Last Nail in Chas Walton’s Coffin
We Expose the False Claims in an 80 year old 'Ritual Murder' at Meon Hill.
Throat ripped open, pinned with a pitch-fork through the head, the still unresolved murder of Charles Walton on Meon Hill, near Quinton village in the County of Warwickshire on St Valentine’s Day 1945, had all the gruesome makings of a celebrated case and as investigations by the local police and then Scotland Yard, eventually proved fruitless in catching the killer, the Walton murder has since been elevated to a case of Ritual Murder by later commentators, most of whom have ignored the facts and become obsessed with false occult connections which have been worked-up over the intervening decades. Now the SAFF turns its expertise to analysing this dastardly killing and shows, once again, how Scotland Yard failed in its duty to find the perpetrator and then relied on peoples’ superstition to cover its tracks.
The Permanent Holy War In our Midst
The Case of Charles Walton was not an isolated incident of occult hysteria. In the 1940s and 1950s there was an upsurge on interest in Spiritism, ( clearly due to the many women who had men-folk lost in battle and who were seeking closure .) Impromptu seances became so popular that the Orthodox Churches began to see Spiritualism as a rising threat to their spiritual monopoly and resorted to their usual scare tactics. They hounded anyone who experimented with it by labelling them ‘Witches’ and ‘Devil worshippers’. Clearly they were no such thing, all Spiritualists are 100% Christian. So what was happening?
Helen Duncan, the Blitz Witch
The trial of Helen Duncan in March 1944 amply illustrates the hysteria. She was the very last person tried under ancient Witchcraft Act charges. Mediums had earlier been treated as mountebanks by the authorities and usually been charged under vagrancy laws ( as in dealing pejoratively with Gypsies ), but in his book Weird World War, Richard Denham, notes how it was the newspapers seeking sensational headlines who glibly termed Duncan (who had nothing whatsoever to do with Witchcraft, she was a Spiritualist remember? ) as “The Blitz Witch”. The tabloids stated that she was originally to be charged with treason or espionage and then the offence changed to one of Witchcraft. So why would a witch be charged with espionage? Read on:
One séance Duncan held in Portsmouth which had pushed the Establishment into action had contacted and obtained messages from a dead navy rating from the stricken warship HMS Barham. 862 sailors died in that sinking and news of it had been held back by the Censors to avoid the Nation knowing of the tragedy. Whatever the objectives of the government in trying to silence Duncan it backfired, as The Blitz Witch name stuck and the trial became a cause celebre, constantly in the news. Debates about Duncan’s legal persecution are still raging today with several attempts to have her pardoned posthumously!
Duncan’s case was opened at the Old Bailey in March 1944, a year before the Charles Walton murder and it primed the population for a belief in a resurgence of Witchcraft. Clearly the impact on the public mind of the Authorities confirming the existence of modern day ‘witches’ had been considerable and helped turbo-charge the false memes surrounding the Charles Walton murder.
Duncan’s defence presented 44 witnesses to speak of Duncan’s supernatural powers and the benefit her work had been to them in their grief. None of this appeared to matter to the law. Under mediaeval statutes Duncan was a Witch and was given 9 monthsin prison. I suppose we aught to be grateful that she wasn’t burned at the stake!
No less a personage than Winston Churchill (then at the height of his glory) described the case as “obsolete tomfoolery”
Duncan collapsed moaning in the dock on hearing her sentence before she was escorted to Holloway Prison, where she enjoyed a degree of popularity given the seances she held in her cell.
The misuse of ancient statutes like this only served to prop-up the declining influence of the Church ( I mean, who amongst them actually still believed in God after 14 million had died in The Great War and another 30 million were perishing in WWII as all this played out?) The trial caused deep controversy and lead to the replacement of the old Witchcraft Acts with an updated Fraudulent Mediums Act in 1951. ( This allowed for people’s free speech and religious expression but netted deceivers who fraudulently acted as soothsayers for pecuniary gain. )
The importance of the Helen Duncan case cannot be overstated as it embodies the full Establishment hatred against the Old Religion of Paganism which lies below the veneer of the orthodox churches and church-aligned offices of State. To them this was not a question of espionage, it was a case of Blasphemy (i.e. suppression of free-speech and thought).
There have been several campaigns by descendants of Helen Duncan to obtain a posthumous pardon. The last one was in 2012, where the Scottish Government (Helen was a Scot) refused to issue a posthumous pardon. Even though the crime of Blasphemy, the last of the liturgical laws to be extracted from British Justice, was repealed in 2008!
Ironically ten years after this (March 2022) Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon issued a Formal Apology on International Women’s Day to 4,000 people, almost all of them women, who were tortured and executed under the Witchcraft Act of 1563, in a countrywide campaign to pardon all victims of false allegations of Witchcraft ( Most of the women killed in Scotland were victims of the Reformation and were not ‘Witches’ at all but simply recusant Catholics and other non-conformists. ) How does this impact the Charles Walton Murder? I will explain:
Paganism is not Spiritualism
Following the uproar over The Blitz Witch, with their ancient liturgical laws re-envigorated, the church began a campaign to defame and discredit Spiritualism and associate it (utterly falsely) with Witchcraft. For those who don’t know, Spiritualists are Christians who worship God using Mediums instead of Priests. They worship communally in Spiritualist Churches, pray to Jesus and consider themselves pious.
Witchcraft on the other hand is the liturgy of Paganism. Witches revere Nature and traditionally worship outdoors, at sacred sites such as Stonehenge and many other sacred places and groves throughout the world, in response to the cycle of Nature. Pagan belief spans the globe in various forms and has underpinned all civilisations. The oldest Pagan Temple has recently been unearthed at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey which was erected around 12,000 years BCE and is so intricate in its religious carvings that it makes Stonehenge (a mere 4,000 years old) look like a botched job.
Attempts at eradicating Paganism, the oldest living religion of mankind, were begun in 312AD when early Christians had co-opted the Roman Emperor Constantine to impose their monopoly and close existing Pagan temples, across the Roman Empire, many of which had existed for thousands of years. Constantine himself is said to have converted to Christianity on his death-bed ( we have only their word for this of course) and was for his pains then posthumously renamed ‘Constantine the Great’ in their history books, specifically for being the first Emperor to break the monopoly of the Pagan Faith and elevate Christianity beyond it. The Christian monopoly lasted about 50 years before Justin (Flavius Claudius Julianus) was proclaimed Emperor by the Roman Army.
Although brought up as a Christian Justin was well educated and re-discovered Greek Ancient philosophy, learning of the endless ancient links with Paganism which had evolved mankind and reltively recently been banned by the Church. He converted to Paganism and reopened many of the Pagan Temples. For his troubles, after his demise, he was named ‘Julian The Apostate’ by the leaders of Christianity and all his wonderful pagan poetry and writings were destroyed after his death to wipe away any possibility of the repopularising of Paganism again.
During this period when the early church was in its ascendancy, there was a propaganda war between faiths. All kinds of disinformation became accepted fact. Such as that Pagans threw Christians to the Lions. It never happened. There’s lots of truths you do not know. Christianity and Paganism had lived in tolerant proximity for many decades. It was pushy Christians who caused the intolerance, not intolerant Pagans. Pagan religions were a natural and fundamental development of living with Nature at that time and although each country had its idiocyncracies the fundamental Pagan tenets existed in all and so melded with each other across the world, until Absolutism, was enforced by Christianity and, later, by the Islamic world.
These many lies about the supposed evil deeds of ‘Witchcraft’ lead to the wicked ‘Burning Times’ during the 11c 12c, 13c 14c, 15c, and 16c during which an estimated 100 million people were butchered or burned at the stake to keep the Christian Empire intact in 9 different crusades which killed millions of innocent folk of different faiths (such as Moslems, Hindus etc) and those of the SAME faith but who wanted to secede from the Church of Rome (Huguenots, Cathars, Albigensians, Protestants etc.) who dared to offer any alternative to that laid down by the Popes of the Holy Roman Empire.
In April 1204 the Pope’s Crusader Army attacked Constantinople, then the Seat of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church. They destroyed it and thousands of their Christian Brothers in a futile attempt to gain supremacy in Christianity, but which opened the door for the Moslem take over of the middle-east. Islam has ruled over the middle east ever since.
When the Age of Exploration began, the Popes even sent out their missionaries across the globe on the first ships to colonise Africa, India, China, South and North America et al. Their purpose was to extirpate the indigenous form of Paganism and impose ‘authorised’ Christianity.
Yet still pockets of original Paganism existed all over the known world in isolated places. Wherever Pagans were found they were barbarously killed after some evil sectarian trotted out the ridiculous lies (such as that Witches worship the Devil – there is no Devil figure in the Pagan cosmology) which quickly incited locals to riot and kill old biddies who lived alone.
Lithuania, The Last Pagan Country in Europe
In Europe the Christian Empire was infuriated by the insistence of Lithuanians to stick to their original Pagan beliefs, so one of the longest crusades was started which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians until, defeated by the Teutonic Order, the Lithuanian monarch finally capitulated to Christianity becoming the State Religion in 1386. That Crusade against Paganism had lasted 225 years!
This constant suppression of the truth about history and its impact on modern life is everywhere to be seen. SAFF research shows that the sectarian hatred of the lies percolates through the veneer of civilisation in a regular cycle, every three decades or so. The tumult of WWII on society had created another hiatus of blaming Witches for the state of the world and the false claims of ‘ritual murder’ linked to the Charles Walton killing were part of that hiatus. Only by knowing of this history can anyone actually make sense of the ‘ritual murder’ claims in the Charles Walton case, which are outlined below in greater detail.
The Father of Modern Witchcraft Saw it Happening.
Gerald B. Gardner , was one of the pioneers in analysing historic truths about Paganism and re-popularising a reconstructed form of Witchcraft for modern times. His first book was High Magic’s Aid published in 1949. His second was Witchcraft Today in 1954 and his last was The Meaning of Witchcraft, 1959, a Chapter of which we have extracted below as it directly addresses the Meon Hill Murder.
Gardner’s writings greatly influenced the reconstruction of Neo-Paganism in the 1960s and since. Due to his extensive knowledge and discoveries he was given the appellation of ‘Father of Modern Witchcraft’ amongst Neo Pagans who followed his teachings. When he wrote the Chapter ( below ) , from Meaning of Witchcraft, he was specifically trying to correct the false accusations of ‘Ritual Murder’ which had been tagged on to the killing of Charles Walton a few years earlier. He knew they were false and gave a perspective of the time by quoting many other attacks on Witches and Witchcraft which had been current in the press during that period. He gave detailed background to show that all of the supposed witchcraft cases which were claimed as evidence a hidden cult of murderous Witches were false or provably suspect.
Remember that when publishing his book Gardner was aware that many of the folk peripherally involved in the Meon Hill Murder were still alive and would contradict anything he said which was not the truth. Indeed they might feasibly sue him for defamation if he got things wrong. Hence this first real analysis of the Meon Hill Murder gave a crucial insight into the truth of the matter.
Gardner’s words and analysis have been proven absolutely correct over time and this Chapter below provides a unique snapshot of how the Media drive false claims about Witchcraft in order to arouse sectarian hatred in the populace, re-energising trigger-words which can rouse a mob to kill within minutes.
