Hanging ‘Witches’ of St Anne’s Crossing

Everyone knows that witches, in the literal sense, never really existed. There was no actual dancing around naked, under a full moon with the devil, familiars suckling from their boobies, spells causing farmer’s cows to stop producing milk and princes turning into frogs.

No. There are no such things as witches… 

Ghosts of witches, now that’s a whole different matter. And the proof is in this image that I drew while watching them swaying from ghost-trees one dark, windy night.

Back in 1645, a young woman known as Elizabeth Harris really got under the skin of Faversham mayor Robert Greenstreet. We can’t determine the exact reason Elizabeth bothered Greenstreet, but considering he was a prominent politician, he likely made unwelcome sexual advances towards her and she, not being involved in politics, found the idea disgusting. Greenstreet, being a politician, could not stand being rejected or the possibility that his advances could cause him public embarrassment, decided to take drastic action. He accused Elizabeth Harris of being a witch.

Officials immediately arrested and interrogated her, and when I say interrogated, I mean tortured and when I say officials; I mean a couple of Greenstreet’s cronies. Subsequently, officials apprehended and tortured three more women until they, too, admitted to committing vile, witchy deeds. These deeds coincidentally matched precisely the strange perverted sexual fantasies of the interrogators. 

No one knows what happened to Elizabeth Harris. There is no mention of her being hanged, or burnt at the stake. The official records claim she remained alive when the other witches were executed, but a more compelling narrative is that she perished during interrogation. So I’m going with that.

It could be that she gave up the names of the three other women whilst being tortured, and who could blame her? I would incriminate everyone I knew at the mere sight of a hot poker. But perhaps Elizabeth died without giving up any names. Her killers, wanting to legitimise her murder, came up with the names of three other women they didn’t particularly like and claimed that Elizabeth had incriminated them before she died. Obviously it’s wrong to speculate, but then again, is it? Men who torture women don’t deserve the benefit of any doubt. 

So let’s just state as fact (although, let’s be clear, I made it up) that poor Elizabeth died while being tortured, bravely refusing to supply any names. Evil, spineless Greenstreet and his cronies came up with 3 other names to legitimise the death of a totally innocent woman. Those names were Joan Cariden, Joane Walliford and Jane Hott. (I bet she was too. That’s why she had to put up with the unwanted attentions of the local men, who turned against her when she rejected their advances. Some things never change.)

A name that appears in Joanne Walliford’s statement is Thomas Letherland, who appears to have fallen out of his window and landed on his arse. For some reason - she probably saw it and laughed, he blamed Joanne and her witchy ways. Let’s just hope he really hurt himself when he fell and that he lived a long, painful life of falling out many more windows.

It is rumoured the trio were strung up in a tree in the village square, near where the water pump now stands. It is more probable that they met their demise a little way out of town, possibly at the intersection of Ospringe/South Road and Lower Road. This spot is likely where all executions took place. Crossroads throughout England became places of execution. It was said that ghosts would be confused at an intersection. This seems too ridiculous to be true, but people were ridiculous in those days, so who knows?

What isn’t ridiculous is the fact that this is the location the lady ghosts are seen, gently swaying in the wind. When I saw them, one of them, the Hott one, smiled at me, or was it a sneer, as if to say that they were having the last laugh. Probably living it up with the devil and still laughing at that idiot falling out of his window.

This image has different hair to the final poster. I still quite like this one though so I let it stay here.