Island Witches: Had 'Em, Didn't Hang 'Em

Pat on the back, Islanders: It’s always been thus that virtually anyone can exist here without fear of reprisals. It’s SO Vineyard to live and let live. Not that we’re looking to host a Sociopaths Speed Dating event, although I’ve heard there’s an enclave in downtown Edgartown (I kid those Edgartown folks!)

So. Witches. We’ve got our Pagan goddesses nowadays, and they’re mainly into candle ceremonies and dancing by the light of the Solstice moon. Surely they bring good luck our way.

But what about back in the day when Salem, Ipswich and Andover couldn’t hang their witches fast enough and, over in Europe, they got cords-of-wood discounts for burning broomstick riders by the thousands?

We had a few witches over the centuries but, like everyone else—painters, writers, poets and liquor store salesmen—they were left to their own devices as well as invited to the Harvest Festival. 

So civilization needs fortune-tellers, and during the first three centuries of Island history, at any given time, at least one witch supplied that service, generally with dice or tea leaves or that old standby, Tarot cards. In the late 1700s in North Tisbury, I’m thinking in one of the “hollers” of what’s now that deluxe horse farm corner of State and Lambert’s Cove Roads, a local yokel of a farmer built a new home that spilled over on to his neighbor’s property, an old lady with a hooked nose named, well, let’s call her Hazel. He was blatant and without remorse about the encroachment. Word of advice: Never piss off a witch.

Hazel appeared at the building site and leveled this curse (write it down, you might need it one day): “The fruits of your ambition, all that you possess, shall turn to dust in your mouth. This dust shall choke and smother you and yours and all who come after you.” Whew!

As soon as the house was finished and the stupid farmer moved his family into it, a steady drizzle of fine dust sifted down from the ceiling. This made dinner very disappointing. And you know that once-a-year sitz-bath Colonial yeoman used to take? That had to be bumped up to two baths. Twice annual baths in a family of nine when you had to heat up the water and carry it over to a tin basin was no fun whatsoever.

The farmer called in carpenters, but none could find a leak in the roof. The dust kept raining down like a Saharan dust storm indoors. Finally the family moved out and the house settled into the land. Sheep and other sentient beings over-wintered in the dusty, stained, and grimy cottage. Eventually the cursed home rotted back into the ground, lost forever, although somewhere there’s a mound of sand. Oh, but wait! There’s sand everywhere on this Island. Just dig a few inches under the topsoil!

Our most famous spell-caster was the Witch of Scrubby Neck. She lived down that long rutted road that meanders—still does—out to the South Shore in West Tisbury and the pristine white beaches of a handful of billionaires, today that is. Back in the 18th century, a woman lived halfway down that road and into the woods. She had a hooked nose and let’s call her Bezelbubba, and let’s axe the hooked nose. Perhaps she was young and beautiful.

Sailors, before embarking from Great Harbour (Edgartown, home of speed-dating sociopaths) and Holmes Hole (Vineyard Haven) for their three and four-year whaling voyages around the world, used to check in with Bezelbubba to get their fortunes told: “Am I going to make it home or perish at sea?” Odds were five to one that they’d perish, and Bezelbubba probably knew the odds but hated to lose future business. Yet she gave it straight to the first mate of an Edgartown whaling bark (that’s a big wooden boat, not a watchdog): He’d encounter trouble off the seas of South America.

He refused to cross her palm with the coin of the realm. Nothing enrages a witch more than being stiffed, so a few days later she saddled up her horse and wended her way down to the harbor. As the bark took off, she filled the air with her outraged cries.

“A CURSE ON THIS VOYAGE AND ON THE FIRST MATE!”

At every port of call, a big black crow swooped down upon the tightwad sailor, cawing and raking his forehead with its talons. His buddies razzed him about the Scrubby Neck Witch come to exact revenge.

Finally, off the coast of Ecuador, when the black crow swooped in for the next attempt at plucking out an eye, the first mate lifted a bow and arrow and shot the feathered beast through the heart.

Back on the Vineyard, same day, same relative time, calculated a few years later when the cheapskate sailed home, the Witch of Scrubby Neck dropped dead, clutching her chest as she fell to the dirt floor of her cabin.

This isn’t a happy ending for all the people who hate to be shorted on their tips and wages, so let’s hope this first mate has come back, repeatedly, as French fries that fall to the outdoor deck of Steamship ferries just as gulls fly above. Or quahogs about to hit the hot oil at Giordano’s in August.