This was particularly evident in the 1990 Satanic Panic which used all the same old ancient motifs and triggers involved in the Charles Walton case to create a global hysteria about non-existent Satanists supposedly sexually abusing, killing and then eating babies. The SAFF was inaugurated to deal with those utterly fictional claims and our work on it can be seen by anyone who peruses our website. http://saff.nfshost.com
After all the hullabaloo had died down it became clear that not a single one of the hundreds of claimed cases of Satanic Ritual Abuse was real. Not one. And if you want to see just how deep these ‘triggers’ go, try telling this to those activist Christians who believe that Witchcraft and Devil Worship is a cause of perennial evil. They would sooner kill you than admit that it is not.
It is shocking to see how many of those ‘triggers’ were involved in the Duncan-Walton myths and are still believed today by even intelligent commentators on the case. To watch hacks who review the case decades later trot out the untruths time after time as though fact is convincing; but if you read carefully what follows in what Gerald B Gardner calls, The Great Witch Hunt, you will be one of those rare individuals who actually gets to see the reality which all other commentators and journalists have missed in the Charles Walton murder case.
Extract from:
‘The Meaning of Witchcraft’
by
Gerald B Gardner,
Which dealt in great detail with the claims of Ritual Killing in the Charles Walton murder at Meon Hill. First published 1959 Additional Information and documentation by Tony Rhodes of the SAFF 2024.
Note: important phrases have been emboldened by the SAFF, they were not bold in the original book. Page numbers (e.g. pp.222) are as appear in the original book.
Chapter XVI
SOME ALLEGATIONS EXAMINED. PART III.
It will be remembered how the newspaper reporter had told me that they would give a witch a chance to reply to what had been said, provided she wrote something that was worth printing. I therefore got a woman friend who is a member of a witch coven to write a short article, and send it to someone to post for her to the paper's office in London. However, they flatly refused to print it. I think, however, that the reader should have the opportunity of judging the witch's reply, so I reproduce it herewith. Fortunately a copy of the article had been kept, and I submitted it to the Editor of the Spiritualist newspaper, Psychic News, in which it appeared as follows in the issue dated July 23rd. 1955, with only very minor changes of wording from the original:
WITCHCRAFT IN BRITAIN.
“They (the witches) are sincere in a satanic belief that theirs is the ancient religion of Britain; they claim it is older than, and superior to, Christianity."
That paragraph appeared in a series of articles on witchcraft printed by a Sunday newspaper. It is perfectly true. I am a witch, and that is what I believe.
The only word I would disagree with is the word "satanic". Whether or not my religion is superior to Christianity is a matter of opinion, but that it is much older is a matter of fact, as eminent anthropologists will tell you.
So why do people persist in accusing me of worshipping the Devil? The idea of the Devil is something belonging to Christianity; the scapegoat which men have invented to excuse their own follies and crimes. I don't believe in the Devil, so how could I worship him? Whom, then, do the witches really worship. They worship the ancient Gods of this land of Britain, whose tradition is rooted deep in British soil. The Old Gods are not dead, as I know by experience.
During the last war a witch coven invoked the Old Gods to protect this land from Hitler's threatened invasion, even as their forefathers had done against Napoleon and, earlier still, against the Spanish Armada - or so the tale is handed down to us. I have seen them invoked for many purposes and have invoked them myself; but I have never seen them invoked for a bad purpose. And these purposes have been so often achieved that to call, it coincidence, as many will, would, if they knew all the details, require a greater effort of credulity than to believe that there's something in it.
You want to know how these ceremonies are performed? Well. I can tell you this, that they are not performed with ridiculous obscenities so often attributed to them. How many witches are there in Britain? Very few genuine ones, and
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most of these come from witch families in which the tradition has been handed down. We believe in reincarnation and that those who in former lives have belonged to us will be drawn back into the cult. We have no need to "dupe" or "snare" anyone into witchcraft. Our own will come to us. We know when people want to join us whether they belong or not. Sensation-seekers hoping for foul and erotic rites please note - we don't want you! Out in the wilds, as far as we can get from so-called civilisation, we gather to celebrate our rites. Perhaps around an old time-worn stone circle, or upon a hill-top, or in the depths of a forest. There - not in luxury flats, as has been described, we feel close to the unseen powers of the universe, we can sing the old song in a lost language, dance the old dances, and do other things of which I may not tell you (though they are neither evil nor obscene). And the Old Gods come. I have been possessed by the Goddess of the witches; it felt as if I were being burned with cold, white fire.
Another girl I know has had the same experience, and her face changed so that she looked like another person. I have had the experience, too, of going out of my body and visiting a person at a distance of hundreds of miles; I was able to identify later, in the flesh, the things I had seen in this "astral" visit. (Incidentally, it is this power which gave rise to the old idea of witches flying through the air!) And I have seen in the course of a ceremony the power rising from the body of the high priest like thin, feathery spirals of smoke.
I have seen spirits, too, who have come to join in the rite; but they have been spirits of men and women—not demons—and I have felt that they came as friends. One of our rites consists of calling upon the Lord of the Gates of Death to permit our friends, who have passed into His realm, to return for a while to speak with us. If I say that they have returned, and that I have spoken to them and they have answered me, you may not believe me; but it is the truth, and I know others who have had the same experience.
Do you really think that if witchcraft was merely a tissue of obscenities and absurdities, or a mocking of the Christian religion, that it would have lasted from generation to generation, from century to century? Why then, if witchcraft is not evil, is the Church opposed to us? My answer is, because they are afraid of us. They know that in centuries of persecution they have not succeeded in stamping us out; nor will they ever do so, and they know, too, that they have lost their hold on the people, who have become dissatisfied with Church dogmas. Hence they fear us, as they have always feared us—as a rival. One day, I believe, the people of the world will turn back from the road of scientific, orthodox civilisation which has proved so stony and return to the life and religion of nature. When that day dawns, the wise Old Gods will be there - waiting.
The paper who promised to give a witch the chance to reply never even chose to reveal the fact that a reply had been offered, let alone received. Instead, in the next instalment of their series, on June 19th, 1955, they published a story which they alleged had been sent in to them by a woman reader living with her family somewhere in the South of England. She says:
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A year ago I would have laughed if anyone had told me such things existed.… I got my rude awakening last summer when 1 couldn't sleep one night. I could hear an odd sort of noise.... I wondered if my neighbour had left her wireless on. Soon I found out that it wasn't the wireless but a sound of the most peculiar moaning gibberish coming from the nearby wood. I thought it might be someone drunk or even hurt, and I thought I wouldn't do any harm if I investigated; so I slipped on my coat and went across from my bungalow to the open common. What I saw, I now realise, was a meeting of a coven of witches. The ritual was one which makes the ex-witch's story of her experiences told in the paper, seem like a Sunday-school treat. . . . ...That night I felt a force of real evil.... I have certainly never known such terror, and I can honestly say I have never known a minute's freedom from fear since.
“They were horrible, quite horrible", she says, but we are never told why. Believe it or not, that is all the description of what she is alleged to have seen that is given.
The paper's informant went on to say that two representatives of the alleged "coven" called on her afterwards. "They warned me”, she says, "after haranguing me for a long time of the virtues of these 'nature rituals', that if I breathed a word of it to anyone my family and I would be penalised terribly. They even threatened to use my young son in their ceremonies. So I have never said a word to anyone, not even to my husband. Often I have heard them since on the common. I have thought of going to the vicar and risking their powers. But I know he wouldn't believe me. . . . We can't move away from here because of my husband's work. And he would never believe about witches. I daren't tell him to go out and see for himself when I hear them, in case they hurt him."
And she never told the police!
" There! " says one particular paper, "
Here is Mrs. Vacancy Blank, of Somewhere-on-the-Map, to prove what we say!”
"Yes", says one particular anthropologist, “and you've got to admit she's, a first-rate witness.
On her own admission, her husband and the vicar, who know her personally, won't believe a word she says on the subject. And why not give her name and address?"
" Your books ", says the newspaper ponderously, " in the wrong hands can be dangerous”.
By June 26th, 1955, the witch-hunt had worked its way from the front page to the back, where it was asked in the "Crime Strip”
Who were the ghouls who desecrated the graveyard at the West Wycombe home of Sir John Dashwood, Bart., last week on the night of Midsummer Eve the most important day in the calendar of black magic?
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There was fantastic damage, gravestones uprooted, urns overturned. Was it the work of people celebrating the Black Mass?
Why are those who practise the Black Art so keen to visit the Dashwood home? Because in the mid-eighteenth century a Sir Francis Dashwood formed the notorious " Hell Fire Club". Police are puzzled by the thoroughness of the damage. Four grown men were needed to lift some of the smashed stonework.
This feature was headed "On Witches' Night”.
Now, this interested me. I had heard a lot of stories of what happened at Black Masses, but this was the first time I had ever heard that such athletic proceedings as the smashing of gravestones were part of the ritual. So. in spite of the fact that Midsummer Eve has actually no particular connection with black magic, I went to West Wycombe to see what had happened.
However, I could not find anybody on the spot, including the Curator of the "Hell Fire Caves” who believed that a Black Mass had taken place there. The damage was simply a piece of silly vandalism, and I satisfied myself that, although it might have taken four men to replace the stones from where they had fallen, a child could have tipped them over from their original positions. A couple of mischievous schoolboys could have accounted for all the damage done.
[ SAFF Notes: Some readers will see Gardner’s explanation as too weak to be considered yet the SAFF have on file DOZENS of similar false cases of claimed Satanic activity, the image below from a case in the early 1990s is a classic example which explains the true story: ]
The next week this paper carried an account of four other graveyards in which headstones had been thrown down and smashed. and said, "People living in the area are asking, 'Was it a gang of Teddy Boys? Or was it a coven of witches performing one of their Black Magic rituals?”
The responsibility for this latter statement rests squarely upon the paper in question and to plant suggestions like this is to risk a dangerous chain reaction. There seems, unfortunately, to be a certain element among adolescents which delights in senseless damage. However, when we had read previously of thousands of pounds worth of damage being caused annually by hooligans, nobody had thought to whisper with bated breath "Was it witches?" This spicy addition to the thrills of vandalism was calculated to give its perpetrators an extra zest. One can well imagine what went on in what for the sake of argument may be described as their minds, vandalism, as psychologists know, is an attention-seeking device: “Now we're really making the headlines—they think it's the Black Mass! What a laugh! Let's smash some more!”
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After this, all was quiet until the beginning of this year, 1956. Then a certain section of the Press got hold of a black magic yarn which was potentially more serious than anything they had touched yet: The Charles Walton murder case. The things that have been said about this case have been the deciding factor which induced me to write this chapter. After all newspaper sensations are a very easy target for criticism, so easy that they are hardly worth shooting at. A new one appears regularly every week, duly makes its contribution to the gaiety of nations, and then comes in very useful for wrapping fish. However, when things are said which may affect the investigation of an unsolved murder, the matter becomes more serious. To unmask irresponsible sensationalism is then a public duty.
This mysterious and terrible crime, which shattered the peace of a beautiful, secluded little village in the Cotswolds in 1945. has been the subject of wild speculation, and dark hints of "witchcraft" and "ritual murder". Stated briefly, the facts of the case are these:
On February 14th, 1945, a farm labourer named Charles Walton. aged about 74, was found murdered on Meon Hill in Warwickshire. The murderer has never yet been caught, nor the mystery of the crime solved.
