Unlike the witch who started the Legendary Witches series on this blog (Wookey Hole), the ‘witch’ in this story really existed. Yet a legend is attached to her that makes her worthy of investigation.
We’ll need to head to King’s Lynn in Norfolk in the 1570s and 1580s. There’s a building in the northwest corner of the Tuesday Market Place. A diamond-shaped brick might catch your eye since a carved heart lies at its centre.
Let’s find out what Margaret Read has to do with this strange brick…
Who was Shady Meg?
Shady Meg is the name ascribed to Margaret Read in one version of this particular legend. She lived in a tiny house on one of the alleys that led to the River Ouse. In the 1570s and 1580s, her reputation as a witch preceded her. The locals only felt it safe to discuss her after her death. According to them, she’d inherited her powers from her aunt. This aunt, Agnes Shipwell, died at 27 in nearby Grimston (Dixon 1987: 22). Following her death, Margaret moved to King’s Lynn. Over the years, she acquired a reputation.
Whispers spread about her apparently otherworldly powers and soon customers started to visit Margaret. No one ever spoke of what went on in her house, but naturally, they gossiped about the snippets of things they saw inside. Some of these things don’t seem too impressive to our eyes. As an example, a spider apparently lived in the corner of her window. This became an object of curiosity since Meg made no effort to clear the web. The spider will become important later.
Apparently, Meg could make things happen (Dixon 1987: 22). For example, a shopowner found whole sacks of flour ruined by mice. Another man’s dog suddenly died, with no obvious cause for it.
These things were ascribed to Meg. In some ways, they went towards answering other questions. People wondered how she supported herself. Others wondered what the strange smoke was that seemed to permanently emanate from her chimney.
Naturally, the legend contains snippets of her physical appearance, as these legends often do. People described her scrawny neck and wispy hair. It’s as if not fitting the stereotypical model of ‘beauty’ is cause enough to brand you a witch. (Though that wasn’t an issue faced by Meg of Meldon. Her crime was clearly financial acumen and a lack of interest in her neighbours’ welfare).
The Story Takes a Turn
Since no one knew for definite what Meg did, and even those who visited her had little to say, local gossips took to watching her visitors. Perhaps that would yield clues as to what she did—and how.
One of her visitors was a pretty young woman named Marion Harvey. She ended up pregnant outside of wedlock, and the rumour emerged that a man named Nick Kirk was the father. Worse, he’d dumped Marion in favour of another woman. Kirk seemed rather unbothered by the whole thing, but Marion wanted revenge.
She went to see Shady Meg.
According to the legend, the neighbours heard all kinds of mutterings from the house after her visit. What would happen?
The rumours about Marion’s visit reached Kirk, who laughed them off. Clearly, he didn’t believe in Shady Meg’s powers. A week later, severe chest and stomach pains struck him down, and he died three days later.
The Authorities Are Called
Kirk’s parents blamed Shady Meg. Their suspicions reached the authorities who finally made their way into Meg’s cottage. Perhaps they’d indulged her in the past, but with a death connected to her? They had to act. The authorities removed Meg from the house and searched the premises. Among the strange occult paraphernalia, they found a poppet. Pins stuck into the stomach and chest area of the figure, clearly that of a young man.
With such a clear suggestion of witchcraft, the authorities sentenced Margaret to trial by ducking. The soldiers secured her feet and hands and threw her into the River Ouse. At first, she floated, and the assembled onlookers screamed she was a witch. Eventually, she sank into the river, presumably once the water soaked into her clothes. The legend tells us she yelled curses even as she sank.
The captain of the guard eventually ordered them to haul her back to the riverbank. The soldiers pulled on the rope attached to Meg’s neck and dragged her up. She surfaced in the river, coughing and spluttering, so the soldiers marched her away to the gaol (Dixon 1987: 23). Even though she sank, she’d floated at first.
Shady Meg must be a witch after all.
