The Birling Witch Project

Today we took the short drive out to Birling, about 7 miles west of Maidstone. It is described by the local parish council as a small village, it is recorded as having a population of 437 at the last census, but with a big heart.
The origin of the village's name is unclear but some sources mention Birling and other places with similar spellings with the definition: 'place of the descendants of the cup-bearer or butler'.
Although there is no real mention of the village pre-Norman Conquest, it features in the Domesday Book which was written in 1086, with Birling said to consist of 30 households, 12 acres of pasture and meadows and 50 cattle with there also being a reference to the village's All Saints Church. Around this time a vast proportion of Kent and the surrounding area was in possession of Odo of Bayeux, Earl of Kent and half brother of William The Conqueror.
Today's image is another in my weather vane series and was taken when I spotted it on the roof of a nearby cottage after a stroll around the churchyard, which I determined not to capture on this occasion. Me and churchyards (or should that be churchyards and I) have decided to have a short break from each other for blip purposes so I can explore other photographic opportunities - in this instance some witch based ironmongery. So why not also make witchcraft the subject to today's blip!
Upon hearing the word witch, many of us might picture curious figures in pointy black hats, whizzing through the air on broomsticks (which just so happens to be depicted by this weather vane), casting spells and cooking up potions in cauldrons but if we look at what witchcraft meant to our ancestors, things suddenly become rather more sinister, with those accused destined for death rather than the fantasy adventures that Harry Potter brings to mind.
A 'witch' was essentially anyone said to behold supernatural powers used to control people or events. Suspects were considered evil and to have relations to the Devil. Most the accused were usually older, poor women. Those unfortunate enough to have a hairy lip, snaggled tooth or wort had even more chance of being picked on - and if you had a feline companion thing's wouldn't be too good either - cats having long been associated with witchcraft.
Kent's history of witchcraft dates back long before the Witchcraft Act was brought into the court of law in the 16th Century (it was made a capital offence in Britain in 1542 during the reign of Henry VIII), with penance for "diabolical divinations' being written into church law by the dubious Theodore of Tarsus - an Archbishop of Canterbury during the 7th Century.
The real witch craze in the county began in the 16th and 17th Centuries when more then 20 executions took place in Kent. The first recorded witch trial was in Dover in 1588 with witch-hunts, like most crazes, waxing and waning over the years with a spike of hysteria during the 1640's, fuelled by the unrest created by the Civil War.
The last execution for witchcraft in Britain took place in 1685, the last trial in 1717 and by 1736 the witch craze fizzled out and parliament passed a new Witchcraft Act, stating such persons should be punished as vagrants or con-artists and slapped with fines or imprisonment as opposed to torture and death but incredibly it was still officially illegal to be a witch until the Act was finally repealed in 1951.
However, we are still sometimes reminded in Kent of the horrific tales of past suffering when passing such artefacts as the Medieval ducking stool near the Old Weavers Restaurant in Canterbury which juts over of the River Stroud.
All that from looking at a weather vane! :-)