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Officially, we Britons have been Christian
for more than 1,500 years.

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But scratch the surface
and you'll find our ancestors

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believed in far more
than Christ and the cross.

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Pagan gods, witches,
demons, evil spirits,

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were all proclaimed
as terrifying fact.

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Now I want to uncover what
beliefs and fears really built Britain.

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No!

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This week,

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along with a team of top historians,

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I'm finding out why our ancestors

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believed they were surrounded
by a whole host of evil spirits,

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out to harm them.

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They're trying to pull me down!
Get away!

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'Demons that could enter your body
and control you from within.'

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By the sight of all mighty God.

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Credo, Sanctum...

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'Angels, who weren't always
the good guys.'

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All of their beauty became ugliness.

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All of their goodness became evil.

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And malicious spirits, who'd
take your exact form to replace you.

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What was buried in the graveyard
was not the body of Bridget Cleary,

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but something left in her place
by the fairies.

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I'll be finding out why we believed
these nightmare creatures,

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were horrifyingly real.

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Imagine a world full of demons
that could enter your body

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and control you from within.

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A place where malicious sprites
could steal you away,

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and where evil spirits
could send your soul to hell.

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This is the world that our ancestors
believed that they lived in,

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and it was utterly terrifying.

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Today we tend to imagine things
like demons and fairies

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as physical creatures,

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but this isn't
how our ancestors saw them.

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For our forefathers,
they were spirits.

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Shapeless entities,
made of an ethereal vapour,

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rather than flesh and blood.

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But these spirits had
an amazing ability.

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They could swirl and morph
into completely different forms.

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In this way they could appear to us
as anything they wanted.

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From small creatures to monsters.

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They could even disguise
themselves as humans.

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Slowly, really slowly.

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To find out what this really
meant for our ancestors,

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and exactly what they thought
spirits could do to us,

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I'm meeting up with historian
Dr Juliet Wood.

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She's using theatrical magic

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to take me back to medieval times,

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when evil spirits
were at their most feared.

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Is that?... Well I think that it is...
It's Astroturf, isn't it?

50
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No, it isn't.
It's a nice medieval lawn.

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Every medieval garden
had a beautiful lawn,

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because a medieval garden
was tamed nature.

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And I've got a deck chair.

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- You have a deck chair?
- And a hat!

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And a hat?

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That's what makes you
a medieval lord.

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I feel really in the period,
I must admit.

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I've even got a little picket fence.

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'But beyond my well-tended
medieval garden

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'would have lurked a whole host
of ethereal nasties

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'out to do me harm.

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'And the most terrifying of these
were demons.'

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They were violent, malicious
and extremely dangerous.

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Their huge power came from
a very surprising source.

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Because demons
were originally angels.

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Lucifer, one of the ark angels,

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and he thought of himself
as better than God.

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So Lucifer and his followers
started a war in heaven.

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Presumably,
the bad angels didn't win?

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The bad angels did not win
and as a result, they fell.

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All their beauty became ugliness,

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and all their goodness became evil.

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But they didn't lose their power.
This is why demons are so dangerous,

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because they're fallen angels.

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According to one version,
the demons fell with such force,

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they broke a hole in the earth
and that created the pit of hell.

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But the demons are always trying to
get back out of hell,

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and back onto the earth,
where they can hassle us.

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He's coming out. He looks remarkably
like an animal, doesn't he?

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Well, they do.
All of the qualities of the animals.

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All of their brutishness and ugliness
were projected onto the demons.

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Ah! He's got my leg!

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Well, that's cos
he's after your soul.

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They're trying to pull me down!
Get away!

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That's them tempting you
to be a bad man.

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They're trying to pull me down!
Get away!

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'So, my medieval garden would have
been more of a spiritual battlefield

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'than a retreat.

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'In the sky above were angels
making sure you were virtuous.'

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Beneath the turf were demons
after your soul.

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But what did our ancestors think
these demons

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would physically do to them?

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Because they were spirits,
it was believed

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they could enter your body as a
vapour, through any open orifice.

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This was known as possession.

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(GIRL SCREAMS)

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You were the host, and the demon
was a spiritual parasite.

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Historians, Professor Marion Gibson
and Dr Thomas Freeman,

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are going to explain how this was
thought to happen.

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They've used contemporary accounts
to rehearse an actress

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in one of the many reported cases
of possession in the 16th century.

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Chester girl, Anne Mylner.

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She was tending her father's cows

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outside of the city and she says that
she was surrounded by a white cloud.

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She was suddenly taken
with great fear.

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She thought that white cloud
that surrounded her

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was the beginning of an illness.

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And then a minister from Cambridge

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came to the conclusion
that she was possessed.

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You talk about a white cloud?
Was it like they...

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..they breathed in gas?

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It's something like that.

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It's certainly the idea
of a physical creature,

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or a physical substance entering
into the human body from outside.

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Actually, if you think of devils
as being equated to germs...

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..that's not very far off.

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But like in illness,
this is an element of bad luck.

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There's no idea that the demoniac,
the person possessed,

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was necessarily sinful, or wicked.

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This could just happen.

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But inhaling a demon wasn't the only
way to become possessed.

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Terrifyingly, these evil spirits
could morph into everyday objects.

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Objects that you'd voluntarily
put into your body...

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like food!

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There are accounts of
people eating bread and butter,

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or lettuce, and then subsequently
becoming possessed.

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Because they think that the
demon is in the lettuce,

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or is part of the lettuce, or has
transformed itself into a lettuce.

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All of these kind of things.

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There's a

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tension between devils
as this spiritual being,

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and a devil which might be
an apple.

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But once a demon was inside,

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what would happen to you?

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Actress Emma Connell has been
rehearsed in the classic symptoms

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described in contemporary accounts.

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In the beginning, it was convulsions,

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perhaps accompanied by fever.

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Often they were credited with
displaying superhuman strength

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and sometimes they had to be
restrained.

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(GIRL MOANS AND SCREAMS)

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It's a dreadful noise.

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It is really upsetting,
isn't it?

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I mean, it's interesting
how it affects us,

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even though we know
this is somebody acting.

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What if this was a person
who thought

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they were really
demonically possessed?

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And your only explanation for it

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was that the devil was
inside them.

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You can see why you might be
prepared to brutalise that person

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because they're so scary.

152
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(GIRL SHOUTS)

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What she doing now?

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She's speaking in tongues.

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Displaying knowledge of languages,
Hebrew, Greek, Latin,

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that a demon would have,
but an ordinary person would not.

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Neuroscientist, Dr Jack Lewis

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believes some accounts
of possession may actually have been

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medical conditions our
ancestors didn't fully understand.

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Such as psychiatric disorders
and epilepsy.

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Epilepsy tends to go through
several stages.

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Right now, this would be
the tonic phase.

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That's where all
the muscles in the body contract

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and hold for a little while.

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The next phase would be
a colonic phase.

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Where the muscles rhythmically
contract, then release,

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producing really grotesque
movements.

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Epilepsy can also affect cognition,

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blurring the difference between
fantasy and reality for the sufferer.

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She could well be hallucinating.

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This could be visual, auditory,

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anything stored in memory,
she could be replaying in her mind.

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We know we're just observing
an actress here,

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but just being in this close
proximity, it's really scary.

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Imagine if this was just someone out
of your village how you would feel!

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Once a demon was believed
to be inside you,

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there was only one cure.

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(GIRL SCREAMS)

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Physically forcing it out.

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For our ancestors, the process was
supposed to be the ultimate battle

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between good and evil.

182
00:10:43,333 --> 00:10:46,523
I'm about to discover
the truth behind exorcism.

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00:10:46,643 --> 00:10:47,745
(GIRL SCREAMS)

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Ah!  He's got my leg.
They're trying to pull me down.

185
00:10:52,417 --> 00:10:55,116
'I'm entering the dark
world of evil spirits,

186
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'to find out why our ancestors were
so convinced they were real,

187
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'and what people thought
they could do to us.

188
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'I've learnt that demons were
thought to be fallen angels

189
00:11:05,537 --> 00:11:09,496
'that could physically enter your
body to control you from within.

190
00:11:10,019 --> 00:11:13,395
'These possessed people were
known as demoniacs.'

191
00:11:15,250 --> 00:11:18,522
It was thought that they got
a demon inside them,

192
00:11:18,549 --> 00:11:22,365
that it was manipulating their
bodies, hurling them about.