The Legend Takes Off
A crowd gathered in the Tuesday Market Place on the morning of July 20, 1590. Overnight, people had built a pyre, and soldiers led Shady Meg to the stake. Once she was secured, they lit the fire.
The onlookers watched, trying to peer through the smoke to see Shady Meg burn. Apparently, they could snatch glimpses of her trying to free herself, but it was to no avail.
The flames leapt and Meg screamed. A loud bang rang out in the marketplace and the crowd watched something fly out of the flames. Those near the back saw that her heart had burst from her chest and hit the wall. Some say her heart actually rolled down one of the alleys to the river, steaming as it disappeared into the water (Briggs 2020).
A week later, someone passed by the building and noticed a new diamond-shaped brick in the wall. A carved heart nestled in the centre of the brick. It seemed a spider had spun a web across the heart (Dixon 1987: 24). You can still see the brick now if you visit the marketplace and head to number 15.
Was Meg really a witch?
There’s no way to know if she was a witch or not. The legend certainly seems to think she was, but we can’t necessarily take it at face value. After all, Read’s name does appear in the records from 1738, noting that Margaret Read was burnt for witchcraft in 1590. But Willow Winsham notes that there are two potential Margaret Reads (2015).
One was an unmarried 22-year-old. The other was Margaret Read nee Hammond, though her husband doesn’t appear in the Dixon version of the legend. Pete Widdows suggests this older Margaret is the more likely contender (2018).
Other versions of the story say that no one actually knows what Read apparently did wrong. Yet more claim the suspicious death of her husband was enough to secure the accusation of witchcraft. It seems that the spectacular chest-busting heart has lived on through history more than whatever it is she actually practised.
There is another legend in which a housemaid learned her mistress intended to leave her her fortune. She told her lover this, and the mistress was murdered after she wrote her will. The authorities arrested the housemaid and sentenced her to be burned at the stake. Apparently, it is the housemaid’s heart that flew across the marketplace and hit the wall (Briggs 2020).
I think the reason both of these stories have endured is that a) the brick in the wall appears to provide tangible evidence and b) the burning of witches in England was comparatively rare. Add the violence of an exploding heart to an already traumatic event, and you’ve got the makings of a legend.
Yes, Witch Burning Was Rare
The burning of witches was surprisingly rare in England, although this was a common punishment in Scotland and mainland Europe. Part of the reason behind this was the cost of burning.
In 1645, it cost £3 3s 6d to burn a witch, compared to £1 to hang her (Winsham 2015). That’s around £329 in 2017’s money for burning, rather than £104 for hanging. Willow Winsham notes that witches were often burned for treason, so the burning was sentenced for the ‘main’ crime, and witchcraft was incidental (2015).
This helps to explain the burning of the housemaid in the alternative legend. Her crime was ‘treachery’, not witchcraft. But regardless of which story is ‘true’, or whether Shady Meg was really a witch, we have to remember that a real human being died an unnecessary and brutal death at the hands of her fellow human beings.
Please remember that before throwing around that awful “We are the granddaughters of the witches you couldn’t burn” quote.
What do you make of the Shady Meg story?
References
Briggs, Stacia (2020), ‘Weird Norfolk: The Witch’s Heart of Kings Lynn’, Eastern Daily Press, https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/weird-norfolk-the-witch-s-heart-of-kings-lynn-1009948.
Dixon, G.M. (1987), Folktales and Legends of Norfolk, Peterborough: Minimax Books.
Widdows, Pete (2018), ‘The Witches of Lynn’, Norfolk Record Office, https://norfolkrecordofficeblog.org/2018/10/31/the-witches-of-lynn/.
Winsham, Willow (2015), ‘The Burning Matter of English Witches’, The Witch, The Weird, and The Wonderful, http://winsham.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-burning-matter-of-english-witches.html.
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During the 2nd. World War, my school was evacuated from London to King’s Lynn. My bedroom in 1944 was the one shown in your photograph with the ‘witches heart’. I was eleven and completely unmoved by the legend.
I am her reborn … Kelly read …