Thatcher's tale of old pair of shoes hidden in Thame roof
www.bbc.com
Chris Fellows calls the discovery "a good find" linked to superstitions over witches.

A thatcher has shared his most “unusual” find made while working on a roof - a pair of shoes believed to date back two centuries.

Chris Fellows, who lives in Thame, Oxfordshire and runs Thame Thatch, has found many other items such as tools from old craftsmen and newspapers during his career.

He said shoes were believed to have been placed in the thatch in the early 19th Century to ward off evil spirits.

Mr Fellows called the curious discovery a “good find” and said they had since been put back in the new thatch.

…

His subsequent research into shoes found they dated from around the beginning of the 19th Century.

"It was a time when superstition was rife - they were put in there to ward off evil spirits and witches.

"Apparently, the shoe, because it’s so close to the foot, would always contain a little bit of your soul in it - so they would stick them in the roof.

“And a lot of the roofs we work on have white window sills, because witches wouldn’t cross a white doorstep.”

Mr Fellows said he had found the shoes “quite close to Halloween”.

“Me and the guy I was working with took the rest of the day off, just in case.”

  • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝OPMEnglish
    1•8 hours ago

    Timing wise, this was done when the US existed as the US. 200 years ago. And let’s face it, the US has its own history of witch fears. The UK doesn’t actually have much history of killing witches.

    Fun fact: our last “witch trail” was during WW2 and Ian Fleming was involved. Although the last proper ones were about 300 years ago.

    We’ve killed around 500 witches, mostly woman, almost all of them poor and a lot of it was, ultimately, part of anti-Catholic fears and persecution (like the Pendle witches).

    I grew up near Wayland’s Smithy and Uffington White Horse. Both created before the Americas were discovered by Europeans. Even the Vikings. Likely before Native Americans had a land bridge to cross into the continent. (although someone more knowledgable of those dates would have to confirm that).

    Uffington White Horse is a maximum of 3,300 years old, Native Americans arrived on the continent a minimum of 16,000 years ago.

    • @[email protected]English
      1•8 hours ago

      Uffington White Horse is a maximum of 3,300 years old, Native Americans arrived on the continent a minimum of 16,000 years ago.

      Very cool. Thanks for sharing. We really don’t have anything standing that old.

      Stonehenge is known to have had a wooden henge from around 11000 years ago. And we have found a few settlements in peat bogs from that time. Some actual wooden ruins in some of the bogs. But nothing actually standing.

      • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝OPMEnglish
        1•8 hours ago

        We really don’t have anything standing that old.

        It’s likely humans only returned to Britain around 16,000 years ago as the ice sheets retreated, it would have wiped out any older evidence from the surface (although we have evidence of fires and human occupation going back half a million years in deeper deposits). The oldest structure in the UK is probably Star Carr in Yorkshire, dated to around 11,500 years ago, it’s been called “Britain’s oldest house”.

          • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝OPMEnglish
            1•7 hours ago

            Although fires at places like Beeches Pit show people organising their space 400,000 years ago, we have stone tools and footprints going back nearly twice as far - oldest footprints in Europe. We’ve got Neolithic footprints near me and, while much more recent, they’re still magical things.

            DNA evidence of the oldest Britains returning after the Ice Age shows two distinct groups. Which shows that, once northern Europe opened up again (at the height of the last Ice Age on refuges in southern Europe were habitable, it drew in people from great distances.