193
00:11:22,485 --> 00:11:24,832
Nowadays, with the luxury
of hindsight we can say,

194
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"Oh yeah, well probably a lot of
them were mentally ill,"

195
00:11:27,392 --> 00:11:29,317
but before the age of science,

196
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when people didn't have
that kind of vocabulary,

197
00:11:31,792 --> 00:11:33,743
is it any wonder that everybody

198
00:11:33,758 --> 00:11:36,213
thought they were possessed
by the devil?

199
00:11:41,118 --> 00:11:46,049
One of the most horrific but best
recorded exorcisms was in 1585,

200
00:11:46,500 --> 00:11:48,510
when 15-year-old Sarah Williams

201
00:11:48,887 --> 00:11:51,484
was thought to have been
possessed by a demon

202
00:11:51,543 --> 00:11:53,552
that was after her soul.

203
00:11:54,334 --> 00:11:55,881
'We've picked Sarah Williams,

204
00:11:55,896 --> 00:11:59,134
'because she has a particularly
interesting exorcism.

205
00:11:59,268 --> 00:12:01,025
'She found herself
thinking that she was possessed

206
00:12:01,084 --> 00:12:03,231
'or was told that she was
possessed by other people,

207
00:12:03,497 --> 00:12:06,150
'and needed to have the devil
cast out of her.'

208
00:12:06,843 --> 00:12:11,588
Sarah was unable to cross herself,
to say Catholic prayers.

209
00:12:11,708 --> 00:12:13,825
And in an already fevered
atmosphere,

210
00:12:13,833 --> 00:12:16,448
people in the household
began to worry about her.

211
00:12:17,986 --> 00:12:20,707
Cases of demonic
possession like Sarah's

212
00:12:20,708 --> 00:12:23,974
were treated particularly
aggressively in the 16th century.

213
00:12:25,938 --> 00:12:28,372
England,
under Protestant Queen Elizabeth,

214
00:12:28,548 --> 00:12:31,236
was in the grip of religious
fervour.

215
00:12:32,778 --> 00:12:35,745
Catholics and Protestants were
virtually at war,

216
00:12:35,782 --> 00:12:39,208
each side desperate to prove theirs
was the true faith.

217
00:12:42,792 --> 00:12:47,408
And what better proof than the
successful casting out of a demon?

218
00:12:49,436 --> 00:12:50,702
What are all these things?

219
00:12:50,978 --> 00:12:52,619
These are the instruments

220
00:12:52,849 --> 00:12:54,870
that you will need
to complete the job.

221
00:12:55,240 --> 00:12:57,167
The demon is a physical
presence within her,

222
00:12:57,663 --> 00:13:00,555
these instruments will drive
the demon out of her body.

223
00:13:00,577 --> 00:13:01,821
What kind of things have we got?

224
00:13:01,828 --> 00:13:05,006
First of all, we have holy water,
which will cause the demon pain.

225
00:13:05,672 --> 00:13:07,825
No! Aah!

226
00:13:09,151 --> 00:13:11,066
The purity of the holy water

227
00:13:11,081 --> 00:13:13,650
was believed to physically aggravate
the demon,

228
00:13:13,687 --> 00:13:15,301
encouraging him to leave.

229
00:13:18,962 --> 00:13:21,509
Why don't you put your head out
the window, you bastard?

230
00:13:21,523 --> 00:13:24,058
- Did they really say stuff like that?
- Yes, they did... Yes, they did!

231
00:13:24,077 --> 00:13:25,913
This is all about resisting God.

232
00:13:27,076 --> 00:13:29,164
If the holy water wasn't enough,

233
00:13:29,193 --> 00:13:32,539
the exorcist had lots of other
tools in his arsenal.

234
00:13:33,465 --> 00:13:38,131
This is a mixture of rue,
which is a herb, vinegar and wine.

235
00:13:39,167 --> 00:13:41,337
The holy water causes
spiritual discomfort,

236
00:13:41,338 --> 00:13:44,715
this causes physical discomfort and
drives the demon out of her body.

237
00:13:45,974 --> 00:13:46,817
Drink this!

238
00:13:46,818 --> 00:13:47,743
No, no!

239
00:13:47,789 --> 00:13:49,537
Drink this!

240
00:13:49,735 --> 00:13:53,310
NO, NO!

241
00:13:54,169 --> 00:13:55,510
Nooo, no!

242
00:13:57,397 --> 00:14:00,290
'The more entrenched the demon
appeared to be,

243
00:14:00,410 --> 00:14:02,619
'the more extreme the treatments
would become.'

244
00:14:03,692 --> 00:14:05,380
These are all
kinds of things to burn.

245
00:14:05,500 --> 00:14:08,143
We've got feathers to burn which
smell horrible,

246
00:14:08,162 --> 00:14:09,831
and helps drive the devil out.

247
00:14:09,845 --> 00:14:11,263
We've got asafoetida, here,

248
00:14:11,383 --> 00:14:14,522
powdered root, and that again
creates a horrible smell.

249
00:14:14,523 --> 00:14:16,122
It causes the devil discomfort

250
00:14:16,123 --> 00:14:19,112
and makes him come out of the
possessed person.

251
00:14:20,102 --> 00:14:21,960
All these things are sanctioned
in the Bible

252
00:14:21,976 --> 00:14:24,308
as ways of driving out the devil.

253
00:14:24,545 --> 00:14:26,054
What did you do with this?

254
00:14:26,174 --> 00:14:28,723
This cauldron, you would have held
under her nose.

255
00:14:28,843 --> 00:14:31,673
No! Please, no, no!

256
00:14:32,189 --> 00:14:33,618
During the course of the possession,

257
00:14:33,632 --> 00:14:37,208
the accounts tell us that her face
was burnt black by this smoke,

258
00:14:37,215 --> 00:14:39,979
so she was repeatedly exposed to
this horrible smell.

259
00:14:40,180 --> 00:14:42,576
Oh, it is actually...
it is horrible, isn't it?

260
00:14:42,606 --> 00:14:45,555
- It really smacks you.
- It really smells, doesn't it?

261
00:14:45,932 --> 00:14:47,651
'The holier the substance was,

262
00:14:48,017 --> 00:14:51,371
'and the further you could get
it into the body, the better.'

263
00:14:51,491 --> 00:14:53,882
These are relics of Edmund Campion,

264
00:14:54,190 --> 00:14:57,203
a priest who'd been martyred in
England a few years earlier.

265
00:14:57,225 --> 00:15:01,573
You need to put this in her mouth.
It will cause the demon discomfort.

266
00:15:01,693 --> 00:15:04,719
The sight of the relic, it burns.
It burns.

267
00:15:05,015 --> 00:15:07,991
Nooo! Aaaargh!

268
00:15:09,250 --> 00:15:10,627
No! Nooo!

269
00:15:10,813 --> 00:15:13,448
OK, what you have to do now is
to take the crucifix.

270
00:15:13,568 --> 00:15:16,171
You must touch this to different
parts of the body.

271
00:15:16,172 --> 00:15:18,987
It will pain the demon and you must
drive it out of her body.

272
00:15:19,031 --> 00:15:19,609
No!

273
00:15:19,624 --> 00:15:23,146
'Demons were sometimes thought
to hide in the extremities of the body.'

274
00:15:23,266 --> 00:15:26,813
I touch you here, I touch you here,
I touch you here.

275
00:15:26,933 --> 00:15:29,737
'A cross was used to move them
into the chest cavity.'

276
00:15:29,857 --> 00:15:31,375
I touch you here.

277
00:15:31,634 --> 00:15:34,743
'From here, the exorcist had to
command them to leave

278
00:15:34,863 --> 00:15:36,771
'via the mouth or nose.'

279
00:15:36,964 --> 00:15:38,593
What kind of things do I say?

280
00:15:38,773 --> 00:15:41,055
You can say some of the words
of the Catholic baptism rite,

281
00:15:41,056 --> 00:15:43,339
which actually contains
an exorcism rite in it.

282
00:15:43,459 --> 00:15:43,967
No!

283
00:15:44,025 --> 00:15:48,212
By the sight of Almighty God
I command you to show yourself.

284
00:15:48,610 --> 00:15:51,633
Credo, sanctum, ecclesiam...

285
00:15:51,893 --> 00:15:52,830
Noooo!

286
00:15:57,841 --> 00:15:59,507
Oh!

287
00:16:02,246 --> 00:16:06,443
Feels as though something very huge
has just completely dissipated,

288
00:16:06,473 --> 00:16:09,206
which I suppose is how you're
supposed to feel, isn't it?