According to the account published in the Stratford-on-Avon Herald at the time, Walton was an inoffensive old man, having a good reputation with his neighbours. In spite of the fact that he suffered from rheumatism, and walked with the aid of two sticks, he still did small jobs, such as hedge-trimming, for a local farmer, Mr. Alfred John Potter, of the Firs Farm. He lived with a niece, Miss Edith Walton, of Lower Quinton.
On February 14th, 1945, Miss Walton returned home from work at about 6.0 p.m., and found that her uncle had not come home. His usual time of return was about 4.0 p.m. Fearing that her uncle, infirm as he was, had met with some mishap, she enquired of the neighbours, and one of them, Mr. Harry Beasley. went with her to look for him. They searched, but failed to find him; so they went to the farm and enquired of his employer, Mr. Potter. Mr. Potter knew where Walton had been working; the old man had been engaged in trimming a hedge on the slopes of Meon Hill. He led Miss Walton and Mr. Beasley to the spot.
They found Charles Walton there dead.
According to the evidence given at the inquest, the body was lying "close against the hedge, in a bit of a ditch." He had been murdered with terrible ferocity. A bloodstained walking-stick was lying nearby. and bruises on the head suggested that he had been struck down with it. The killer had then slashed his throat with the hedging tool the old man was carrying, and finished his ghastly work by pinning
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the body to the ground with the two-tined pitchfork which was also part of Walton's hedging equipment. The two tines of the pitchfork passed on either side of the murdered man's neck. The billhook with which the throat had been cut was left embedded in the chest.
Professor J. M. Webster, of the West Midlands Forensic Laboratory, giving evidence at the inquest, said that the cause of death was shock and haemorrhage, due to grave injuries to the neck and chest caused by a cutting weapon and a stabbing weapon. He said that the cutting weapon had been wielded three times. So severe was the slash across the throat that all the great blood vessels of the neck were severed.
Cuts on the hands showed that the old man had attempted to defend himself. Ex-Supt. Robert Fabian, in his book, Fabian of the Yard, describes how the Chief Constable of Warwickshire called in Scotland Yard to help in the enquiries, and how he and another officer, Sergeant Albert Webb, went to the scene of the crime to meet Supt. Alec Spooner of the Warwickshire C.I.D., and to commence their investigation. A plane from the R.A.F. airfield at Leamington took aerial photographs of the scene of the crime; a detachment of the Royal Engineers searched the fields with mine-detectors, looking for clues, four thousand statements were taken in the course of the investigation; but no arrest was made. and the crime remains upon the list of unsolved murders.
According to Ex-Supt. Fabian, Supt. Spooner called his attention, immediately upon his arrival in the Cotswolds, to the possibility of the belief in witchcraft being a factor in the murder. Supt. Spooner showed him a passage in a book, Folk Lore, Old Customs and Superstitions in Shakespeare-land, by J. Harvey Bloom, M.A., published in 1929. This book refers to the strong belief in witches and witchcraft, and says. "In 1875 a weak minded young man killed an old woman named Ann Turner with a hay-fork because he believed she had bewitched him."
Fabian of the Yard was first published in 1950. And by 1952 a writer in a widely-read paper was saying,
The manner in which the hay-fork was used was exactly similar to the murder in 1875, in nearby Long Compton, of Ann Turner, killed by a man " because she was a witch ", and also to an earlier hay-fork stabbing when John Haywood attacked an old woman. . . . The murder of Charles Walton, still unsolved, may have arisen from an internal feud with a band of witches.
In its big splash in 1955, the sensational paper, too, had mentioned the Walton case. adding that "It happened on St. Valentine's Day, 1945—traditionally a day of sacrifice." The implication being, apparently, that Charles Walton was killed as a human sacrifice.
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It was in February of this year, 1956, that the witch-hunters really "went to town” on this story.
On February 15th, 1956, one paper ran a story, “Police Chief Goes Back on the Witches' Sabbath”: it described how Superintendent Spooner was in the habit of returning to the village every year on the anniversary of the crime, to see if there were any new developments. and added, “There was an identical killing 70 years before in a nearby village.” It also added the remarkable information that the witches' Sabbath was when "The witch anointed her feet and shoulders with the fat of a murdered baby and then, mounting a broomstick, rode oft into the night," Unfortunately it did not publish any accompanying photograph of this interesting scene.
However, on the following Sunday, the 19th February, 1956, a newspaper with close political affiliations to the Daily Herald, came out with a splendid headline: Black Magic Killer- Woman Talks. It said ,
A terrified woman, driven grey-haired by some of the most evil men in Britain, offered last night to help solve the murder of Charles Walton, who was impaled with a pitchfork in a lonely Warwickshire field on St. Valentine's Day, 1945. She will give the name of the alleged murderer to Det. Supt. A. W. Spooner, Chief of the Warwickshire C.I.D.… This woman, who begged me not to reveal her name, has offered to tell Det.-Supt. Spooner everything - provided she is protected from the vengeance of Britain's black magic cults. For twelve frightful years she took part with other members of the cults in grotesque rites that stem from Britain's mysterious past. Now she wants the police to stamp out these evil practices. And she wants them to solve the 11-year-old crime she claims was a ritual murder.
This paper's informant went on to tell a harrowing tale - which yet somehow seemed curiously familiar - of how as a young woman she had been to small religious meetings in London and Birmingham, where various "foul rites" took place; of how she was too frightened to go to the police; and how, when she tried to break away from the cult, her head was scarred with knives. Walton's actual murderer, she said, was a woman who was brought by car to the Cotswolds from a different part of the country. The leader of the London branch of the cult had been present. The story of how the murder was committed had been told to her by the Midlands leader, who wanted to get "Number One in London” out of the way, so that he could gain national control of the cult for himself. " The manner of killing ". says the paper, " was identical with
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that in a murder of 1875 in nearby Long Compton, of a woman villagers thought was a witch." In spite, however, of their informant's praiseworthy desire that the police should stamp out these evil practices, strangely enough it was this paper and not the lady herself, who gave this information to the police. They, of course, realised that they were legally bound to do so; but it seems very odd to me that anyone possessing such information, if it were genuine, should not have taken it straight to the authorities. Instead, however, this woman waited until a mention of the murder appeared in the Press, and then came forward; even then she did not go straight to the police, but to a newspaper.
The next day. February 20th, 1956, a paper gave further details of what the woman had said. under the headline: Murder at Black Mass, says Woman:
A woman has come forward to say that a shepherd, killed eleven years ago, was murdered by a woman during a Black Mass at midnight. She says that she was once a member of a black magic society and that she knows the name of the killer. The body of the shepherd, 74-year-old Charles Walton, was found on St. Valentine's day, 1945, in the middle of a circle of stones in a field at Lower Quinton, Warwickshire. He had been killed by blows from a farm billhook and staked to the ground with a pitchfork. His neck was slashed in the shape of a cross. Villagers said it was a ritual murder. There was a similar murder on St. Valentine's Day, 1875, at Long Compton, also in Warwickshire. The accuser, an elderly woman from Birmingham, will probably be interviewed by police this week.
Now the reader with a long memory will doubtless be wanting to pause for some queries. "Surely", he will be saying, “this isn't what I was reading just now? Walton's body, according to the evidence given at the inquest. was found lying 'close against the hedge, in a bit of a ditch'. And that ditch was on the slopes of Meon Hill. What's this about the body being found in the middle of a circle of stones?"
The answer is that when Ex-Supt. Fabian wrote his book, in which he mentioned this unsolved crime, he said that it was done “not far from the stone circle of the Whispering Knights", and that "it looked like the kind of killing the Druids might have done in ghastly ceremony at full moon."
Since then every writer who has raided his book for "copy" has reproduced this statement without, apparently, ever bothering to check on it. Consequently they have been sadly misled; the Whispering Knights are not a circle. but part of a group of stones called the Rollright Stones: they are nothing to do with the Druids; and they are twelve miles away from Meon Hill. We can forgive Ex-Supt. Fabian for not being an archaeologist, but his definition of "not far from" as “twelve miles away" has proved a pitfall into which almost everyone who has written about this case has come a nasty cropper; and it looks as if either the papers or their informants were among them.
pp.238
“Yes, and look here." , continues that long-memoried reader, she says that Charles Walton was killed at a Black Mass at midnight. ."
But he went to work next morning as usual!
His body was actually found in the evening.
Yes, I noticed that, too. To put it mildly, something seems amiss.
However, in another paper, in the issue dated March 15th, 1956, the same informant told quite a different story of the "Black Magic Murder”. Their reporter had found her in a suburb of Wolverhampton, "an attractive woman with haunted eyes." “Thirteen people”, she says, “took part in the ceremony. One of them knew Walton. The rest came from various parts of the country. Walton was hedging that day in a field well away from houses and the road. The person who knew him approached him with two others. He was struck down. It was exactly midday. (My italics). Rapidly they mutilated his body, soaked some robes in his blood, drove in the pitchfork, and danced round the body." . . .
I should be greatly obliged if anyone could explain to me how thirteen people could dance round the body of a man which. according to the evidence given at the inquest by one of the three people who found it, was lying close against the hedge, in a bit of a ditch. Compared to the travelling circle of stones, this is a minor miracle. They should really have read the case up more before they started to tell this story.
Gradually, she told the reporter. she found out the story of the killing. She left the circle, and felt like going to the police (!)
"Within a few days the circle of silence was put on my doorstep. It was made of twigs and graveyard chippings. It meant 'Keep Quiet'. But I could not live with myself. I told one of the leaders that I would go to the police. That night, on my way home, I was grabbed and scalped. They took a complete circle of hair and skin from my head, using a doctor's scalpel."
Now, where have we heard something like this before? If we read on we shall soon see. As "Mrs. X”, who claimed to be a former High Priestess of the black magic cult, described “some of the shocking rites performed by the Black Magic circle."
pp.239
"At almost every ceremony I attended… there was wild singing and dancing, drinking and sexual depravity….Animals were killed and their blood poured into goblets. The 'priests' prayed to the Devil for help....The altar is a parody of a Christian altar. The Cross is placed upside down in a glass of water and the candles on a slant, almost upside down. Newcomers are initiated by being forced to drink the warm blood of animals. . . . Then they all drink glasses of spirits and dance round the altar. These newcomers wear white robes, which are soaked in blood. They have to sign a pact in blood, giving their souls to the Devil."
This description is almost exactly the same as that given by the coloured lady in 1955; so also is the story of her being attacked in order to intimidate her into silence, only now the alleged attack, which, it will be remembered, in the original case consisted merely of having a piece of hair slashed off, and which, according to the paper's account at the time, was testified by a police surgeon as having produced abrasions, bruising and swelling, and left "cut roots ... on the left hand side area", is now described as a scalping, the removal of a complete circle of hair and skin, using a doctor's scalpel. It will be remembered how I had remarked upon the coloured lady's alleged attack as being possibly self-inflicted [ SAFF: see page 222 in the appendix at the end, for the story which Gardner refers to in an earlier chapter of his book]. Is this why the second story is different? It follows that either there are two "Ex-High Priestesses living in the Midlands, both of whom are selling the same story to the newspapers, or else that the lady who has named the murderer of Charles Walton, and the coloured lady are one and the same person.
