Apotropaic Marks Found In Cottage In Mid-Wales

Sorry this isn't a castle write up but something I felt I had to share, during a visit to collect a art nouveau fire place for restoration in Mid-Wales, by chance we got talking to the owner who invited us in the see these markings on the beams in her newly restored cottage.

For all those that don't know Apotropaic means supposedly having the power to avert evil influences or bad luck.

These marks dating from around the 1550 and ending widespread roughly 1750 (although some places these still continue) In an age when the church was in turmoil and printing was in its infancy, local superstitions & belief systems were deeply entrenched.
Rural life was thick with magic to keep evil at bay.  In a time where witches existed, crops failed and children died in infancy
People believed that if you could bolt the door and bar the windows against the theft, cold and evil you would remain safe unless it came via the chimney, which of course opened to the sky, there fore left vulnerable, particularly for incursions of the evil.
These cuts, marks, burns in the wood beams were just one of the ways to ward off curses, hexes and evil doings, a single shoe or boot was often incorporated into roof. Interesting one of those was also found at the cottage!

 

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