289
00:16:10,315 --> 00:16:11,401
Did it work?

290
00:16:11,422 --> 00:16:12,332
It did work.

291
00:16:12,347 --> 00:16:15,220
It took eight months to work,
that's the only problem with it,

292
00:16:15,279 --> 00:16:17,959
so Sarah was tortured by all of
these priests

293
00:16:17,973 --> 00:16:21,292
in order to drive the devil
out of her body.

294
00:16:23,024 --> 00:16:26,491
'Of course, not all exorcisms were
considered successful,

295
00:16:26,992 --> 00:16:29,829
'but those that appeared to work,
were seen as proof,

296
00:16:29,949 --> 00:16:31,931
'both of the existence of demons

297
00:16:31,932 --> 00:16:35,932
'and of the ability of the Church
to conquer the forces of evil.'

298
00:16:38,116 --> 00:16:40,639
And the belief in exorcism lives on,

299
00:16:40,759 --> 00:16:44,113
even today it's still
a recognized Catholic ritual

300
00:16:44,373 --> 00:16:48,212
and many hundreds of exorcists are
openly practising around the world.

301
00:16:48,397 --> 00:16:50,753
Nooo! No!

302
00:16:54,734 --> 00:16:57,971
But what happens if you take
a different view of demons?

303
00:16:58,253 --> 00:17:01,331
If you think of their demonic
powers, not as a threat,

304
00:17:01,332 --> 00:17:02,918
but as an opportunity?

305
00:17:05,212 --> 00:17:09,212
Not something to be cast out,
but exploited.

306
00:17:12,653 --> 00:17:15,448
While most people lived
in terror of demons

307
00:17:15,463 --> 00:17:17,454
and did everything they could
to avoid them,

308
00:17:17,484 --> 00:17:20,706
some people actively went out
looking for them.

309
00:17:21,012 --> 00:17:24,087
They tried to conjure up
these evil spirits,

310
00:17:24,207 --> 00:17:27,523
in order to harness their power
for their own ends.

311
00:17:33,612 --> 00:17:36,011
Witchcraft is the obvious example.

312
00:17:36,293 --> 00:17:39,435
Women who were accused of being
in league with the devil

313
00:17:39,555 --> 00:17:43,411
and using his power to cast
diabolic spells.

314
00:17:44,013 --> 00:17:46,106
But a lot of people were accused

315
00:17:46,121 --> 00:17:49,696
of harnessing the forces of
lesser demons.

316
00:17:49,889 --> 00:17:54,164
If you could do that, then untold
power and wealth could be yours.

317
00:17:54,612 --> 00:17:58,331
Well, that was the idea,
but the stakes were high.

318
00:17:58,628 --> 00:18:01,788
It was a crime that was
punishable by death.

319
00:18:04,609 --> 00:18:07,155
I'm meeting up with
Professor Peter Marshall,

320
00:18:07,171 --> 00:18:09,487
to find out about necromancy,

321
00:18:09,746 --> 00:18:12,972
the dark art of conjuring up
the forces of hell

322
00:18:13,092 --> 00:18:16,101
in pursuit of earthly power.

323
00:18:17,097 --> 00:18:20,058
I've got a copy of something
called the Munich Handbook,

324
00:18:20,177 --> 00:18:23,933
a collection of spells of the kind
that were common in Europe

325
00:18:24,053 --> 00:18:25,573
in the late Middle Ages.

326
00:18:25,603 --> 00:18:27,217
What makes it dangerous

327
00:18:27,233 --> 00:18:31,237
is that all of these involve the
conjuring of demons to do your will.

328
00:18:31,281 --> 00:18:32,642
And that's necromancy?

329
00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:34,652
That's what necromancy is,
absolutely.

330
00:18:38,313 --> 00:18:42,313
The Munich Handbook is just one of
several necromancy textbooks

331
00:18:42,433 --> 00:18:45,705
that were hugely popular in Europe
in the Middle Ages.

332
00:18:46,534 --> 00:18:50,632
It contains detailed instructions
on how to summon demons

333
00:18:50,633 --> 00:18:53,826
and harness their powers to
perform evil deeds.

334
00:18:53,946 --> 00:18:57,358
Like stealing treasure or
harming other people.

335
00:18:58,194 --> 00:19:01,650
One of its spells
is particularly disturbing.

336
00:19:01,770 --> 00:19:05,419
It describes how I can force
a beautiful young maiden

337
00:19:05,671 --> 00:19:08,300
to become my love slave.

338
00:19:09,173 --> 00:19:11,142
We need various ingredients
for this.

339
00:19:11,165 --> 00:19:13,273
First of all, a white dove.

340
00:19:13,393 --> 00:19:15,592
I've got, um, a pigeon here.

341
00:19:15,850 --> 00:19:18,152
Um, a pigeon,
I suppose, will have to do.

342
00:19:18,605 --> 00:19:21,873
You're supposed to
bite into it, near its heart,

343
00:19:21,993 --> 00:19:23,098
cos we need the blood.

344
00:19:23,313 --> 00:19:26,518
We do actually have some blood
here already.

345
00:19:26,638 --> 00:19:28,098
You're going to draw with the blood,

346
00:19:28,099 --> 00:19:30,818
using a quill from the feather
of an eagle,

347
00:19:30,819 --> 00:19:35,098
on parchment made out of the skin
of a female dog in heat.

348
00:19:35,656 --> 00:19:38,316
That is weird.
Why a female dog in heat?

349
00:19:38,346 --> 00:19:41,376
This is the logic of magic,
it works on similarities.

350
00:19:41,496 --> 00:19:43,492
Everything in magic is meaningful.

351
00:19:43,612 --> 00:19:45,315
Everything in magic counts.

352
00:19:45,336 --> 00:19:50,080
The dove is the symbol of Venus,
the dog, of course, representing lust

353
00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:53,102
and the principle here is what is
called "sympathetic magic"

354
00:19:53,161 --> 00:19:55,317
of likeness working on likeness.

355
00:19:55,501 --> 00:19:58,100
And people really believed in this?

356
00:19:58,220 --> 00:20:02,833
Absolutely, virtually everybody
in this period believes in demons.

357
00:20:03,093 --> 00:20:06,858
In England in 1604,
the very act of conjuring demons

358
00:20:06,887 --> 00:20:08,142
is made a capital offence.

359
00:20:09,838 --> 00:20:13,508
The most famous prosecution
for supposed necromancy in Britain

360
00:20:13,628 --> 00:20:17,611
was of Eleanor, Duchess
of Gloucester, in 1441.

361
00:20:17,977 --> 00:20:19,537
Along with Roger Bolingbroke,

362
00:20:19,550 --> 00:20:23,496
she was accused of using the dark
art to obtain the information

363
00:20:23,497 --> 00:20:27,497
that Henry VI would suffer
a life-threatening illness.

364
00:20:28,439 --> 00:20:29,946
Eleanor was imprisoned for life

365
00:20:31,542 --> 00:20:34,570
and Bolingbroke was hung,
drawn and quartered.

366
00:20:36,293 --> 00:20:39,299
With the blood,
you draw on the parchment

367
00:20:39,336 --> 00:20:42,711
a naked image of the object
of your desire.

368
00:20:42,978 --> 00:20:44,497
Yes, I've got one in my mind.

369
00:20:44,617 --> 00:20:48,269
And, crucially, you write
on her various limbs,

370
00:20:48,389 --> 00:20:51,298
the names of the six demons that
we're going to conjure

371
00:20:51,351 --> 00:20:52,626
to bring this spell about.

372
00:20:52,682 --> 00:20:58,294
Chaubal, Satan, Roikers, Cupido,
Afallion and Doliatus.

373
00:20:58,324 --> 00:20:59,791
Cupido? Like cupid?

374
00:21:00,016 --> 00:21:01,637
Cupid, absolutely.

375
00:21:01,682 --> 00:21:03,653
And it specifies that
the name of Cupid

376
00:21:03,773 --> 00:21:06,716
is to be written across the genitals
of the woman.

377
00:21:06,970 --> 00:21:09,750
Do you know I did that
automatically, isn't that strange?!

378
00:21:10,343 --> 00:21:12,696
Who is it who would have been
officiating,

379
00:21:12,697 --> 00:21:14,677
do you think, at these magic
ceremonies?