Now, this is very intriguing. For if this is so, then it follows that this whole ugly smear, with all its sensational and horrible adjuncts, rests entirely upon the uncorroborated word of one person - a person, moreover, who, if we are to believe the newspaper accounts quoted, has been demonstrably wrong upon important particulars. A person, further, who has either been very badly misquoted or else has changed her story when it was realised that the first version would not do.
If I am wrong in this presumption (and it is a presumption which I think is justified in view of the remarkable similarity in the stories told) then it is very easily susceptible of proof, and I think the woman concerned should be asked either to explain the matters I have pointed out, or else "forever after hold her peace."
pp.240
By now, however, the witch-hunting fraternity had fairly got the bit between their teeth. On March 25th, 1956, a paper came out with a front-page headline: "Black Magic: A Priest's Warning." The priest was Canon Bryan Green, the Rector of Birmingham, and by one of those funny coincidences which we keep coming across in these matters, Canon Bryan Green is a noted anti-Spiritualist. Two Worlds, the Spiritualist weekly, had this to say about him last August:
"Though he is pathetically ignorant about Spiritualism, he does not hesitate to attack it - he does so periodically - with the usual nonsense that 'attempts to communicate with the spirits are dangerous and wrong."
This is what Canon Bryan Green had to say about black magic:
“I understand there has been a revival of Black Magic practices in Birmingham. I want to utter a condemnation and a warning. Nothing can be worse or more depraved than the deliberate distortion of the beautiful and natural gift of sex for sensuous and perverted feelings of gratification. And this is what Black Magic does. Moreover, it debases man's natural desires to love and trust God as his Heavenly Father and tries to get him to make the Devil his source of guidance. My warning is, - Keep clear of Black Magic. . . .
What on earth Canon Green means by his first paragraph of his warning I find it hard to understand. Does he mean that it is wrong to get any gratification out of sex? And that if anyone does so, they are practising Black Magic? If so, I think he will find some difficulty in getting any doctors or psychologists to agree with him.
With regard to his second paragraph, it seems to me that the most earnest believers in the Devil these days, and the people who are always boosting his supposed powers, are churchmen like Canon Bryan Green.
A paper's reporter mentioned the death of Charles Walton, and added that it was "believed to have been a ritual killing". By whom? We were not told; but “a student of pagan religions”, who was "prepared to put his findings before the police”, had given a warning - the "Preparations for a human sacrifice are well advanced as part of a ritual Black Mass to be performed by an unfrocked priest, regarded as world leader of the cult.”
Personally, if information like that were in my possession, I would not waste time telling reporters what I was "prepared” to do. I would tell Scotland Yard immediately. If I couldn't prove it, they soon would - if it were true. The reporter went on,
" I have just completed an investigation on the people active in Black Magic. Many appear rational and intelligent. Some are well known publicly. They claim to be practising an ancient pre-Christian religion. But this is merely a cover for obscene, degrading practices."
pp.241
Notice how the old smear-technique comes out again? People who are "well known publicly" are alleged to be practising black magic. No names are given, and no evidence brought forward to support what is said, so the smear can apply to anyone in public life, and any occult group which is not specifically Christian.
Later on the paper became more specific. On the 3rd June, 1956, they said: "Peers on Yard Black Magic List”. We were told that a man (anonymous, of course) had given Scotland Yard "a secret list of one hundred and twenty names of people said to be leading members of the Black Magic cult”. (So it was not a “Yard list” at all, but a list compiled by an anonymous individual completely without credentials.) "After the detectives had seen him last night”, says their reporter, the man told me: 'The list reads like pages taken from Debrett (the peers' and knights' Who's Who)! It includes two or three of the most famous names in the peerage and that of a former ambassador at the Court of St. James. It also names a number of wealthy people, including one with two country mansions and a luxurious West End flat."
[SAFF Note: Further detailed false claims about Westminster/VIP Abuse were regurgitated again three decades after Gardner referred to this newspaper report. The untruths had since then grown into an anthology of deceit and lies when it formed part of the 1990s Satanic Panic here: https://saff.nfshost.com/colemanrains.htm . Nearly £100 million was wasted by the British government. in looking into these absurdities of allegations of VIP abuse in IICSA’s public inquiry in 2021 and the result was that there was no real evidence for any of it. ]
Sooner or later in these alleged investigations, we always seem to come to statements like this. It is always the wicked upper classes who are the mainstay of black magic, especially when the paper concerned is Left Wing in politics! If, however, this campaign originated as political propaganda, designed to foster class hatred, it would indeed be singularly cheap and childish. I do not allege that it did so originate; my purpose here is to point out the singular persistence of this campaign, the remarkably flimsy basis upon which all this structure of rumour and fear has been built up. and the utter failure to bring forward anything worth calling evidence to support it. If there is any political slant, then I think it is a side-issue.
The actual inspiration behind all the wild talk about "Satanism” was originally clerical, and it stemmed from the Roman Catholic Church. Its purpose was to combat the rising Spiritualist movement; it started back in the nineteenth century, and has been going on sporadically ever since, assisted by the anti-Spiritualist elements in the Church of England. Its methods have never been very intelligent, and they have always been fundamentally the same, namely to sell the idea to the public that any movement which attempts to make contact with God or with the world unseen, and which does not possess the permission of either the Vatican or the Church of England to do so, must have Satan behind it.
pp.242
Now, with regard to the proposition that many people in high places are involved in black magic, I do not know whether it is true or not. I have tried for many years to find any traces and have failed, but I think it very doubtful, and I shall not believe it until I receive evidence; there is, however, one thing which I do know to be true. A good number of people of rank and education are Spiritualists, and they often occupy some public position. They do not always care for their belief to be known. but nevertheless they hold it and practise it. Are these the people who are the witch-hunters' real quarry?
The Campaign Against Spiritualists and the Religion of Spiritualism
I have already pointed out how there has been a veritable outburst of this kind of propaganda ever since Parliament gave Spiritualism legal recognition in the Fraudulent Mediums Act. Have there been any attempts to bring Spiritualism into the great witch-hunt?
The Spiritualist weekly, Two Worlds, noted some in its issue dated June 16th, 1956. By this time, a series on “Black Magic” had started in the Sunday Graphic, and was being written by Dennis Wheatley, and on June 10th he said:
“A more usual means of recruiting for the Devil is through the less reputable kind of spiritualist meeting or seance. Many people attend seances only in search of excitement. And at some seances the Black fraternity have what might be termed 'talent scouts'.”
On June 8th, 1956, the Rev. F. Amphlett Micklewright (who, it will be remembered, was one of the original backers of the campaign in the sensational papers, had said in an interview with G. W. Young, which was published in an article with the wonderful title, "Underworld of Black Mass Maniacs": "There is a sort of diabolism hanging on the fringes of freak religions, and some forms of spiritualism lend themselves to this sort of thing."
Commenting on these reports, Two Worlds said:
"Well, what do you do - laugh it off or get angry? Should we protest when these circulation-boosters, reeking with dark hints and appetite whetting chunks of sex and Satanism, dredge in putrescent innuendoes which could send the spiritually fastidious enquirer scuttling for terrified cover? Or do we smile and say, 'Well, people who believe that Spiritualism is a sort of antechamber to a gallery of the Black Arts are no good to us anyway?’”
Personally, I incline to the latter course; in spite of all the sound and fury of this campaign, the public are not so naive upon these subjects as they were in the nineteenth century, or even twenty years ago, and I have reason to think that the inspirers of it have found that out.
pp.243
An attempt was also made to link spiritual healing with witchcraft, and both with black magic. A panel of ten doctors had been appointed by the British Medical Association to prepare evidence about alleged supernormal healing, to be given to the Archbishops' Commission on Divine Healing. Their report was published in May, 1956, and on May 11th, reporting it, the Daily Mirror, the week-day associate of the Sunday Pictorial, did so under the headline "These Cures by Witches Must Be Probed”. Apparently one doctor had told the committee, “The practice of magic, both white and black, is widely spread in my Devon practice. I had one definite death from witchcraft, or I suppose I should say suggestion, while I was there". He also said, "The practice of charming away warts is extremely effective".
Which of these matters was the “witches' cure” that “must be probed” is not clear. But by the 13th May, Reynolds News came out with a whoop: "Witchcraft Growing Warns Dean”. The dean was the Very Rev. Hugh Heywood, Rural Dean of Southwell, Nottinghamshire, who had said in his Deanery Magazine that in parts of Western England the cult of the witch-doctor was growing, and added some remarks about healing by radiesthesia, which apparently he seemed to think was a form of witchcraft. [ SAFF note: Radiesthesia can be likened to the laying on of hands and involves diagnosis of a health issue by the use of the gyrations of a pendulum ]
It was all made to sound very sinister, and by June 2nd the Daily Herald was saying "The British Medical Association recently advised an inquiry into witchcraft in Britain”.
On June 9th, 1956, Two Worlds reported the famous Spiritualist healer, Harry Edwards, as commenting: “It is not by chance the B.M.A. included references to witchcraft in their report to the Archbishops' Committee on Divine Healing. They are lining it up with spirit healing. It is one of their lines of attack for the future.”
The Daily Herald, on June 2nd, 1956, promised us a story by a lady called Myrna Blumberg, who they claimed had become “an apprentice witch herself." This, I thought, should be good, and I awaited with great interest the account of Miss Blumberg's initiation. I wanted to see whether any human blood had flowed at the horrid scene, or whether they had been content merely with a couple of cockerels. I was also interested to know whether poor Miss Blumberg had had to throw over tombstones herself, and if so how many, or whether any male members of the staff of the Daily Herald had been gallant enough to come along and do it for her.
Well, Miss Blumberg certainly had the most remarkable initiation into witchcraft I have ever heard of; it consisted of hiring a car and a chauffeur and touring Devon! Her account of the various people she met who could charm warts and do other kinds of healing was most interesting. Nevertheless, after all the terrific tales we had been hearing, this was a distinct anti-climax.
pp. 244
However, she made up for it the next day, with the headline: “Black Witchery Can Lead to Murder”. This article consisted of the inevitable interview with the Rev. F. Amphlett Micklewright, who said he was "convinced that under various guises there is as much witchcraft practised now as in the Middle Ages ", and that he had been " close on the fringe of some of the most baleful things, distortions and perversions of old black magic -, and of course uttered the usual solemn warning that " It's one of the most dangerous cults to dabble in "; a recital of various tales of curses being put on people, and a mention of the case of the murder of Charles Walton, in which it said " it was generally whispered that witchcraft played a part."
Miss Blumberg had interviewed Dr. Margaret Murray, who told her, "People write to me from all over the country as though I were an anti-witch and could break the spells they believe in. All I can do is to tell them to laugh it off."
Dr. Murray has my sympathy, they write to me, too. I do not always tell them to "laugh it off "; but that is the best advice in many cases.
