When Witches Rode the People of the Dutch Fork

Art by James Gilbert.

Not so far as ten miles from Columbia and up until 1835, it was very common for those in the Dutch Fork of South Carolina to be transformed into horses by witches and then ridden to great conventions where sometimes even the devil was a guest.

A man by the name of Martin Lybrand, respected by all in the community and whose character was never questioned, was repeatedly changed into a horse by an old woman who lived near him and ridden from the Dutch Fork out to the Sandhills where he was hitched to a pine tree. After the witch would go into a house, he would see lights and hear music and dancing that lasted all night long.

While on trial in 1792, Mary Ingleman was accused by Issac Collins of turning him into a horse after he was resting by a spring.

"He testified that after that she turned him into a horse and rode him to a grand convention of witches. Where, he could not say, but he thought somewhere in North America; and on the way the Devil rode up by her side and observed, 'Mother Ingelman, you have a splendid horse.'

" 'Ah,' she said, 'This is that rascal Collins!'"

Collins wasn't the only one to accuse her of this sort of act as her own grandson, Jacob Free, testified that Ingleman rode him to Pearson's apple orchard by the Broad river, six miles from his home, when:

"she was filling her bag with apples, his eye was attracted by the beautiful red apples that hung over him. He put up his long horse head to obtain a stealthy supply and while he was attempting to do so, she drove a punch into his cheek from the effects of which he did not soon recover."

In his 1860 fictional novel, John Punterick: A Novel of Life in the Old Dutch Fork, O.B. Mayer writes of a man named Awbergloibisch who after lying down on a cot in his yard after a heavy night of drinking was approached by Sibby Dessekker who slipped a bridle in his mouth and a saddle on his back. She mounted him with a broomstick in her right hand with which she hit him in the head and on his backside. They traveled to Ruff's Mountain, now known as Little Mountain, for a gathering of witches. He was hitched to a dogwood limb where in front of him were fifty witches dancing to the music of the devil who was playing a fiddle. The dancing went on until 2am when the devil helped Dessekker up onto the back of Awbergloibsich. On the return trip, he remembered that witches can't cross water so when they got to a mud-hole he threw his head down and kicked up his rear to throw off the witch and galloped across Crimm's Creek. She flew past him like a turkey vulture through the top of the trees riding the broom. He was able to get the saddle and bridle off himself  and trotted leisurely home just as the roosters began crowing.

Sources:

Scott, Edwin. Random Recollections of a Long Life: 1806 to 1876, Columbia: Charles A. Calvo, Jr., Printer, 1884

Summer, George Leland. Folklore of South Carolina, Including Central and Dutch Fork Sections of the State, Publisher Unknown, 1950

Gandee, Lee. The Witches of Fairfield, S.C., Fate Magazine, Jan. 1970

Mayer, O.B. John Punterick: A Novel of Life in the Old Dutch Fork (1860), Spartanburg: Reprint Co., 1981