380
00:21:14,700 --> 00:21:16,919
Well it's not the sort of thing
that anybody could do,

381
00:21:16,941 --> 00:21:18,585
these spells are complicated,

382
00:21:18,611 --> 00:21:20,774
they involve quite a lot of
ingredients,

383
00:21:20,894 --> 00:21:23,192
they're in Latin,
so you need some education.

384
00:21:23,312 --> 00:21:26,732
Almost certainly it's priests
who are likely to be doing this,

385
00:21:26,756 --> 00:21:28,593
which makes it even more
transgressive.

386
00:21:28,775 --> 00:21:31,048
In the sight of Almighty God,
I command you...

387
00:21:31,077 --> 00:21:32,943
'When performing exorcisms,

388
00:21:32,987 --> 00:21:35,751
'priests were thought to become
hugely skilful

389
00:21:35,766 --> 00:21:38,546
'in manipulating and controlling
demons.

390
00:21:38,666 --> 00:21:42,010
'Ironically, the perfect
qualities for necromancy.'

391
00:21:42,069 --> 00:21:42,843
No!

392
00:21:44,678 --> 00:21:48,147
Now it's time for Peter and me to
show our abilities,

393
00:21:48,227 --> 00:21:50,819
with an incantation to summon demons

394
00:21:50,849 --> 00:21:53,546
that will finally bring my spell
to life.

395
00:21:54,461 --> 00:21:57,998
Conjuro vos omnes demones in hac
ymagine scriptos,

396
00:21:58,236 --> 00:22:01,247
per dominos vestro quibus obedire
tenemini,

397
00:22:01,284 --> 00:22:03,390
Sobedon, Badalam, et Berith.

398
00:22:04,904 --> 00:22:08,826
And now demons, in the form
of handsome young men, should appear.

399
00:22:12,010 --> 00:22:16,190
'The demons then bring me the woman
I desire and make her fall in love.'

400
00:22:18,077 --> 00:22:21,025
One more step, in case
anyone notices she's gone,

401
00:22:21,437 --> 00:22:24,763
another of the demons will take her
form and go to her house.

402
00:22:26,822 --> 00:22:29,510
'So, while I'm enjoying my
new lover,

403
00:22:29,666 --> 00:22:33,585
'a demon in disguise will make sure
she's not missed at home.'

404
00:22:34,392 --> 00:22:36,363
Very good magic, Peter.

405
00:22:39,678 --> 00:22:42,709
This spell has revealed
what our ancestors feared

406
00:22:42,829 --> 00:22:45,788
more than anything else
about demons.

407
00:22:45,975 --> 00:22:48,307
That they could take human form.

408
00:22:50,091 --> 00:22:52,571
This meant you couldn't be sure
who was real,

409
00:22:52,579 --> 00:22:56,348
and who was actually an evil
spirit in disguise.

410
00:22:58,544 --> 00:23:00,010
All people could do

411
00:23:00,069 --> 00:23:02,888
was hope God and their faith
would keep them safe

412
00:23:03,008 --> 00:23:04,467
both from demons

413
00:23:04,468 --> 00:23:08,083
and from the people who wanted to
exploit their evil power.

414
00:23:09,702 --> 00:23:13,387
But unfortunately,
these evil spirits of Christianity

415
00:23:13,507 --> 00:23:17,388
weren't the only entities our
ancestors needed protection from.

416
00:23:20,206 --> 00:23:23,267
I'm about to find out why
the spirits of folklore,

417
00:23:23,268 --> 00:23:27,652
that are depicted in legends and
sagas, could be just as terrifying.

418
00:23:29,413 --> 00:23:32,548
People said that a stroke was
a fairy blast.

419
00:23:32,841 --> 00:23:35,267
You're children would get ill,
or you'd get ill,

420
00:23:35,268 --> 00:23:36,786
you might become paralysed.

421
00:23:38,748 --> 00:23:42,723
Fairies will never seem
the same again.

422
00:23:44,351 --> 00:23:48,723
I'm finding out why our ancestors
were so afraid of evil spirits,

423
00:23:48,843 --> 00:23:50,664
and what they thought
they could do to us.

424
00:23:50,764 --> 00:23:52,498
Credo, sanctum, ecclesiam...

425
00:23:52,522 --> 00:23:56,296
As medieval man,
I've met the demons of religion,

426
00:23:56,416 --> 00:23:59,262
fallen angels that were out
to steal our souls.

427
00:24:01,061 --> 00:24:03,171
But these weren't the only
ethereal entities

428
00:24:03,186 --> 00:24:05,591
our forefathers lived in terror of.

429
00:24:08,353 --> 00:24:11,683
The spirits of folklore,
from elves to fairies,

430
00:24:11,684 --> 00:24:14,283
were also the stuff of nightmares.

431
00:24:14,996 --> 00:24:15,801
Yes,

432
00:24:15,921 --> 00:24:19,484
even fairies could be very nasty.

433
00:24:22,604 --> 00:24:24,043
In Peter Pan,

434
00:24:24,044 --> 00:24:27,122
the very first baby laughs
for the very first time

435
00:24:27,166 --> 00:24:28,694
and it breaks up into smithereens,

436
00:24:28,708 --> 00:24:32,580
and they all go skipping about
and become the first fairies.

437
00:24:32,700 --> 00:24:34,660
Which is a little sick-making,
isn't it?

438
00:24:34,697 --> 00:24:39,250
But basically, it paints a picture
of fairies as bundles of joy.

439
00:24:39,444 --> 00:24:43,323
And Disney picked up on that,
and so did lots of other filmmakers,

440
00:24:43,324 --> 00:24:45,323
until now I think it's fair to say,

441
00:24:45,324 --> 00:24:48,907
we all think of fairies
as happy and cute

442
00:24:48,921 --> 00:24:50,654
and a little bit naughty sometimes,

443
00:24:50,668 --> 00:24:53,004
but basically very nice.

444
00:24:53,124 --> 00:24:55,683
But that's not
what our ancestors thought.

445
00:24:55,803 --> 00:24:57,679
For them, fairies...

446
00:24:57,799 --> 00:25:00,016
could be objects of terror.

447
00:25:07,247 --> 00:25:10,843
I'm meeting up with
literary expert Dr Diane Purkiss,

448
00:25:10,844 --> 00:25:15,157
to find out exactly what our
forefathers thought fairies were,

449
00:25:15,277 --> 00:25:18,807
and why they were so different
from Tinkerbell.

450
00:25:19,814 --> 00:25:22,309
This is what I've always thought
fairies are like,

451
00:25:22,363 --> 00:25:24,109
pretty little gossamery things.

452
00:25:24,619 --> 00:25:28,690
Well, that's really pretty much
an inheritance from the Victorians.

453
00:25:28,810 --> 00:25:30,963
Shakespeare made fairies small,

454
00:25:30,964 --> 00:25:32,723
and he made them flying,

455
00:25:32,724 --> 00:25:35,485
and the Victorians
really picked up on that.

456
00:25:36,196 --> 00:25:40,364
Victorian artists drew on entomology
to produce wings,

457
00:25:40,484 --> 00:25:43,284
cos they really wanted
to tie fairies into nature,

458
00:25:43,404 --> 00:25:44,937
as part of Romanticism.

459
00:25:48,165 --> 00:25:51,403
But this really cements your
pretty fairies. I love these photos.

460
00:25:51,869 --> 00:25:55,404
These are the infamous
Cottingley fairy photos.

461
00:25:57,484 --> 00:26:00,283
These photos were taken in 1917

462
00:26:00,284 --> 00:26:03,299
by two young cousins
in Cottingley, near Bradford.

463
00:26:04,844 --> 00:26:08,643
The five images, which show them
playing with dainty winged fairies

464
00:26:08,644 --> 00:26:12,217
at the bottom of their garden,
became a media sensation,

465
00:26:12,337 --> 00:26:16,404
making everyone think of fairies
as both gentle and very real.

466
00:26:18,204 --> 00:26:20,420
But not only
are these pictures fake,

467
00:26:20,434 --> 00:26:23,453
this whole image
of tiny gossamer-like beings

468
00:26:23,711 --> 00:26:25,281
is bogus as well,

469
00:26:25,288 --> 00:26:28,296
and a long way
from their original manifestations.

470
00:26:32,806 --> 00:26:38,017
If this was a modern 19th and 20th
century vision of what fairies were,

471
00:26:38,044 --> 00:26:39,964
what were they like before that?

472
00:26:39,994 --> 00:26:42,044
Well, I think in the ancient world,

473
00:26:42,066 --> 00:26:45,164
the origin of fairy beliefs
is nymphs.