Let's get this business of "bewitchment" and "putting curses on people" straight. There are two necessary prerequisites for "putting a curse on someone". The first is a genuine motive for doing so, and the second is the ability to do it. When those two things come together, and they sometimes do, you get an indubitable result. I know too many stories of this kind personally to say that it can never happen; but what I do say is that it is rare. In the first place, to do a thing like this requires a considerable expenditure of psychic force, which no one with real knowledge would do upon trivial grounds. Secondly, those who really know about these things would not resort to such an act unless in exceptional circumstances. Consequently, ninety-nine per cent of the people who think they are being " bewitched " are cases of sheer auto-suggestion, and I believe that such cases have been enormously increased by the newspaper scare campaign.
Nothing is more calculated to prey on the weak minds and send borderline mental cases over the edge than to read article after article in the popular Press boosting "the terrible powers of Satan”, and alleging that Britain is riddled with black magic. If my book serves no purpose than to debunk this poisonous rubbish, it will have done a good job.
It was time that all this grim ghoulishness had some comic relief; and that was provided in abundance, for those who had a sense of humour, by a series on "Black Magic" in the Sunday Graphic, which commenced on the 3rd June, 1956.
pp.245
For after the author had been boosted in the advance blurb as " The man who knows. more than anyone about this strange, evil cult", he made, in his first article, this extraordinary admission: when, he says, he was an officer in the first World War, he was playing vingt-et-un, got fed up with losing, and called on the Devil to give him luck; he won the next game, and was so frightened that "I have never called on the Devil since. Neither have I ever attended any form of magical ceremony or seance, though I have interrogated many who have." And that, apparently, is the sum total of his practical experience!
Well, such candour is refreshing, and rather disarming; after that, I haven't got the heart to say very much about his articles! After all, "black magic" thrillers have provided me with many hours of innocent enjoyment.
By this time the cause of witch-hunting was rather scraping the bottom of the barrel for something fresh to say, and the papers had to eke out their yarns with hoary old legends about Aleister Crowley, and even with ordinary ghost stories. [SAFF note: newspapers and missionaries-on-the-make are still using Crowley as a Bogeyman in 2024 – see https://saff.nfshost.com/crowley.htm ]
One of these ghost stories was really pretty horrible. "The Rev. Montague Summers told me ", says the narrator, of an exorcism he performed in Ireland, on a farmer's wife who, it was said, was possessed by an evil spirit. He arrived in the evening. On the table in the living-room was the remains of a cold leg of mutton - obviously for supper. At the sight of a priest the woman became so violent that she had to be held down. As he sprinkled holy water on her and commanded the demon to come forth. a small cloud of black smoke issued from her foam-flecked mouth. It went straight into the cold mutton, and within a few minutes everyone present saw that the meat was alive with maggots."
I showed my secretary this tale, and she said,
"Yes, that was a good story when I first read it. too. It had the Fourth Form scared stiff."
I said. What do you mean?"
"Why”, she said, "I've read that story years ago, when I was a girl at school. It's a book of fictional ghost stories called A Mirror of Shalott by Robert Hugh Benson. Admittedly, the venue has been changed from the West Indies to Ireland, but otherwise the story is just the same -. So was Montague Summers leg-pulling or lying?
[SAFF notes: ‘A Mirror of Shalott’ was published in 1907. The exorcism story which Montague Summers nicked from Robert Benson, and deceitfully told everyone was a real exorcism he had himself performed in Ireland, was taken directly from a chapter headed ‘Father Meuron’s Tale’ which begins on page 51 and ends on page 71. The fictional ghost story concerns the exorcism of a black woman in La Soufriere, in the Caribbean Islands, in the early 1890s. In the story the woman was a recent convert to Christianity and the ‘device’ of the ‘Corruption of the mutton and bread becoming instantly infested with maggots’ was used by Benson as a symbol of the success of the Priest’s exorcism as her ‘demons’ left the possessed woman and took up residence in the mutton. Impressive enough to make a mark on Summers’ mind sufficient for him to use the story 50 years later as ‘evidence’ of Witchcraft of which it was nothing of the kind! What shall we do with priests and prelates who baldly lie out of their back teeth to further ‘God’s Work’? ]
According to G. W. Young in Reveille on June 8th, 1956, the Rev. Amphlett Micklewright had told him of "wild orgies in places where the atmosphere was drugged with ether or chloroform, the smell being camouflaged by the burning of incense."
pp. 246
It has evidently not occurred to these good folk to find out by practical experiment just what would happen if they sprayed a room with ether, and then introduced fire of any kind, such as candles or burning incense, into it. Still, perhaps that is just as well; the resulting explosion might well have proved fatal, and I should be sorry to see a grand police officer like Bob Fabian come to such a sticky end. (If anyone doubts my word on this, don't try it yourself - ask a hospital anaesthetist.) If the drug sprayed were chloroform, the most likely result would be that those who inhaled it would be very sick; circumstances which are hardly inviting for even the mildest of orgies.
Ex-Supt. Fabian said further,
"One of my most memorable murder cases was at the village of Lower Quinton, near the stone Druid circle of the Whispering Knights. There a man had been killed by a reproduction of a Druidical ceremony on St. Valentine's Eve."
Now, the Whispering Knights are not a circle; they are not Druidical, and they are about twelve miles away, as the crow flies, from Lower Quinton. Nor was Charles Walton killed on St. Valentine's Eve; and as no one knows for certain just what the Druid's ceremonies were, it is impossible to say that his death was a reproduction of one. Apart from these details, the description is accurate.
[ SAFF notes: In Chapter 16 of his book Fabian of the Yard (1950 ) Robert Fabian wrote in detail about the Charles Walton murder and his sole reference to Druidry was:
“ It looked like the kind of killing the Druids might have done in ghastly ceremony at full moon”.
Except that, when Charles Walton was killed it was NOT a full moon! Something Fabian could have easily checked with any ephemeris, therefore his assumption about Druidry was entirely specious ]
Let me make it clear, however, that I cast no doubt whatsoever upon Ex-Supt. Fabian's statement in the same article that people come to London from the provinces and pay heavy fees to take part in "revolting ceremonies" staged by "little Black Magic groups in London that rise, fester and disperse again like plague abscesses". Ex-Supt. Fabian has in his time been Chief of the Vice Squad which doubtless concerns itself with such things.
Sexual degenerates with money can find those who are willing to provide the perverted satisfactions they crave. But this sort of thing is not witchcraft; I doubt if it is even really black magic, or any sort of magic. It is simply one of the rackets that the Vice Squad concerns itself with.
Sometimes, doubtless, such things are done under the pretence of being "magical ceremonies" just as sometimes they are done under the pretence of being "private cabaret performances", or something similar; but they bear no relationship whatsoever to genuine witchcraft. Though, of course. sensational newspaper descriptions of alleged black magic rites involving orgies of sex and blood will have been eagerly lapped up by neurotic degenerates, and given them fresh ideas to emulate; a development for which responsibility does not lie at the door of the witches. And every time the sensational Press have big blurbs of "BLACK MAGIC" and BLACK MASSES, there are always some " bright young things - who say, " Let's have a go at this.” I can confidently say this: Any "Black Magic" ceremonies ever held are just the result of sensationalism in the papers. I am speaking of the last fifty years, of course. Three hundred years ago it may have been different.
pp.247
The articles by Dennis Wheatley finished on June 24th, with an injunction to readers to make the sign of the Cross if they were ever confronted with an evil manifestation.
[SAFF note: Wheatley was full of this kind of kitsch. In 1970 he was interviewed by the BBC Radio 4’s World This Weekend series, (broadcast on January 11th), and said:
Dennis Wheatley: ‘Well, it may frighten [dabblers] off. At the least you can get so fascinated with this thing, that you neglect your family, your job, spend more money than you should, and in the worst you may get in with really bad blacks, and you may end up in a loony bin.’
Says a man who became a very wealthy man by selling 50 million copies world-wide of his series of novels on Satanism and the Occult. Of course Wheatley had absolutely no hand whatsoever in encouraging the interest of people into Black Magic and the occult did he? ]
Any relation between this newspaper campaign and the ugly outbreak of hooliganism which interrupted the annual Druid ceremony at Stonehenge at dawn on June 21st, 1956, is problematical; it may be significant, though, that the disturbance started, according to the report in Picture Post, with a cry of "You're pagan!" Throwing of thunder-flashes and smoke-bombs followed, a lady Druid's dress was set on fire, and the Daily Telegraph quoted a Ministry of Works custodian as saying that the crowd was "the most unruly I have ever seen in my twenty years here.”
It is perhaps significant also that this disturbance of the traditional ceremony at Stonehenge, this insult to the Old Stones, has been followed by what I believe to have been the worst summer on record. It may be sheer coincidence, of course - but I know what our forefathers would have said!
But the first fine frenzy of witch-hunting had passed. On July 7th. 1956, Illustrated published the results of an investigation undertaken by its reporter, Norman Phillips, who came out with the rather disappointing verdict (in some quarters) that "Despite the headlines, solid evidence that black magic is practised in Britain is scant indeed"; that "there are not enough people in Britain who call themselves witches to form even one traditional coven of thirteen”; and that " witchcraft, as an organised belief, is as dated as the witch's hat in Britain. "He asked,
"Is black magic widespread in Britain - or are a few people making a mountain out of mumbo-jumbo for the sake of the curious?"
After what has been going on for the last five years, I think the reluctance of people to call themselves witches, especially to reporters, is hardly to be wondered at; but I think I have done something in this chapter to show that the answer to the last part of Mr. Phillips' question is emphatically "Yes!"
The last word to date has been said on this matter in the November, 1956, issue of Prediction monthly magazine, by their popular contributor Madeline Montalban, in an article discussing certain aspects of Karma:
pp.248
A recent case was that of a certain journalist who did a series of "black magic" articles for his newspaper. He drew a very small amount of his material from fact, a great deal from imagination and hearsay; and he presented the world with a sensational (and mostly fictitious) black magic scare. While he was doing this he came to see me, and I warned him against it. “Black magic may be wrong “, I said, “but as you have had no kind of occult instruction, how are you to know what is black magic and what is not? If you present this story as a warning to people, you create an interest in black magic that was not there before! You will also make a personal profit out of a sensation that may affect the weak-minded. And believe me, you'll suffer for it in the long run”.
He did not see why he should. He was safe on his soap-box of "warning" the masses of the evils of black magic - though he got his information from unreliable sources, and was himself deceived. Bit by bit his editor found the stories to be untrue; no reliable evidence was forthcoming and the journalist "lost face". With that, he lost self-confidence, and others lost confidence in him. This, in turn, brought about a series of personal misfortunes from which he has not yet recovered. When he last saw me he protested at the “injustice” of this and said: “I only wanted to bring the black magicians to justice”. That, of course, did not lie within his power. The man did not understand his own unworthy motives. Accusing others of black magic always brings the accuser to trouble (note the witch-hunters of the past and the miserable ends they came to); and that unfortunate journalist now sees his world turned topsy-turvy. . . . However, when he gets things into perspective, and realises that occult sins are punished by occult means, he will be wiser, happier and luckier!
Considerations of space have precluded me from giving in this chapter the fully detailed debunking that the Great Witch-Hunt deserves. Also, I have deliberately confined myself to convicting the witch-hunters out of their own mouths, using only matter which the public can check on. I have, however, been assisted by private investigators, and I feel I must include one item which they turned up.
