is not known what happened to them, but there are some interesting descriptions of some of the imps and familiars that were used in their magic. Anis Heard kept rats that had horns and were red and white and looked more like miniature cows, (4)  and she also had some blackbirds which assisted her and were housed in a box lined with black and white wool. Margery Sammon had two spirit toads, their names were Tom and Robyn, which she inherited from her mother, who was known as Mother Barnes. Another of the St Osyth witches was Alice Hunt, who was Margery Sammon’s sister. Ursula Kemp had also seen one of Elizabeth Bennet’s imps, a ferret, lifting a cloth which was lying over a pot. (5)  Ursula eventually confessed to have kept four imps of her own. Tyffin and Jack were used to kill, and Pigine and Tyttie to cause lameness and other minor afflictions. Bryan D‘Arcy continued to deceive  Ursula by saying that he would treat her with clemency if she continued to help him with his inquiries. She was locked up for the night in the village cage and the following morning, D‘Arcy continued to question her. It is at this point that Ursula Kemp begins to reveal the identity of the rest of the village cunning women and witches, still believing that she would be set free. From this point D’Arcy was in full-on mania mode, questioning children as young as eight years old, to get the results he both required and desired. (6)

It is impossible to think about all these women of St Osyth without wondering what was really going on here. There is a theory about a Catholic plot at the time of D’Arcy’s investigations. Queen Elizabeth’s government were getting paranoid, and D’Arcy had already investigated a previous case of sorcery, where in 1580, several conjurors had been rounded up in Essex (7) and sent to London to be examined by the Privy Council. Catholic plotters John Lee, Thomas Glascocke and Nicholas Johnson were thought to have been responsible.  Around the same time D’Arcy had investigated a local thirteen-year-old boy named Thomas Lever, who was imprisoned in the county jail in Colchester, accused of being a sorcerer’s apprentice to William Randall. Randall was a magician from Ipswich who worked in Essex as an occultist treasure-hunter, who used magic to find buried artefacts. Randall had been one of the conspirators sent to London and was thought to be one of the leading members of a group of magicians who met in Halstead. This group was accused of raising spirits to guide them to lost treasures and other rich pickings. Of course, Lever’s mother was terrified for her teenage son, and contacted the Privy Council, whereupon Thomas Lever was released without charge. (8)

Having been executed as a condemned witch, Ursula Kemp was denied burial by the church in consecrated ground. So, her body was returned from the place of execution to her native village of St. Osyth and buried in common land. While digging for gravel, in 1921, her body was unearthed, identified, and put on public show at the spot where she was found. In 1932, the cottage tea-room adjoining the grave site was burnt down and the grave filled in. In 1963 the museum was asked to take over and remove her remains in order to make way for a sewage scheme. This was done, after first obtaining a ruling from the home office of undertaking. It is of interest to note that when I came to lift the bones, I discovered that iron spikes had been driven through her body in order to hold her down in the grave and so prevent her from haunting the village. Such was the fear of witches in those days. Some of the iron spikes are to be seen beside the coffin. (9) 

The bones that were once thought to be the remains of Ursula Kemp have now been buried in a quiet corner of St Osyth village cemetery by the junction of Clay Lane, just a short walk from the site in Mill Street, where the remains were first discovered by Mr Brooker in 1921.

A newspaper report from the Clacton and Frinton Gazette, dated 22nd January 2016, finally puts more information in place surrounding the myth and lore of the Ursula Kemp story. Paul Scolding, the grandson of Mr Brooker tells his tale, and shares his memories of the events surrounding the remains and confesses that his grandfather did indeed add the iron nails to the burial, to give more credence to it being the grave of a witch. Paul goes on to say that he was the person who eventually uncovered her before she was sold to the Museum of Witchcraft. He describes the burial place, as he uncovered it in 1963.

There was a very long spine, pure white teeth and nails through the knees and elbows, which turned out to be 18th century. There was a skull beneath Ursula’s feet and to the right there was another skeleton. (12) 

In the centre of the village, in Colchester Road lies The Cage, an historic old village lock up, built of brick with a solid wooden door. It is often cited as an old prison, but in reality, it was a building used to hold suspects whilst they were being questioned or until they could be transported to the courts or be brought in front of a magistrate. The cage would also have been used for holding drunks until they had sobered up. Every village would have had something similar, and further down the coast at Tollesbury, a wooden Cage can still be seen. St Osyth’s cage was in use as a holding cell from the sixteenth century to the early twentieth century. Ursula Kemp and her associates would have been held there whilst they were being questioned by Bryan D’Arcy and before they were sent for trial at Chelmsford.

"Thoroughly steeped in a sense of place..all in all it's a cracking book, and a must be for would-be marsh wizards, psych geographers and folklorists alike"  The Enquiring Eye

“A poetic, insight-packed examination of the dance between lore and land.”  David Southwell

"Highly recommended - a very good and informative read"  Nigel G Pearson

Notes.