474
00:26:45,284 --> 00:26:48,252
An adult fairy is life-size,

475
00:26:48,283 --> 00:26:50,853
real human-size,
the same size as you or me,

476
00:26:51,428 --> 00:26:54,764
and if we look at this
Victorian picture of nymphs,

477
00:26:54,792 --> 00:26:57,323
this is Waterhouse's Water Nymphs.

478
00:26:57,324 --> 00:26:59,329
This gives us a very good idea

479
00:26:59,449 --> 00:27:03,004
of one of the mythic ancestors
of fairy belief.

480
00:27:03,124 --> 00:27:06,364
Now, you can see that these
very attractive young ladies

481
00:27:06,420 --> 00:27:09,366
are luring this young man
into a pond

482
00:27:09,418 --> 00:27:12,263
and it probably won't turn out
particularly well for him.

483
00:27:12,293 --> 00:27:14,563
I'd go in in five seconds, I think.

484
00:27:14,564 --> 00:27:17,824
Well, you might, but they might
drown you after they'd exhausted you.

485
00:27:17,861 --> 00:27:19,127
And that was what nymphs did.

486
00:27:19,164 --> 00:27:22,103
And she is luring the young man

487
00:27:22,755 --> 00:27:24,834
to be her sexual partner.

488
00:27:24,849 --> 00:27:27,554
and after she's exhausted him,
she'll throw him away.

489
00:27:27,555 --> 00:27:28,681
Way to go.

490
00:27:31,309 --> 00:27:34,019
The idea of nymphs
came from the Romans

491
00:27:34,026 --> 00:27:36,616
who invaded us some 2,000 years ago.

492
00:27:40,172 --> 00:27:43,715
Like the Celts, the indigenous
people of Britain they conquered,

493
00:27:43,903 --> 00:27:48,374
they believed there were supernatural
spirits, in all aspects of nature,

494
00:27:48,692 --> 00:27:50,706
from trees to rivers.

495
00:27:52,195 --> 00:27:55,444
These spirits became
part of mainstream folklore,

496
00:27:55,458 --> 00:27:58,314
and gradually evolved into fairies,

497
00:27:58,315 --> 00:28:03,022
mystical, often dangerous creatures
that inhabited the natural world,

498
00:28:03,142 --> 00:28:06,709
and who were only visible
when they chose to be.

499
00:28:09,395 --> 00:28:12,714
To help me understand what this
actually meant for our ancestors,

500
00:28:13,115 --> 00:28:16,898
Dr Juliet Wood is again
performing some theatrical magic.

501
00:28:18,631 --> 00:28:20,791
Come into the wings
and I'll explain it to you.

502
00:28:20,911 --> 00:28:22,671
All right, excuse me.

503
00:28:22,791 --> 00:28:24,234
Right, what's going on here?

504
00:28:24,354 --> 00:28:27,609
Well, you want to think of this
as a parallel world.

505
00:28:27,623 --> 00:28:28,682
A parallel world?

506
00:28:28,689 --> 00:28:31,950
Well, a world that's like ours,
but it's inhabited by spirits.

507
00:28:32,070 --> 00:28:35,201
I see what you mean, like
the same way the stage management

508
00:28:35,321 --> 00:28:37,509
are normally hidden
from the world of the stage,

509
00:28:37,531 --> 00:28:40,196
except when they come on
and fix something, like earlier,

510
00:28:40,203 --> 00:28:41,373
and then disappear again,

511
00:28:41,380 --> 00:28:44,340
that's how this parallel world
of pixies and people is?

512
00:28:44,371 --> 00:28:46,385
Exactly. Except with this lot,

513
00:28:46,407 --> 00:28:49,355
you have to be very careful
not to offend them,

514
00:28:49,565 --> 00:28:51,363
as they can be very, very nasty.

515
00:28:51,483 --> 00:28:53,670
METAL SHEET CLASHES

516
00:28:53,914 --> 00:28:57,242
Getting on the wrong side
of a folklore spirit like a fairy

517
00:28:57,272 --> 00:28:59,674
was considered a risky business.

518
00:28:59,794 --> 00:29:03,114
They were thought to be able to
ruin your crops with bad weather,

519
00:29:03,115 --> 00:29:05,776
or kill you
by causing a nasty accident.

520
00:29:09,581 --> 00:29:12,314
But the thing
people most feared about fairies

521
00:29:12,315 --> 00:29:15,375
was the belief
that they could abduct your child

522
00:29:15,707 --> 00:29:18,061
and replace it with a changeling,

523
00:29:18,181 --> 00:29:21,740
a fairy that had taken
the exact form of your baby.

524
00:29:26,035 --> 00:29:27,530
In medieval Britain,

525
00:29:27,538 --> 00:29:31,905
the fear of having your children
stolen away by fairies was so strong

526
00:29:32,100 --> 00:29:35,936
that many parents took
extreme measures to prevent it.

527
00:29:39,739 --> 00:29:41,434
If you'd just given birth
and

528
00:29:41,636 --> 00:29:44,074
all the women in the village
are hovering over you,

529
00:29:44,276 --> 00:29:45,733
what advice would they give you

530
00:29:45,747 --> 00:29:48,390
to prevent your baby
being stolen by the fairies?

531
00:29:48,708 --> 00:29:52,674
The main thing is to try
and get some cold iron involved.

532
00:29:52,675 --> 00:29:54,414
Cold iron around the cradle.

533
00:29:54,534 --> 00:29:55,634
Oh, look at these.

534
00:29:55,676 --> 00:29:56,855
Oh, look at these.
Oh, shears.

535
00:29:57,608 --> 00:30:01,324
That's the best of all, because
shears themselves are magical.

536
00:30:01,444 --> 00:30:03,238
You can use them for divination,

537
00:30:03,262 --> 00:30:05,666
to find stolen goods,
all kinds of things.

538
00:30:05,703 --> 00:30:08,794
They're really powerful,
so I'd put them at the head.

539
00:30:08,795 --> 00:30:10,937
What is it about iron, do you think?

540
00:30:10,967 --> 00:30:14,590
The manufacture and shaping of iron
was itself a bit of a mystery.

541
00:30:14,834 --> 00:30:17,431
Most villagers wouldn't have known
how to shape iron,

542
00:30:17,483 --> 00:30:20,806
so an iron thing is probably
the most magical possession

543
00:30:20,834 --> 00:30:22,834
most ordinary people would have had.

544
00:30:22,835 --> 00:30:25,285
If that didn't work,
is there anything else we could do?

545
00:30:25,658 --> 00:30:27,934
Draw a chalk circle
right around the cradle.

546
00:30:28,054 --> 00:30:29,248
There we go, there's a bit of chalk.

547
00:30:29,263 --> 00:30:30,802
Make sure you draw it clockwise,

548
00:30:30,825 --> 00:30:33,873
and you could recite
some key prayers and incantations.

549
00:30:36,933 --> 00:30:39,058
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,

550
00:30:39,423 --> 00:30:43,158
The circle was supposed to become
a protected area for the child,

551
00:30:43,278 --> 00:30:45,277
made holier by the chant.

552
00:30:45,397 --> 00:30:48,174
One to watch, one to pray...

553
00:30:48,294 --> 00:30:49,934
But these preventative measures

554
00:30:49,950 --> 00:30:53,213
weren't thought to completely
guarantee a child's safety.

555
00:30:54,244 --> 00:30:57,854
And if your offspring developed
physical or mental abnormalities,

556
00:30:57,974 --> 00:30:59,813
this could lead to the suspicion

557
00:30:59,814 --> 00:31:01,973
that a fairy had taken its place.

558
00:31:02,256 --> 00:31:05,974
WHISPERING VOICES

559
00:31:09,477 --> 00:31:13,408
Psychologist Chireal Shallow
has been looking into the reasons

560
00:31:13,414 --> 00:31:17,414
why parents might have come
to this horrifying conclusion.

561
00:31:17,694 --> 00:31:19,978
What kind of symptoms
that you know today,

562
00:31:20,170 --> 00:31:24,035
do you think in medieval times
might have caused parents to

563
00:31:24,155 --> 00:31:27,293
look at their child and think,
"It's not mine, it's a fairy."

564
00:31:27,294 --> 00:31:29,996
A child not speaking,
a child not being able to hear,

565
00:31:30,055 --> 00:31:31,853
a child not being able to move.