On a few occasions the ashes of fires had been found at the Rollright Stones, which might have been the work of tramps, gipsies, small boys or practical jokers; but which inspired a headline in Reynolds News on the 22nd April, 1956: “Witchcraft Fires On Pagan Hilltop”. And on May 1st, 1956, another enterprising journal, which out of charity shall be nameless, came out with a story:
“P.C. X Waits Up For Witches”. It was a thrilling yarn of how “For eight hours last night P.C. X kept vigil by the prehistoric Rollright Stones - on a witch hunt ". (“Last night”, of course, being May Eve.) “Each night this week”, it stated, “he will resume his watch”.
pp.241
I am able to reveal that the police officer in question was, in fact, away that night upon an entirely different duty, in the company of another officer. Nor did he “keep vigil” the rest of the week either. The newspaper concerned, in spite of the detailed conversation with P.C. X which they reported, had in fact dreamed the whole story of the “watch for witches” up!
There are quite a number of anecdotes of this nature, and of some of the “investigators of witchcraft”, which space in this book just will not run to; but I think enough has been said to enable readers to look with a somewhat more critical eye in the future at those big black headlines about “Black Magic and witchcraft”.
The Truth About The so-called Ritual Murder at Meon Hill
Now, I propose to tackle boldly this alleged “witchcraft murder”, the death of Charles Walton in 1945. What are the allegations in the case, and what are the facts?
1. It is alleged that authorities upon ancient religions have said that the circumstances of this crime show it to be a ritual murder.
Fact: The only authority who has been willing to be quoted as saying anything about this possibility is Dr. Margaret Murray, who is one of the greatest authorities in the modern world upon this subject; and what Dr. Murray has actually said is this:
“The lack of a motive was puzzling. There was also the significance of the day—the 14th of February. In pre-Christian times February was a sacrificial month, when the soil was spring-cleaned of the dirt of winter. In the old calendar February 2nd was a sacrificial day, but the old calendar was 12 days behind ours, which means that February 14th corresponds to February 2nd. But I found nothing to support my theory beyond that. The pitchfork was never an instrument of sacrifice in this country, though it may have been in Italy - and there were Italian prisoners-of-war in the neighbourhood at the time." (Given in an interview with G. W. Young, published in Reveille, June lst, 1956)
2. It is alleged that British witches keep to the old calendar mentioned above, so that St. Valentine's Day, the 14th February, is a witches' Sabbath.
Fact: The so-called " Old Calendar " is of no significance to present-day witches, because as I have already explained in the chapter dealing with the Celts and the Druids, the Sabbats relate to the Sun, the Moon, and the Zodiac. Hence St. Valentine's Day is not a witches' Sabbat, though it was originally a pagan festival. The witches' Sabbat in February is Candlemas Eve, the Celtic Oimelc, which occurs on February 1st, approximately 40 days after the Winter Solstice. As, according to Dr. Murray in the
pp.250
interview just quoted. this is the only possible connection between this crime and witchcraft in Britain, this is precisely the place where the connection breaks down.
With regard to the Italian prisoners-of-war in the neighbourhood, the witch-hunters cannot have it both ways—if the killer was an Italian, then the crime is nothing to do with a British witch coven.
[SAFF notes: There were 1,043 prisoners of war at Long Marston P.O.W. camp, comprising mostly Italians, with a few Germans, Ukrainians, and Slavs. The camp was only two miles away from Meon Hill. In comparison there were only 493 residents of Quinton. Questions were asked but language problems intervened. One P.O.W was seen ‘covered in blood’ on the day of the murder and striving to wash it off his clothes. He swore that it was from killing a Rabbit. I don’t know how many rabbits P.O.W. were let out to kill from that camp, or whether they owned knives or even had the facilities for cooking rabbits, but what I can say, dear readers, is that I have personally had to kill, gut and skin rabbits and I can tell you that the amount of blood lost is miniscule and even if you made an attempt to wipe it across your clothes after chopping off the head, the amount would not be very noticeable. However, according to Fabian of the Yard, analysis of the P.O.W's clothes confirmed that the blood was likely from a rabbit so the man was let go as a suspect. Probably because by that time the ‘ritual’ claims made in the case had taken precedence and interfered with the direction of the investigation. I would have thought that the fact that enemy prisoners of war were able to exit their compound for a walk around the local area to set rabbit snares, and possess knives to gut and skin the animal ( and do who knows what else ) , would have been a more worthwhile line of inquiry. We do not know which forensic test the lab did on the POW’s blood stains but in 1945 it was quite difficult to be absolutely sure. Tests were rudimentary and could be ambiguous. From Fabian’s writings it is clear that the POW had spent some time trying to eradicate the stain from his clothes. What cleaners did he use to do so and how did it affect the scientific tests, if any which Scotland Yard used to identify it as rabbit’s blood? Even today it is not straightforward to test for human or animal blood - See: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/11t7gz4/how_would_a_scientist_be_able_to_tell_the/?rdt=62552
so the idea that the POW was cleared of suspicion is somewhat glib. ]
3. It is alleged that an identical crime was committed on the same day, February 14th, in 1875, at nearby Long Compton, when a woman named Ann Turner was killed with a hayfork, and that there was an earlier hayfork killing in the same neighbourhood, when a man called James Haywood killed an old woman, both the victims are alleged to have been suspected witches.
Fact: There was no such crime on February 14th, 1875. What actually happened was that on the 15th September, 1875, a feeble-minded man named James Haywood attacked a 79-year-old woman named Anne Tennent, at Long Compton, with a pitchfork, and inflicted injuries upon her of which she died three hours later; he was testified at the inquest upon the victim to have been suffering from delusions that people were bewitching him. [SAFF notes: Haywood actually claimed that 16 elderly women in the locality were witches who had cursed him. ] He was brought to trial at Warwick Assizes, found Not Guilty upon the grounds of insanity, and ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure. The crime was not identical with the death of Charles Walton.
Poor old Anne Tennent was attacked in the road outside a village shop. Haywood was seen to stab her in the legs with the prongs of the pitchfork, and knock her down with the handle. She died of shock and loss of blood. A full report of the case may be found in the Stratford- on-Avon Herald for 1875, from which I have taken these details. It will be noticed that not only are the date and the victim's name wrong. but two murders have been conflated from one. This is what is known as “conducting an investigation”?
4. It is alleged that “nearby” the scene of the crime is an ancient stone circle known as the Rollright Stones.
Fact: The Rollright Stones are about 12 miles away, “as the crow flies”, from Meon Hill. I should not personally define “nearby” as meaning “twelve miles away”.
5. It is alleged that the Rollright Stones are a place where the Druids offered up human sacrifices.
Fact: There is no evidence that the Druids ever had any connection with the Rollright Stones, which were already an ancient monument before the Druids ever came to Britain. Nor is there any evidence of sacrifices being offered there. And there is little evidence the Druids ever performed human sacrifices.
pp.251
6. It is alleged that there is no other explanation of this crime than that it was a ritual murder.
Fact: There is another possible explanation, and I think it is time it was given. That explanation is that someone killed Charles Walton because they thought he had the “Evil Eye” or possibly was a witch.
I am not saying that that is the only solution of this mystery; but what I am saying is that if witchcraft enters into this crime at all, then that is a far more likely explanation than the alleged “ritual murder”.
The facts upon which I base this opinion are these: firstly, there is a strong local belief in witchcraft. J. Harvey Bloom, whose book, Folk Lore, Old Customs and Superstitions in Shakespeare Land, was published in 1929, relates how in 1912 he could only get people in the neighbourhood to tell him stories about witches “with much persuasion and some fear of the consequences.” It is evident, from the folk-lore he recounts, that Meon Hill is a “witch district”. For one thing, there is a local legend of the Wild Hunt. J. Harvey Bloom says,
“Among the villages of the plain below the hill are many old folk living to tell those they can trust creepy stories of the Hell-hounds, Night-hounds, or Hooter, as they are variously named, that in phantom wise, with hounds and horn, pursue phantom foxes along the hill-tops at midnight. Many are the legends to account for uncouth sounds at night, which certainly do occur. One story is told of a local huntsman who would not desist from his favourite sport even on the Sabbath. On one Sunday judgement fell upon the ungodly crew, huntsmen, horses and hounds fell into a chasm that opened in the hill and were never seen again, though they still in ghostly wise hunt at midnight.” (Note the folk-memory of the Wild Huntsman who comes out of the Hollow Hill.)
In his article in Vol. VI of Folk-Lore (1895), entitled “The Rollright Stones and their Folklore”, Arthur J. Evans says, “Some say there is a great cave beneath the King Stone, and according to some the same exists beneath the circle too.” This may be another folk-memory of the Hollow Hill that was the entry to the Old God's kingdom in legend. It is noted in the Victoria County History of Warwickshire that the Rollright Stones were the traditional meeting-place of witches; and according to J. Harvey Bloom there is a proverb in the locality that “There are enough witches in Long Compton to draw a waggon-load of hay up Long Compton hill.” We have already seen the bearing that this belief had upon the death of Anne Tennent. However, we are more immediately concerned here with Meon Hill and its immediate neighbourhood.
pp.252
[SAFF notes: ‘The account of the Tennent murder that Fabian had read in ‘Folklore, Old Customs and Superstitions in Shakespeare Land’ also included a reference to a ‘ploughboy who, in 1885, met a black dog on his way home from work.
‘Nine times he met the strange dog – a creature which represents evil in Warwickshire folklore. On the ninth day a headless woman appeared to him, and after this premonition, on the following day, he learned of the death of his sister. And what was the young lad’s name? Charles Walton, and the locations of the sinister sightings was Meon Hill.’
This quote was extracted from a round-up of the history of Charles Walton’s murder by Gill Sutherland at Halloween (31 Oct 2021) for the Stratford upon Avon Herald, but the facts are incorrect. The source actually appears thus (verbatim) in Old Customs and Superstitions in Shakespeare Land:
“At Alveston a plough lad named Charles Walton met a dog on his way home nine times in successive evenings. He told both the shepherd and carter with whom he worked, and was laughed at for his pains. On the ninth encounter a headless lady rustled past him in a silk dress, and on the next day he heard of his sister’s death.”
Sutherland’s 2021 Halloween pot-boiler for the Stratford uon Avon Herald confuses the issue, she does not produce any reference for her statement that Charles Walton experienced his headless lady on Meon Hill, going by the original source of the anecdote it was actually at Alveston, a long way from Meon Hill. This is how the Meon Hill mythology grows, by ignorant commentators adding to existing untruths.
Like all other rustics Charles Walton was undoubtedly superstitious but the idea that he was himself involved in Witchcraft or the Occult is a falsehood. The report of Walton’s interment in the local paper (2nd March 1945 says, that his burial in the Parish church at Quinton was attended by a throng of locals and the eulogy was given by Rev. H.O. Mason. If there had been any local suspicions about Walton’s religious beliefs he would not have been buried there; and to qualify for a grave he must have attended the church on a frequent basis throughout his life. SAFF notes end]
There are some earthworks upon Meon Hill, and Bronze Age articles have been dug up there, showing that it was anciently inhabited. It was at one time the scene of a “wake” or all-night fair, but the date on which this was held is now forgotten. According to legend, Meon Hill was made by the Devil. In a fit of annoyance at seeing Evesham Abbey built, he kicked a clod of earth at it, but at the prayer of St. Ecguuine the clod fell short, and formed Meon Hill.
