[Loch-Ruadh] Word of the Day, March 26

[Cait O'Hara]

witch-pricker

A witch-finder who discovered witches by pricking them [with] a wooden bodkin or pin … for the “witch-mark.”
-- Alexander Warrack’s Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911

Witch-Finding Day at Newcastle (1649)
The magistrates sent two of their sergeants into Scotland to [locate] a Scotsman, who pretended knowledge to find out witches by pricking them with pins, to come to Newcastle, where he should try such as should be brought to him, and have twenty shillings apiece for all he should condemn as witches, and free passage thither and back…. The magistrates sent their bellman through the town, ringing and crying, [that] people would bring complaint against any woman for a witch…. Thirty women were brought into the Town Hall, and had pins thrust into their flesh, and most of them were found guilty.
-- William Hone’s Year Book of Daily Recreation, 1832





---
Never meddle in the affairs of dragons;
For you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
-- Acacia



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