566
00:31:31,854 --> 00:31:33,653
Lots of physical disabilities,

567
00:31:33,654 --> 00:31:37,414
which today we can understand
within a medical context.

568
00:31:37,534 --> 00:31:42,025
Today you can see, you know, a child
that may be throwing a tantrum,

569
00:31:42,054 --> 00:31:45,493
a child that may be
not developing their language

570
00:31:45,494 --> 00:31:47,733
as we would expect them to,

571
00:31:47,734 --> 00:31:50,253
might be suffering from autism

572
00:31:50,254 --> 00:31:52,173
or be on the autism spectrum.

573
00:31:52,174 --> 00:31:53,253
Yeah.

574
00:31:53,254 --> 00:31:56,345
Back then, they didn't have that
knowledge, or that understanding,

575
00:31:56,382 --> 00:31:59,293
so they had to rely
on their belief system,

576
00:31:59,413 --> 00:32:00,932
which was in the changeling.

577
00:32:02,974 --> 00:32:06,453
So in medieval times,
parents of an abnormal child

578
00:32:06,454 --> 00:32:10,454
might suspect fairies had swapped it
for an imposter.

579
00:32:11,026 --> 00:32:13,361
But how could they know for sure?

580
00:32:14,493 --> 00:32:18,156
There were lots of tests you could do
to find out if this was a changeling.

581
00:32:18,276 --> 00:32:22,094
And one really key one
was to do something strange,

582
00:32:22,294 --> 00:32:24,813
something that no normal person
would ever do.

583
00:32:24,814 --> 00:32:25,652
What kind of thing?

584
00:32:25,674 --> 00:32:28,634
Well, like making bread in an eggshell.

585
00:32:28,754 --> 00:32:30,033
What's the significance of that?

586
00:32:30,153 --> 00:32:33,834
Well, I think the idea is that
a fairy could be very old and wise,

587
00:32:33,864 --> 00:32:37,610
and they would therefore find
mortal follies immensely funny,

588
00:32:37,730 --> 00:32:39,013
and that's the idea,

589
00:32:39,014 --> 00:32:41,289
provoking them into laughter
through surprise.

590
00:32:41,319 --> 00:32:43,050
I see, so it forgets it is a baby.

591
00:32:43,389 --> 00:32:44,906
Yes. That's it, yeah.

592
00:32:45,096 --> 00:32:46,254
Show us what you do.

593
00:32:46,276 --> 00:32:48,282
You break an egg.

594
00:32:49,174 --> 00:32:51,814
You mix some flour.

595
00:32:52,932 --> 00:32:55,294
You mix some water,

596
00:32:55,641 --> 00:32:57,026
and you knead it.

597
00:32:59,294 --> 00:33:01,008
This is rather ridiculous,
isn't it?

598
00:33:01,031 --> 00:33:03,188
Oh, look!
Yes, she's protesting.

599
00:33:03,477 --> 00:33:05,201
See, she's stirring. Look at that!

600
00:33:05,224 --> 00:33:06,667
Might be a sign.

601
00:33:06,787 --> 00:33:09,258
How do we know
that's the kind of thing they did?

602
00:33:09,295 --> 00:33:10,798
It does seem rather bizarre.

603
00:33:10,805 --> 00:33:13,389
It does seem bizarre
and bizarre is the whole point.

604
00:33:13,434 --> 00:33:14,448
But we know about it

605
00:33:14,463 --> 00:33:18,756
because of 16th-century antiquarians
like Reginald Scott.

606
00:33:18,876 --> 00:33:22,836
He recorded the folk beliefs
of villagers right across the nation.

607
00:33:24,534 --> 00:33:28,189
If the baby laughed at these
activities, it was taken as proof

608
00:33:28,211 --> 00:33:31,356
that it really was
a fairy changeling.

609
00:33:32,654 --> 00:33:36,654
But how did parents then think they
could get their real child back?

610
00:33:37,069 --> 00:33:41,294
Well, the belief was that if they
threatened the imposter with death,

611
00:33:41,414 --> 00:33:43,654
its fairy parents
would come and rescue it

612
00:33:43,774 --> 00:33:46,516
and return the human child
at the same time.

613
00:33:47,171 --> 00:33:50,494
Diane's looked at the ways
parents could do this.

614
00:33:52,145 --> 00:33:54,253
There are two options.

615
00:33:54,971 --> 00:33:56,866
You can take the baby

616
00:33:57,134 --> 00:33:58,848
and leave it in the woods,

617
00:33:58,968 --> 00:34:00,382
ideally on a dung heap,

618
00:34:01,263 --> 00:34:02,573
and what you're hoping then

619
00:34:02,574 --> 00:34:05,899
is that the fairies are terrified
something will happen to it

620
00:34:05,933 --> 00:34:07,247
and they come and take it back,

621
00:34:07,269 --> 00:34:09,172
and they bring your baby back to you.

622
00:34:09,292 --> 00:34:10,527
You said there were two options?

623
00:34:10,576 --> 00:34:13,036
Well, the second option's pretty drastic.

624
00:34:14,613 --> 00:34:16,508
You show the baby the fire,

625
00:34:17,056 --> 00:34:21,529
and what you're hoping is that
the baby will be so terrified of the fire

626
00:34:21,649 --> 00:34:24,560
that he'll reveal himself as
a changeling, fly up in the air.

627
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,758
So, you're putting your baby
right next to the flames,

628
00:34:27,878 --> 00:34:31,111
and if he reacts,
then that means he's a changeling?

629
00:34:31,231 --> 00:34:34,013
Yeah. On the grounds
that it's not your baby.

630
00:34:34,014 --> 00:34:36,774
If you thought it was your
baby, you wouldn't do this.

631
00:34:36,798 --> 00:34:38,973
You're thinking it's a fairy baby,

632
00:34:38,974 --> 00:34:41,550
and you're thinking
that you're rescuing your baby

633
00:34:41,580 --> 00:34:45,036
by doing this terrible,
terrifying thing.

634
00:34:49,144 --> 00:34:50,893
As a result of these beliefs,

635
00:34:50,894 --> 00:34:53,475
it's thought many babies
were burnt to death

636
00:34:53,482 --> 00:34:55,299
or died in the woods.

637
00:34:58,897 --> 00:35:00,311
How many we'll never know,

638
00:35:00,340 --> 00:35:04,123
because such events weren't
routinely recorded as infanticide.

639
00:35:05,552 --> 00:35:08,387
After all, it was the fairy
that had died.

640
00:35:08,894 --> 00:35:11,474
The human was merely missing.

641
00:35:12,355 --> 00:35:15,614
When you look at the deaths
of these changeling babies,

642
00:35:15,734 --> 00:35:17,263
supposedly changeling babies,

643
00:35:17,383 --> 00:35:20,774
it is hard for you to put yourself
in that position,

644
00:35:20,894 --> 00:35:22,791
but I think
what we've got to understand

645
00:35:22,814 --> 00:35:25,604
is that they had
this strongly held belief

646
00:35:25,724 --> 00:35:29,691
that the act they were committing
would bring their babies back.

647
00:35:29,811 --> 00:35:33,173
So it actually justified
them doing something

648
00:35:33,174 --> 00:35:35,674
that we consider
quite heinous and cruel,

649
00:35:35,693 --> 00:35:39,482
but they believed they were doing
something good, and endorsed,

650
00:35:39,497 --> 00:35:41,836
and thought they were going
to get their babies back.

651
00:35:44,605 --> 00:35:46,448
It does seem strange, doesn't it,

652
00:35:46,485 --> 00:35:50,974
That parents could believe their own
flesh and blood wasn't theirs,

653
00:35:51,014 --> 00:35:54,181
but in some way had been
taken over by a fairy.

654
00:35:54,301 --> 00:35:56,014
And not just strange,

655
00:35:56,134 --> 00:36:00,614
the consequences if a child
had physical or mental disabilities

656
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:01,800
could be horrendous.

657
00:36:01,989 --> 00:36:06,654
The whole community could
condone that child being abandoned

658
00:36:06,774 --> 00:36:08,636
in order to get rid of the fairy.

659
00:36:12,534 --> 00:36:14,413
The belief in fairy changelings

660
00:36:14,414 --> 00:36:17,974
is thought to have peaked
in the Middle Ages, but incredibly,

661
00:36:18,094 --> 00:36:22,354
this disturbing and fantastical
superstition endured for centuries,

662
00:36:22,474 --> 00:36:26,031
surviving deep into the modern era.