Legends of things being “made by the Devil” are usually a sign of ancient Pagan associations.
But how does all this have any bearing on the death of Charles Walton, that harmless old countryman so brutally and bloodily murdered on February 14th, 1945? For whoever killed him made certain that his blood should flow. Had robbery been the motive, a blow on the head with the stick would have sufficed.
At the inquest, evidence was given that there had apparently been an attempt to go through his pockets, and his fob-watch was missing. But the watch was only nickel plated, and he had left his purse at home. Who was going to risk hanging to rob a farm labourer of a metal watch and possibly a pocketful of small change? Is it not likely that the searched pockets and the missing watch were blinds to conceal the real motive? Which was to get some charm he carried. (If this was of paper or parchment he may have carried it in his watch.)
[ SAFF note: In the aforementioned Halloween 2021 round-up of suspicions surrounding Charles Walton’s murder in the Stratford Upon Avon Herald there is mention of rumours about the rediscovery of the missing fob watch which was apparently found hidden in an outhouse in the village in August 1960. Inside the watch was supposedly discovered a piece black glass, it is suggested that this was used by Walton as a ‘skrying mirror’ and would imply that he had some witchcraft connection. Clearly the people who had made up this rumour had never owned a fob-watch for as Gerald Gardner’s comments make clear, the only thing which would fit inside a fob watch would be a piece of paper or parchment (on which a lucky or protective talisman could be drawn). This leads me to believe that a hoax was perpetrated about the finding of the stolen watch by someone who had actually read Gardner’s comments above when his book was first published in 1959 and started a wild goose chase which further expanded the Meon Hill Murder myth. ]
Arthur J. Evans (Loc. cit.), speaks of; “a very widespread superstition regarding witches, of which I found many surviving expressions in the neighbouring village of Long Compton. They say there that if you only draw her blood ‘be it but a pin's prick’, the witch loses all her power for the time.”
This belief was very prevalent in old times, and still exists among country folk. Dr. Margaret Murray told G. W. Young how at Swaffham in Norfolk, a farmer admitted slashing the forehead of a woman he believed had put a curse on him. Many cases of assault of this kind are on record. In the old times, if they struck the suspected witch an unlucky blow, and killed them - well, that was “just too bad.” Their intentions had been entirely righteous, of course. It will be remembered how James Haywood, filled with superstitious fear, made sure that Anne Tennent's blood flowed when he killed her. Not satisfied with knocking her down with the pitchfork handle, he stabbed her in the legs with the prongs; she died of shock and loss of blood.
[ SAFF Notes: According to the pathologist’s report on the Charles Walton murder the hay-fork used to pin him to the ground was his own two-tine fork which he had brought with him along with his bill-hook to do the hedging job he was working on. After coshing Walton with his own walking-stick and beating him to the ground senseless, the murderer shoved the fork at his head and the two tines were found in the ground either side of his head at jaw level. The handle was then apparently pushed forward to jam against the hedging. This was believed to have been done to trap the head still. There were three four-inch deep gashes made by the actual murder weapon, Walton’s bill-hook, which collectively virtually severed Walton’s head save for a flap of skin at the back. The slashes went down the side of the neck and across deep into Walton’s chest and the bill-hook was left in the chest after the last slash. This is unlike any previously recorded sacrificial ceremony where a single straight-cut across the windpipe is usually said to be employed. The same way that both Moslems and Jews traditionally kill their meat.
I believe the murderer was known to Walton, which enabled the murderer to get close, and the coshing came first using his stick which was probably propped up against the hedge or stuck in the ground close by. The attacker must have walked up to him conjoined him in conversation or argument, probably waited for Walton to turn back to his work then grabbed the stick and beat him from behind which is where most of the damage to the head was. When he dropped to the ground half dead, his murderer used the hay-fork next and the last thing was with the bill-hook used in the botched decapitation. Walton’s body had fallen half-into the ditch on the hedge where he was working. The concentrated spread of venal blood close to the head neck of the body would suggest that it was used to attack Walton after his head was pinned to the ground. If the bill-hook attack slashes had occurred as he was standing and fighting to defending himself then blood splatters would have likely left a much bigger trail. The idea that this was some kind of Witchcraft sacrifice is absolutely absurd, it was clearly a dastardly murder. The weapons used to kill poor old Walton were his own tools. In other words the murder was insufficiently premeditated for his killer to think about bringing their own murder instruments, leading to the deduction that it was a spontaneous crime of revenge.
Note also that in the case of the murder of Anne Tennant, James Hayward turned on her in the street, on an ordinary day which had no occult significance, in a spontaneous act of violence with witnesses stood around who later gave testimony that his motivation was that he had told them that everything he did that day at work had been jinxed and he supposed it to be witchcraft so he took it out on ‘Nanny Tennant’ whom he randomly came across. The lunatic Hayward believed there were 16 old crones/witches in the area because of some slight or other in the past. If poor Anne Tennant hadn’t got it that day, another one of them would have. Note that Hayward’s attack on Tennant did not continue until she was dead, he stopped and she died later on from the wounds inflicted. This was therefore NOT a premeditated attempt at murder but a spontaneous attack to expiate a lunatic revenge.
In one instance the sight of a squirrel repetitively choosing to rest on the thatched roof of one old woman’s home was enough to label her a ‘witch’ in Hayward’s eyes. It never dawned on the idiot that the squirrel was warming itself. His use of the pitch-fork on Tennant was incidental and had no parallel with the way the murderer of Charles Walton used his, nor with any tradition of ‘pinioning’, occult or otherwise. The idea that singly or severally these cases were in any way linked or offered evidence of Witchcraft activity is utterly asinine. ]
It will be remembered that the area around Stratford-on-Avon is “Shakespeare's Land”, and I believe Shakespeare makes one of his characters say, “Blood will I draw on thee, thou art a witch!”
253
Why should anyone have thought that old Charles Walton was a witch or had the evil eye? It appears that he had a local reputation as a seer of ghosts. This, before his death, had actually got into print. J. Harvey Bloom, that industrious collector of local folklore, says in his book (Op. Cit.),
At Alveston a plough lad named Charles Walton met a black dog on his way home nine times in successive evenings. He told the shepherd and carter with whom he worked and was laughed at for his pains. On the ninth encounter a headless lady rustled past him in a silk dress, and on the next day he heard of his sister's death.
According to the book Fabian of the Yard, however, Supt. Spooner told Robert Fabian this story, and said that it happened, not at Alveston, but on Meon Hill; and as in the Stratford-on- Avon Herald's report of his death it was stated that “Mr. Walton spent his whole life in Quinton, and was known to everyone”, this version may be correct. To be thought to have second-sight in a place where they believe in witchcraft, is to invite suspicion.
Ex-Supt, Fabian testifies to the extreme and extraordinary reluctance of the village people to co-operate in his enquiries. When Ex-Supt. Fabian talks about such matters as black magic, Druids, and stone circles, I am prepared to question what he says, but when he speaks as a police officer he is speaking as an expert upon criminal investigation, and I accept his opinion. He says in his book:
“We made our investigations in the village from door to door. There were lowered eyes, reluctance to speak except for talk of bad crops - a heifer that died in a ditch. But what had that to do with Charles Walton? Nobody would say.”
[SAFF: The references to the first supposed ‘ritual murder’ in the area, at Long Compton by John Haywood were woven into the Charles Walton Murder by Superintendent Spooner who influenced Robert Fabian by;
‘putting another book in my hand. It was Warwickshire, by Clive Holland: ‘...A man named John Haywood, who stabbed to death with a pitchfork an old woman, exclaiming that he would kill all the sixteen witches in Long Compton...his mode of killing was evidently a survival of the ancient Anglo-Saxon custom of dealing with witches by means of “stacung”, or sticking spikes into them.’ - Fabian of The Yard
[SAFF notes: Actually the Old English word - stacung means "piercing of an effigy by a pin or stake in witchcraft”; there are no prior cases of witches being pinioned by stakes, though in middle-European folk legends about the ‘undead’ (vampires) , corpses were supposedly staked through the chest to avoid their spirits wandering abroad. Archaeologists have found a handful of skeletons which had been ‘staked’ in very ancient burial grounds but these stakings involved the use of thick iron bars, not pitchforks and the stake was in all cases hammered through the chest of the corpse. Yet as we have seen the actual method and motivation for killing Anne Tennent with a pitch-fork had nothing whatsoever to do with any form of Witchcraft but rather resulted from Haywood’s fear of the supernatural. Thus the first supposed Ritual Murder near Meon Hill was nothing of the kind and the use of a pitch-fork had little to no significance. The source of the supposed ‘ prior ritual murder’ claim was Clive Holland’s ‘Warwickshire’ and here is an actual extract of it:
It came out in evidence that this man [ Haywood ] for years had honestly believed that when cattle or other animals died, or any evil fortune befell his fellow-villagers such things were the direct result of the "Evil Eye " of some unfortunate old women he asserted were " proper old witches." His mode of killing the unfortunate woman he attacked was evidently a survival of the ancient Anglo-Saxon custom of dealing with such persons by means of «stacung,"or sticking spikes into them; whilst at the same time wishing that the portion of the body so wounded might mortify- or wither away. (pp 303 Warwickshire by Clive Holland published 1906)
Clearly this has been mis-read by both Spooner and Fabian. Holland was referring to Stacung where it was assumed that witches had made effigies of people and stuck pins in them as a spell which was supposed to cause their victims limbs to atrophy. This is the correct attribution of Stacung but Holland confused what witches were assumed to do to their enemies with what punishments non-Witches perpetrated on witches. Of course Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ popularised the idea of ‘staking’ a vampire in 1897 and the novel was published nine years before Holland wrote this so was he (Holland) influenced by the success of this novel which was itself based on ancient folklore; of which he had an interest? The actual killing of Tennent by Haywood occurred in 1875 long before Dracula was published. So what Haywood did could not be described as Staking. He first used the handle of his pitchfork to batter the poor lady and then when she fell down he stuck the tines into her legs and thighs. She did not die from being pinioned through the chest, she did not die from a witch’s spell of Stacung. The poor woman died hours after the vicious attack from loss of blood from her leg wounds which must have pierced arteries.
In the rare historic cases where archaeologists have found ‘Staked’ skeletons the process amounts to using a large metal rod the size of a broomstick which is driven through the corpses chest to pin it to the ground. In no way could what Haywood did be described as ‘Stacung’, the conclusion was a convenient stretch for Holland at a time when Folklore was not as professional as it now is. In short the first Long Compton ‘ritual killing’ was nothing of the kind and so any link to the use of a pitch-fork and Stacung in the Charles Walton case is also thereby fatally undermined ]
What could it have had to do with Charles Walton - unless someone thought he was the cause of it? Did someone think that he had put the evil eye on it? Had the fear, hatred and superstition engendered by generations of pious witch-hunters settled so firmly into someone's mind that he suspected anyone possessing psychic powers of being a witch or having the evil eye liable to blast crops and injure cattle? And did they decide that the only way to avert the ill-luck was to kill him, making sure that his blood flowed freely? It is said that all authorities consulted said it was a witchcraft murder. The great authority consulted was Dr. Margaret Murray—she said it was not. And I don't know any who said it was.
