Jinny the Witch flew over the house

To fetch the stick to lather the mouse

Hop tu Naa, Traa-la-laaâ?¦

There is good chance you will hear this song sung at your door tonight, during Hop tu Naa, by turnip-wielding children dressed as witches or ghosts seeking favours.

The song conjures up the classic idea of a terrifying witch, streaking across the night sky on her broomstick, shrieking curses and invoking dark magic.

This year there is a special significance to singing about Jinny the Witch, as it marks 300 years since the trials of the woman who is accredited as being the real person behind the legend, Joney Lowney.

Having been accused of ’cursing and leading a wicked life’, she stood trial on charges of witchcraft in November 1716 and, in the largest and most famous witch trial ever held on the island, which was presided over by Bishop Wilson, she was found guilty and eventually sentenced in February 1717.

Amongst her crimes were cursing and killing livestock, casting the evil eye on passers-by and spoiling a neighbour’s milk.

However, the crime that eventually led to her being brought before a the courts was that she cursed a mill, owned by Bishop Wilson, causing it to break.

However, in stark contrast to similar witch trials held in England around the same time, she escaped a gruesome fate, and went on to revel in her status as a renowned witch.

’Essentially she was a herbalist or a healer,’ said Katie King, learning support officer with Manx National Heritage.

’There were witnesses in her defence who said that she had helped their sick children, and that she had would provide herbal remedies for people.

’But quite possibly she had a bit of a nasty side.

’The mill she was accused of cursing produced corn for the poor, which was supposed to be the worst corn on the island,’ said Katie.

’Joney Lowney herself was probably a recipient of this corn, as she was, by all accounts, a very poor vagrant woman.

’She allegedly cursed the mill, and then the mill broke.’

Witnesses came forward with testimonies, and there was even one man who claimed that, after spending a night at Joney’s house, he saw her mount either a cauldron or a broomstick and fly out of window, returning at sunrise.

She was found guilty of ’having utterly abandoned herself the highest degree of impiety by practising for many years sorcery, charms and diabolical means, tending towards witchcraft’.

However, she received a relatively lenient punishment for the times.

On being released from prison, she was required to seek penance in every church and chapel on the Isle of Man, of which there would have been many more than today.

She was then forced to stand at the four market crosses, such as in Castletown Square, dressed in sackcloth, holding a white wand and a piece of paper on her breast to which the words ’for practices and sorcery’. On top of that she had to pay £3.

’What is really bad about her case, and where we want to have some sympathy for her, is that the trial was in November, and the verdict wasn’t reached until February 1717,’ Katie said.

She was kept in St German’s prison, on St Patrick’s Isle for four months, in the open crypt through the winter.

That is the worst punishment.

’We think she was only in her 30s, but a poor woman like herself, who had a hard life and a lot of children, that is quite old age for the time.

’It’s hard to tell how old she is.

’She died in 1725, and her grave is still there in Kirk Braddan churchyard, although unfortunately the inscription is pretty much gone to read properly.

’What we can be fairly sure of is that she wasn’t a woman in the best of health, and a stay in the Peel jail over winter would have been an horrendous ordeal.

’There was a lot of sympathy towards her at the end of the trial.’

There has never been a great appetite for the persecution of those accused of witchcraft on the Isle of Man.

Witch trials are few and far between throughout the history of the island, and although there was a period of religious fervour that led to the horrific persecution of women and purging of so-called witchcraft in England, such a movement never took hold here.

The burning of Margaret Quane and her son in Castletown, almost 100 years before Joney stood trial, and whose screams could be heard across the south of the island, had horrified so many and left such a terrible legacy that no one wanted to have such an experience repeated.

There is also an account of another witch trial in 1666, 50 years after the horrific burning, of Elizabeth Kewin, known as the Arbory witch.

She had been accused of similar crimes of cursing livestock, causing milk to fail and also that she turned into a hare during nightfall.

Again, where similar crimes led invariably to an horrific ending in England, the Manx judiciary sentenced her to a similarly lenient programme of penance, along with a £3 fine.

This also means that the legends of witches being pushed in nailed barrels down the slopes of Slieau Whallian are completely unfounded.

However, after Joney had completed her penance, the legend of Jinny the Witch began to grow.

She began to trade under the name ’The Great Witch’, and go around towns and villages, threatening people with curses and extorting money for charms, more as a entertainer than master of the dark arts.

She became a fun figure of terror used to frighten children, and eventually, over time, the legend of the Manx Witch became synonymous with Hop tu Naa.

This is largely thanks to the song that appeared, with its many regional variations, telling the story of Jinny flying over houses, lathering mice, baking bonnag and disappearing at night, which all takes its inspiration from the actual evidence read out at her trial.

’What is so interesting now is that even though it was 300 years ago, even at the time of the trial, when she was the height of her powers or notoriety, people would be then singing songs about her,’ said Katie.

’The song and the rhyme that they sang about her is the same one that we sing now during Hop tu Naa, which is the famous Jinny the Witch.

The words of the nonsense song actually references evidence in the trial.

’I can’t think of another example of a song sung to this day that can be so historically linked.’

So, tonight, when you sing about Jinny the Witch, it is worth remembering that you are keeping alive a very important, 300-year old story.