663
00:36:27,474 --> 00:36:29,133
The last recorded case

664
00:36:29,134 --> 00:36:32,255
took place as recently as 1895,

665
00:36:32,375 --> 00:36:35,140
a time when my own
grandfather was alive.

666
00:36:36,424 --> 00:36:38,413
And this is the house
where it took place?

667
00:36:38,414 --> 00:36:40,013
This is the house.

668
00:36:40,296 --> 00:36:43,190
And it ended
with a brutal killing.

669
00:36:44,201 --> 00:36:48,361
The world of our ancestors was full
of dangerous malevolent spirits

670
00:36:48,481 --> 00:36:50,397
they thought could do real harm.

671
00:36:51,656 --> 00:36:53,851
While demons were after your soul,

672
00:36:53,971 --> 00:36:56,241
fairies were more
interested in your children.

673
00:36:57,532 --> 00:37:00,305
I've learnt that parents would take
horrific measures

674
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:04,081
with any child they thought
was really a fairy in disguise.

675
00:37:05,426 --> 00:37:08,044
It's not  your  baby,
it's a fairy baby.

676
00:37:09,555 --> 00:37:12,182
Now I want to investigate
the last-known case

677
00:37:12,619 --> 00:37:15,274
of this dark superstition.

678
00:37:15,576 --> 00:37:18,266
So, I've come to Ballyvadlea
in Ireland

679
00:37:18,386 --> 00:37:22,076
to find out more about a woman who
was killed here by her husband

680
00:37:22,627 --> 00:37:26,035
because he believed her
to be a fairy changeling.

681
00:37:30,068 --> 00:37:34,395
Incredibly, it was just over
a hundred years ago, in 1895.

682
00:37:35,727 --> 00:37:37,924
Historian, Professor Angela Bourke,

683
00:37:37,983 --> 00:37:40,261
has studied the court case
and testimonies

684
00:37:40,613 --> 00:37:43,107
that reveal what really happened.

685
00:37:44,896 --> 00:37:46,716
She was a young woman
called Bridget Cleary,

686
00:37:47,046 --> 00:37:50,029
she was 26,
maybe as old as 28.

687
00:37:50,518 --> 00:37:52,413
The story told at the time was

688
00:37:52,428 --> 00:37:54,000
that he believed,
or had come to believe,

689
00:37:54,015 --> 00:37:56,288
that she was a fairy changeling,

690
00:37:56,408 --> 00:37:59,869
that meant the woman that he
was living with was not his wife,

691
00:37:59,989 --> 00:38:02,105
was not Bridget Cleary,
was not even human,

692
00:38:02,225 --> 00:38:03,907
that she had been taken away by
fairies

693
00:38:03,908 --> 00:38:06,796
and something else put in her place.

694
00:38:12,628 --> 00:38:14,554
And this is the house where
it took place?

695
00:38:14,555 --> 00:38:16,114
This is the house.

696
00:38:16,234 --> 00:38:18,736
It doesn't look like the kind of
place

697
00:38:18,758 --> 00:38:20,142
where something terrible happened.

698
00:38:20,150 --> 00:38:22,351
No, it looks like a clean,
tidy, modern house

699
00:38:22,366 --> 00:38:24,239
and that's how it looked in 1895.

700
00:38:25,201 --> 00:38:27,888
The only thing that was
peculiar about this house

701
00:38:27,903 --> 00:38:30,516
is that it was built
very close to a fairy fort.

702
00:38:33,336 --> 00:38:37,155
There's a fairy fort
in the land behind the house.

703
00:38:39,354 --> 00:38:41,870
What locals called "fairy forts"

704
00:38:42,066 --> 00:38:45,494
were actually the remains of
medieval hill settlements,

705
00:38:45,857 --> 00:38:49,602
but our ancestors believed
fairies lived beneath them.

706
00:38:51,279 --> 00:38:53,996
Having one near your house
or disturbing one

707
00:38:54,033 --> 00:38:56,556
was thought to bring bad luck,

708
00:38:56,816 --> 00:39:00,515
and this fairy fort has been left
untouched by the local farmer.

709
00:39:04,173 --> 00:39:08,297
What punishments would you get
if you upset the fairies,

710
00:39:08,319 --> 00:39:11,131
if you transgressed?
If you came here.

711
00:39:11,150 --> 00:39:12,081
Well, if you came here,

712
00:39:12,201 --> 00:39:14,151
it'd be feared that things would
happen to cattle,

713
00:39:14,165 --> 00:39:16,668
your children would get ill,
or you'd get ill.

714
00:39:16,690 --> 00:39:18,348
You might become paralysed,

715
00:39:18,378 --> 00:39:21,314
people said that a stroke was
a fairy blast.

716
00:39:21,772 --> 00:39:25,315
A lot of those kinds of things were
said to be fairy malevolence.

717
00:39:25,955 --> 00:39:28,235
At the time, newspapers reported

718
00:39:28,244 --> 00:39:30,701
that Bridget was thought to have
visited the fairy fort

719
00:39:30,821 --> 00:39:32,819
shortly before she died.

720
00:39:34,344 --> 00:39:37,594
Anybody who came into a place
like this was under suspicion.

721
00:39:37,595 --> 00:39:40,274
So, if you willingly consorted
with the fairies,

722
00:39:40,312 --> 00:39:43,951
it was a suggestion that you were
turning your back on human society,

723
00:39:44,071 --> 00:39:47,754
you're dicing with something very
dangerous and you were distrusted.

724
00:39:47,874 --> 00:39:49,579
So, people really didn't like it.

725
00:39:53,007 --> 00:39:57,411
One day, Bridget left her house
saying she was going to sell eggs,

726
00:39:59,306 --> 00:40:03,413
but some people suspected she
had gone to the fairy fort instead.

727
00:40:12,931 --> 00:40:16,248
When she came back,
she was ill with a fever.

728
00:40:16,485 --> 00:40:20,679
Her husband Michael claimed
she was two inches taller.

729
00:40:22,611 --> 00:40:26,036
Something just wasn't the same.

730
00:40:28,197 --> 00:40:29,855
Gosh, it's very small, isn't it?

731
00:40:29,877 --> 00:40:32,435
It's a very small house.

732
00:40:32,555 --> 00:40:35,114
Big for the time,
but yeah, very confined space.

733
00:40:36,271 --> 00:40:38,189
The house has been modernised,

734
00:40:38,203 --> 00:40:40,298
but we've got copies of
police photos

735
00:40:40,313 --> 00:40:42,282
taken after Bridget's death.

736
00:40:43,578 --> 00:40:46,821
- And this, here, is that fire there,
presumably. - That's right.

737
00:40:47,342 --> 00:40:49,114
You can see the grate underneath.

738
00:40:49,319 --> 00:40:51,709
Oh yes, that's the old grate.
Yeah, yeah.

739
00:40:51,829 --> 00:40:53,224
What happened on
the day in question?

740
00:40:53,254 --> 00:40:55,311
'Bridget Cleary had been
sick in bed for days,

741
00:40:56,553 --> 00:40:59,716
'she was perhaps delirious
and running a fever.

742
00:41:00,101 --> 00:41:03,764
'Then various relatives came
and visited, including several men.

743
00:41:05,252 --> 00:41:07,598
'Michael Cleary, by this time,
has got a horrible potion...'

744
00:41:07,626 --> 00:41:08,825
I have to give you this.

745
00:41:08,826 --> 00:41:11,923
'..which they are now going to try
to feed to Bridget Cleary.

746
00:41:12,301 --> 00:41:15,838
'They sense that if they can get her
to swallow this horrible potion,

747
00:41:15,958 --> 00:41:18,353
'then the creature that
replaced her will disappear,

748
00:41:18,660 --> 00:41:22,226
'and she will perhaps
walk in the front door.

749
00:41:23,331 --> 00:41:25,848
'Michael is trying to feed her this
potion with a spoon,

750
00:41:25,968 --> 00:41:27,915
'two others are holding
her by the shoulders.'

751
00:41:27,974 --> 00:41:29,333
And it was right here that it
happened?

752
00:41:29,334 --> 00:41:31,213
It was right here,
right on this spot.

753
00:41:31,214 --> 00:41:33,870
'All on the pretext that
she's not herself.

754
00:41:33,881 --> 00:41:35,173
'That she's a fairy changeling.'

755
00:41:35,174 --> 00:41:37,756
Come on!

756
00:41:38,242 --> 00:41:39,389
And then what happened?

