Witch swimming in Wickham Skeith

Once you get away from the River Gipping, the villages of Mid Suffolk become increasingly remote and far flung. Don't get me wrong, that remoteness is entirely relative - it isn't like the Scottish Highlands, for example - but until the advent of radio, news could take a little longer to reach them, and they were somewhat behind the curve. Indeed, it is said that it took a few days for news of the end of World War I to reach some of the more distant villages in these parts, although I suspect that is entirely apocryphal.

The rural communities hung onto their belief in superstition long after more enlightened attitudes had taken root in the towns and cities, and given that Suffolk had been in gradual decline over centuries, it comes as little surprise that some ideas held sway for rather longer.

"She's a witch... but we're out of firewood..."

Witch swimming has its roots in laws made by King Athelstan (928-930), where trial by water was a general test for all crimes. And although Henry III removed it as an official tool of the judiciary, it was considered most efficacious in identifying witches for centuries after that. The theory was that the witch would float, but was innocent if they sank - the fact that, if innocent, they might well drown apparently appears not to have set off any irony alarms.

Therefore, it perhaps doesn't come as a huge surprise to discover that the last 'official' swimming of a suspected witch took place in the mid-Suffolk village of Wickham Skeith... in 1825. Isaac Stebbings, a 67-year-old itinerant pedlar, was accused of black magic, driving two people - a thatcher's wife and a farmer - insane, and, in the presence of the village constable, was 'swum' three times in the Grimmer (the exquisitely appropriate name given to the village pond), floating on each occasion.

Stebbings demanded a retrial the following week, but before this could take place, the local clergyman and church wardens intervened. The villagers, it seems, did get their man though, as local historian, Clive Aslet, writes;

It was not quite the end of the matter, however. A local cunning man was paid three pounds to ensure that Stebbings suffered a lingering death.

It is reassuring to know that we don't treat the unfamiliar or the scapegoat in such a way any more. Character assassination on the internet is so much easier...