She also said on Television, when I had the honour to appear with her: “It could not be a ritual murder, because any sacrifice on that date would only be for fertility, ”Good Crops “. And it must be a child of under seven years of age. We also discussed the idea of such a sacrifice, agreeing that it was always performed with much ritual, with a number of people present, and the police reports all proved that this was not the case. In this connection I might mention the coloured lady seems to have described what would have happened if it had been a Voodoo sacrifice.
pp. 254
It is curious that the first story the papers told was that Walton was killed at a Black Mass at MIDNIGHT, a “wonderful story to conjure up scenes of horror”, when people noticed that if Walton was killed at a Black Mass at midnight on St. Valentine's Eve, it was curious that so many people saw him alive and well the next day; so the story was hastily changed. She now said that “he was killed exactly at Mid-day on St. Valentine's Day.” Now it so happens I was one of the people consulted at the time of the murder, as to the possibility of its being a ritual murder, or a sacrifice. I said it can't be a sacrifice because, what use is an old cripple for a sacrifice? All [previous examples of State human sacrifice such as Aztec, Roman, etc.,] I know of stipulate someone young and vigorous.
Because I was consulted I was told certain things not usually known, and I presume they are still police secrets, so I don't mention them. But I can say he was alive and well after mid-day, so this second story is all moonshine. I think he had some sort of charm (which if it was a written paper charm he may have carried in his watch). It is possible someone he knew said, “Don't put the evil eye on me, or cause any more accidents to happen to my animals” or something of that kind. They had words. Possibly Walton said: “I'll put the eye, or the curse, on you.” The murderer tried to “draw blood above the breath,” as the old superstition is, to stop anyone “Ill wishing you ". Walton fought. and the murderer realised that he may have hit harder than he intended, and thought “I will get into trouble; my only chance is to be sure he is dead.” So finished him off with the billhook. Then he tore Walton's clothes open in front, got what he wanted. and fixed him to the hedge in a way which would stop the power of the “eye“ from following him.
This is what I believe caused the police to think it was a “Ritual murder”. In this connection it may be remembered that some time before, a police constable named Gutteridge was murdered by two men, named Brown and Kennedy, and they shot the dead man's eyes out, to prevent the eyes “following them.”
[SAFF notes: This is a stretch. The murderers of PC Gutteridge were out and out villains with a long history of violence, robbery, theft and possession of various firearms. The shot which killed the policeman was through the left side of his head as he was bent down questioning them in their stolen car. They shot him again in the head and then as if to ensure their infamy and prove their viciousness beyond doubt, shot him a third and fourth time through the eyes whilst he was lying dead on his back in the road. The murder was pecuniary and had absolutely no supernatural motives or content. However the use of this incorrect example does not undermine Gardner’s suggestion about Walton being murdered because of some perceived supernatural slight]
pp.255
I submit that if this was really a “witchcraft evil eye murder”, then there is more to support this theory than there is to substantiate that of “human sacrifice”. Although, if I am right. in one sense Charles Walton was a human sacrifice; he was a victim of the long campaign of witch-hunting that has been waged throughout the centuries; and the modern purveyors of fear and folly may well take it to their consciences.
Such writers need not flatter themselves that I have written this chapter to " confute " them; on the contrary, they are obviously people who have made up their minds upon the subject, and are not going to be distracted by mere proof. My purpose here has been to undeceive the public as to the reliability of the statements made, to expose the harm such evil nonsense can do, and to ensure that the man in the street will be more able in future to weigh up and criticise such stories, and evaluate them at their true worth.
Now there is one thing which I think should be remembered. These sensational stories may be said to only amuse people, that no one would believe them. But they have unfortunate repercussions. Spicy bits go to other countries and are copied and believed. The sensation about Witchcraft was started in May, 1955.
On July 3rd, a poor woman, Josephina Arista, was accused of witchcraft and publicly burned at the stake in the little border town of Ojinaga, Mexico, according to Fate magazine. The American Bureau of Information tells me they have every reason to believe it is true, though all sorts of influences are at work to hush the matter up, and the Saturday Mail, published in Glasgow, September 9th, 1956, tells of two women, Christina Trajo and Benita Sabina who, accused of being witches, were hacked in pieces and thrown on to a bonfire at Alfajayucan, Mexico, to purify their souls, on September 8th, 1956.
Now I am perfectly entitled to express my belief: “That these three poor women met an agonising death as the direct result of these ‘sensational writings’”, and if journalists were less inclined to get “Spicy bits” at all costs, and verified what they wrote, those deaths would not have occurred.
pp. 256
Chapter 16 Ends Here:
[SAFF Notes: Conclusions: SAFF research shows that very frequently when the police fail to find a motive for a dastardly crime or come across a crime which is so irrational that they see it as peculiar in the annals of Crime, they tend to drift into mystification and imply some occult or witchcraft content. Because of course everyone knows that all Witches and Satanists are so maniacally irrational that there is no understanding their actions! Sigh. This excuse suffices to stymie any complaints from the public of the failure of police investigations.
For a classic example of this see the perennial claims of the ritual sacrifice of animals on supposed ‘Satanic Festivals’. The occurrence of these false cases reported in sensational language in papers across the country became so frequent that the SAFF conducted research into them which provided evidence to show that every single case of supposed Satanic Sacrifice of Animals and Pets (including ‘Horse Ripping’, cat-killings, and other savage attacks, ) which was headlined in the Media, was always traced eventually to a misunderstanding or a complete invention - the kind of hysteria which lead to poor Anne Tennent being murdered. You can see our detailed report on the Satanic Animal Mutilation Scare here: http://saff.nfshost.com/animals.htm and it makes very interesting reading.
The use by Scotland Yard of the Ritual Slaying excuse for a failure to find the real culprit, is to us, clearly evident in the Charles Walton murder and it effectively put paid to them finding the real murderer who was allowed to escape whilst the Yard was running after imagined Witches. This hardly serves justice.
The police are not alone in this, archaeologists, especially committed Christian archaeologists, inevitably conclude that pre-Christian civilisations were all barbarous and malefic and start apportioning witchcraft sacrifices whenever they come across anything which doesn’t fit into their usual narratives. Recently archaeologists discovered the bodies of 100 babies buried near a Roman Bath-house in Ashkelon. The skeletons involving both male and female babies, were in a mass-grave and this lead to an initial claim that the babies had been RITUALLY SACRIFICED. Long after the initial shocking headlines had burned themselves into the minds of the public a much smaller article on the issue in an academic journal, explained that the babies could quite easily be the aborted foetuses of the prostitutes who lived and worked in the bath-house. Although 100 sounded shocking the bath-house had been going for many long centuries and seemed a more reasonable scenario than ritual human sacrifice.
I don’t know how we will ever get people to break this trigger of Witchcraft = Human Sacrifice, whenever any inexplicable dastardly situation turns up but it really is about time we stopped these false claims from being peddled by sensational journalists and hacks for it was they who jumped upon the 1990 Satanic Panic and pushed it for all it was worth. Millions of column inches, Years worth of programmes, documentaries and shelfs-full of pot-boilers and books replete with Hammer-esque stories of brutal sacrifices and abuse beyond human endurance fill peoples minds and reinforce the ancient Church stereotypes. Yet there was not an ounce of truth in any of it. Many innocent but falsely accused people went to prison for many long years based on testimony from lunatics like John Heywood. See : https://saff.nfshost.com/usasracases.htm for the most shocking miscarriages of justice. ***
Sixty Five years after Gerald B Gardner explained in detail just how impossible it was for the death of Charles Walton to have been a ‘ritual murder’ hacks are still writing drivel about it as though there was some truth in the newspaper headlines. The SAFF have decided to publish all the evidence here to avoid it ever happening again. The next time someone tries to tell you about that famous Meon Hill Ritual Witchcraft Murder which was confirmed by no less a person than the famed Fabian of the Yard, and which involved the ritual killing of a man which has still not been explained; you can stop them dead in their tracks and point them to this article and the following web-page which explains how world-famous Scotland Yard was more recently lead up the garden path by lies about Satanic Abuse in the 1990s, making themselves look absolute fools a second time. http://saff.nfshost.com/winebald.htm
Ends:
APPENDIX
extracted from page 222 of ‘ The Meaning of Witchcraft’
GERALD B GARDNER ASKS US TO COMPARE THE STORIES TO SEE HOW THE NEWSPAPER CLAIMS OF THE FREQUENCY OF WITCHCRAFT ACTIVITY IN ENGLAND IN THE 1950s AND 1960sWERE FRAUDULENT AND BORE NO SIGNIFICANCE IN CHARLES WALTON’S MURDER
‘Why could not the sensational Press honestly say, " We have reason, from statements made to us, to believe that Voodoo practices are carried on in England. We think that this should be investigated and any excesses restrained "? Why was Witchcraft brought into it?
In spite of the fact that they had taken this lady's word alone was not enough to ensure the acceptance of the sensational stories she told, the next issue still bore no corroborative evidence. Her story was continued, with screaming headlines as usual. She says, " I knew my confession might put me in danger. Three days after that confession appeared I was attacked in the street near my home.... On the crown of my head is a patch completely denuded of hair. . . . The hair was slashed off by my attackers. Until it is proved to me otherwise, I shall believe that the purpose of this attack was to frighten me into ending my story in the sensational papers."
They now stated that she had found a warning sign, made of graveyard chippings and twigs, on her doorstep before the attack occurred.
This sounds to me like an ‘ouanga’, a West Indian Voodoo sign. However, the story of the alleged attack sounds very odd. According to her, it took place at 1.30 a.m. She was, she tells us, going in fear of vengeance - yet here she was walking the back streets of Birmingham alone at 1.30 a.m., a thing I would not much care to do myself. Further, she must have been in the habit of doing this, or how would the attackers have known where to find her?
On August Bank Holiday Monday, 1951, she says, she was lying ill in bed at her home, in Birmingham, when " half an hour before midnight, I was told that someone was at the door for me". Knowing, she says, that this meant she was wanted to preside at a ceremony, she stopped only to pull on a dressing-gown over her nightdress, and went down to a waiting car. It drove her to the Bull Ring, the city market place, and from there a van took her to a house. I slipped a robe on top of the things I was already wearing. I walked through the curtains into a big room. The room seemed full of a sort of pink glow. and at first I could just distinguish shapes that I knew were people. Then, as my eyes got used to the lack of light, I noticed the markings on the floor.... Facing the room now I saw. immediately in front of the altar, a star drawn on the floor and, close to it, a dragon…. Now, this is another typical Voodoo touch. It is the custom in Voodoo to draw various designs on the floor, called " vevers ".
Extract ends.
[ SAFF notes: So an Afro-Caribbean lady who made up tales of cults which would today clearly be seen as African Muti or Dahomian Voodoo were used by despicable tabloid newspapers to juice-up the false allegations they required to push the idea of European Ritual Witchcraft being employed in the Charles-Walton murder. Motifs which hundreds of later commentators and writers have solidified and re-published as real to ram-home the utter falsehood that Charles Walton was killed as a ritual sacrifice.
As Mark-Twain said: ‘Never let the Truth get in the way of a good story’. ]