The following story was told last year by a man who is now living:
“One morning as he was returning from courting – courting it should be mentioned was, and still is in the country districts, carried on at night – he saw a woman who was a reputed Witch at the four cross-roads near Regaby, sweeping a circle round her as large as that made by horses when threshing. He kicked her and took her besom from her and hid it till mid-day, when he and some boys collected some dry gorse, fired it and put the besom on top. Wonderful to relate, when burning it made reports like guns going off which could be heard in Andreas Church. This besom had on it 17 sorts of knots.
Soon after its destruction the woman died.”
(source: The Folklore of the Isle of Man by AW Moore, (1891); photo)
