It's been over two years since I wrote anything substantial about witches, though it's a subject I knew I would return to. That post was called A Last Look at Witches, though I want to pick up the thread of another article (The Later Witches) which was published even further back. In that piece I wrote the following about a woman in Victorian Dundee who had the reputation as a witch and pursued fortune telling as a profession:
One of the last Angus spae-wives was Spunk Janet, who lived in Cathro's Close, off the Murraygate in Dundee, in the middle of the 19th century. Her customers were chiefly 'old maids, wanton widows, and impatient lassies'. She charged half a crown for supernatural advice. One client was a love sick girl who asked Janet to cure her of her love for a particular man. Janet advised her to go to a certain well each morning at dawn for a week and immerse her feet in water. The repeated exercise would soon make her forget her swain. A maid who entered Janet's house once found her sitting as usual in an old armchair with a black pipe stuck into her mouth. 'Janet, I want my fortune,' she said. But Janet didn't answer - she was stone dead.
Who was Janet in 'real life'? I admit that I have drawn a blank about discovering her true identity. However, there is a poem by Robert Leighton which tells of a fictional transaction between Janet and a love-lorn client, which I reproduce in full at the bottom of this piece. Dundonian Leighton was born is 1822 and the poem about Janet, together with many other compositions was first printed in the magazine of the Dundee Literary Institute before being collected in book form. He died in Liverpool in 1869, at the age of 47, leaving behind a wife and five children.
The same verse is included in the book Dundee Worthies (published by David Winter in Dundee in 1934, pp. 109-10). This is prefaced by a version of the tale above, where we are told that Janet's last client came from 'Pill Row,' another name for South Tay Street.
Is there a clue perhaps in Janet's nickname? One of the older meanings of spunk, according to the Concise Scots Dictionary, is 'a hot-tempered, irascible person', which is perhaps fitting for someone in her profession, who perhaps used fear and superstition to enforce her supposed powers. A further clue comes in an article in the Edinburgh Magazine, or Literary Miscellany, February 1818 (volume 2, pp. 116-17) which relates the evil reputation of a local witch some decades earlier. Could this woman, called either Jean or Janet be Spunk Janet? It is possible, especially if Leighton was writing not about a contemporary, but a notorious local character alive in Dundee around the time of his own birth:
Janet Kindy, otherwise Hurkle Jean, is poor, old, and deformed; her evil eye is so dreaded in this neighbourhood that the sickness of children and cattle is often attributed to it, and if she happen to cross a fisherman’s path as he goes to his boat, the fishing is invariably spoiled for that day... Six years ago, a boat having been for some months unfortunate in fishing, a council of war was held among the elder fishers, and it was agreed that the boat should be exorcised, and that Janet was the spirit which tormented it. Accordingly, the ceremony of exorcism was performed as follows. In each boat there is a cavity called the tap-hole; on this occasion the hollow was filled with a particular kind of water, furnished by the mistress of the boat, a straw effigy of poor Jane was placed over it, and had they dared to touch her life, Janet herself would have been there. The boat was then rowed out to sea before sunrise, and, to use the technical expression, the figure was burnt between the sun and the sky, i.e. after daylight appeared, but before the sun rose above the horizon, while the master called aloud ‘Avoid ye Satan!’. The boat was then brought home, and since that time has been fortunate as any...
Are we any closer to establishing an identity, or a link? Unfortunately not. Resorting to the Concise Scots Dictionary again, we find that 'hurkle' is defined as 'crouched' and the like, while 'hurkle backit' meant someone with a hump. At least we know that poor Janet was real, even if her true identity eludes me at the moment.
Spunk Janet's Cure for Love
I've vow'd to forget him again and again;
But vows are as licht as the air is, I trow;
For something within me aye comes wi' a sten',
And dunts on my heart till I gi'e up the vow.
I gaed to Spunk Janet, the spaewife, yestreen —
I've often heard folk o' her wisdom approve: —
Quoth she, " It's your fortune you're wantin', I ween? " —
" Na! Janet, " quoth I, " will ye cure me o' love? "
" I'll try it, " quoth she; " say awa' wi' your tale,
And tell me the outs and the ins o' it a';
Does love mak' ye lichtsome', or does't mak' ye wail?
Ye see, lass, I ken it does ane o' thae twa. "
" Aweel, then, to tell you the truth o' it, Janet,
There's sometimes I'm clean overflown' wi' glee,
And ither times, woman, I'm no fit to stan' it, —
Ye'd think I wad greet out the sicht o' my ee. "
" But then there's the laddie, I never can get him,
And here am I ready and willin' to pay,
Gin ye'll play some cantrip to mak' me forget him —
The thochts o' him deave me by nicht and by day. "
" Ill e'en try my skill on't, " quoth Janet, " I shall, —
The cost o' my coonsel is but half-a-croon, —
Hooever, i' the first place, ye ken the Witch-walle,
That bonnie clear spring at the end o' the toon:
" When the sun frae his bed is beginnin' to teet,
Gang ye ilka mornin', blaw weet or blaw wind,
And sit by the wallie and dip in your feet,
Withoot e'er a thocht o' the lad in your mind.
" Do this for a week, and the cure will be wrocht —
But, mind ye, tak' care o' what comes in your head!
If e'er it should chance that the lad be your thocht,
Like mist o' the mornin' the cantrip will fade! "
Thus ended Spunk Janet: I paid her the fee;
And by her directions I promised to bide:
To-morrow the cantrip begins, I maun be,
By the first peep o' day, at the Witch-wallie's side.
The cauld o' the water I weel may endure;
But then, there's the thocht , it's the warst o' it a':
For if ower the thochts o' my mind I had pow'r,
I wadna ha'e needed Spunk Janet ava!
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