757
00:41:39,441 --> 00:41:42,893
They took her bodily from her bed
and carried her in there,

758
00:41:42,894 --> 00:41:44,527
- ..back into the kitchen.
- Back into here, yeah.

759
00:41:44,544 --> 00:41:47,636
Into the fire, they held her in,
over the bars of the grate.

760
00:41:48,014 --> 00:41:50,916
It's going to be OK, Bridget.

761
00:41:51,903 --> 00:41:54,707
'Fairies were believed to be
scared of fire.

762
00:41:54,827 --> 00:41:58,330
'So the idea was that the flames
would force the fairy to leave,

763
00:41:58,450 --> 00:42:00,974
'or to reveal its true identity.'

764
00:42:02,361 --> 00:42:05,730
Her father says, "Are you
Bridget Cleary in the name of God?"

765
00:42:05,850 --> 00:42:07,684
And she says, "I am, Dada."

766
00:42:07,867 --> 00:42:09,916
I am Bridget Cleary!

767
00:42:12,827 --> 00:42:16,518
The men are then satisfied that
this is the real Bridget Cleary.

768
00:42:17,776 --> 00:42:20,374
Bridget, it seemed, was safe.

769
00:42:20,494 --> 00:42:22,850
But the next night,
Michael and her relatives

770
00:42:22,864 --> 00:42:25,278
became suspicious once again,

771
00:42:25,300 --> 00:42:27,836
when Bridget refused to eat the food
they had prepared.

772
00:42:28,294 --> 00:42:29,631
Will you have some bread, Bridget?

773
00:42:29,751 --> 00:42:30,973
I don't want to eat anything.

774
00:42:30,974 --> 00:42:32,207
You've got to eat something.

775
00:42:32,327 --> 00:42:34,110
'When she didn't want to eat
anything,

776
00:42:34,125 --> 00:42:37,218
'I think her husband got very,
very anxious again.'

777
00:42:37,338 --> 00:42:39,756
- That's when he kicked off?
- 'That's when he kicks off.

778
00:42:40,034 --> 00:42:44,324
'He thinks a real woman, who is not
a fairy changeling, would eat.'

779
00:42:44,444 --> 00:42:45,665
What have you done with me wife?

780
00:42:45,688 --> 00:42:47,501
'He knocked her to the ground'

781
00:42:47,621 --> 00:42:51,029
and picked a burning stick from the
fire and brandished it in her face.

782
00:42:52,431 --> 00:42:54,031
What have you done with me wife?

783
00:42:54,151 --> 00:42:55,367
What have you done with her?!

784
00:42:55,375 --> 00:42:56,759
Michael! Michael!

785
00:42:56,766 --> 00:43:00,665
'He picked up the lamp and
spills the oil from it on her,'

786
00:43:00,916 --> 00:43:02,635
and then her clothing catches fire.

787
00:43:02,636 --> 00:43:03,795
Whoosh, she goes up?

788
00:43:03,796 --> 00:43:05,970
Yeah, she goes whoosh.

789
00:43:09,605 --> 00:43:11,892
Bridget Cleary was dead!

790
00:43:12,012 --> 00:43:13,210
Burnt alive

791
00:43:13,232 --> 00:43:17,163
because her husband and family
thought she was a fairy changeling.

792
00:43:17,796 --> 00:43:21,796
Michael and the others in the house
were arrested for murder.

793
00:43:25,156 --> 00:43:29,263
So this is the grave where
Bridget Cleary is said to be buried.

794
00:43:29,556 --> 00:43:31,551
This is where her story ends.

795
00:43:31,951 --> 00:43:34,708
So, everyone was convinced that

796
00:43:34,752 --> 00:43:37,669
this was the real Bridget
and not a fairy?

797
00:43:38,526 --> 00:43:41,435
Well, a lot of people said
that the real Bridget Cleary

798
00:43:41,436 --> 00:43:42,787
had gone into the fairy fort,

799
00:43:42,794 --> 00:43:45,316
that she was still up there
with her fairy lover

800
00:43:45,323 --> 00:43:46,996
or with the fairies,

801
00:43:47,003 --> 00:43:49,424
and that what was left
after the burning

802
00:43:49,446 --> 00:43:51,403
and what was buried in the graveyard

803
00:43:51,418 --> 00:43:53,498
was in fact not the body
of Bridget Cleary

804
00:43:53,513 --> 00:43:56,556
but of something left in her place,
by the fairies.

805
00:43:59,276 --> 00:44:03,276
Michael Cleary was convicted
of manslaughter but not murder.

806
00:44:04,208 --> 00:44:05,733
When reaching the verdict,

807
00:44:05,740 --> 00:44:09,036
his belief that the woman he'd
killed was a fairy changeling

808
00:44:09,156 --> 00:44:11,275
was taken into consideration,

809
00:44:11,500 --> 00:44:13,995
as was his behaviour
after the murder,

810
00:44:14,115 --> 00:44:16,102
when he went to the fairy fort.

811
00:44:18,204 --> 00:44:19,796
And he came up here,

812
00:44:19,825 --> 00:44:24,583
and he just waited for the moment
when his real wife,

813
00:44:24,908 --> 00:44:29,464
not the body that he'd just buried
in a shallow grave,

814
00:44:29,468 --> 00:44:30,688
which was just a fairy,

815
00:44:30,689 --> 00:44:33,461
but when his real wife
rode out of here

816
00:44:33,581 --> 00:44:35,230
with the other fairies

817
00:44:35,245 --> 00:44:37,125
and he would hold
the other fairies off

818
00:44:37,148 --> 00:44:39,595
and he would bring down his wife
from the saddle

819
00:44:39,596 --> 00:44:41,447
and take her in his arms
and...

820
00:44:41,869 --> 00:44:43,779
..take her back home

821
00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:46,377
and he'd have his wife back again.

822
00:44:48,005 --> 00:44:52,551
But I don't know for how long
he was able to sustain that fantasy.

823
00:44:53,239 --> 00:44:55,282
Michael, Michael!

824
00:44:55,402 --> 00:44:58,897
Today, it seems incredible to us
that a man could kill his wife

825
00:44:58,927 --> 00:45:01,162
because he believed
she was a fairy.

826
00:45:01,756 --> 00:45:05,495
But Bridget's appalling death
was the final manifestation

827
00:45:05,615 --> 00:45:09,951
of a profound and almost universal
fear of supernatural spirits

828
00:45:10,386 --> 00:45:12,995
that stretched back more than
two millennia,

829
00:45:13,014 --> 00:45:15,064
to the forests of Celtic Britain.

830
00:45:18,825 --> 00:45:20,838
Over the last
couple of hundred years,

831
00:45:20,855 --> 00:45:25,099
our attitude towards the world of
the spirits has completely changed.

832
00:45:27,003 --> 00:45:30,179
Nowadays, we tend to think
of these creatures as happy,

833
00:45:30,601 --> 00:45:34,721
as safe, as benign
and above all, as fantasy.

834
00:45:38,047 --> 00:45:39,738
But for our ancestors,

835
00:45:39,858 --> 00:45:43,797
they weren't only very real,
they were utterly evil.

836
00:45:44,516 --> 00:45:48,990
So that when an exorcist
was trying to expel a demon

837
00:45:49,005 --> 00:45:52,076
from the body of a young woman
who was thrashing about...

838
00:45:52,196 --> 00:45:53,996
Aaagh!

839
00:45:54,116 --> 00:45:56,955
..or when Michael Cleary was
holding his wife

840
00:45:56,956 --> 00:45:58,856
over the smoke and the flames...

841
00:46:00,973 --> 00:46:03,579
..in order to drive out a fairy,

842
00:46:03,699 --> 00:46:08,191
they thought they were combating
the powers of darkness head on.

843
00:46:09,109 --> 00:46:11,386
And maybe that's something
to bear in mind

844
00:46:11,418 --> 00:46:14,316
next time you read your kids
a fairy story.

845
00:46:17,610 --> 00:46:22,356
Next week, the terrifying creatures
our ancestors thought made them ill.

846
00:46:22,755 --> 00:46:26,930
From evil elves that pierced you
with disease-laden arrows,

847
00:46:27,389 --> 00:46:30,350
to stone age surgery that
released inner demons.

848
00:46:30,792 --> 00:46:35,025
I'll be experiencing the horrific
realty of magic medicine.

849
00:46:36,656 --> 00:46:39,950
Oh, God! I tell you what,
this suit's leaking!

850
00:47:01,136 --> 00:47:07,107
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