Have you ever wondered how legends and myths got started? Have you thought about why we hanker for the darker side of the human psyche? Why we’re fascinated by tales of the supernatural?
Maybe it’s because we’re still anchored to our past. Maybe there really is such a thing as tribal memory, the lizard brain, the sixth sense and ghosts, spirits?
I do believe we have a second-sight but as we have ‘evolved’ and ignored the powers, we’ve moved away from them, denying their benefits and ignoring what the instincts can do for us.
Perhaps that’s why a dog will sometimes bark at nothing. Why the same dog, usually brave and fearless, will suddenly cower and shiver, looking into one corner of the room – the same corner every time.
What is it that animals can still see that we no longer can?
I have to admit that not every human is in deep denial about their instinctive sixth sense. Some – like my best friend, Lucretia – still have strong links. You may wonder why her parents named her Lucretia – I asked once. This is the reply.
Both sides of Lucretia’s parentage have strong and deep links with Rome – long before the Borgia and Machiavelli houses came to power, they were practicing their dark arts.
People lived in fear for their safety in Lucretia’s ancestors’ time and if people get frightened enough, they will take drastic and often permanent measures.
Such is the case with my friend Lucretia’s ancestor, for whom she is named.
The ancient Lucretia was hung as a witch. Back in those times, witches were not burned. Heretics were burned, but witches were hanged.
She had performed some spell or another upon the husband of a woman that Lucretia had quarrelled with. Lucretia claims she didn’t realise the husband and wife were connected, but who knows?
The man took a fancy to another woman and ran off with her. The wife was furious and accused Lucretia of being in league with the devil himself.
There were people who were unscrupulous enough to take money for ‘proving’ someone was a witch, but in the ancient Lucretia’s case, the villagers had to search far and wide for one who would take the job, such was Lucretia’s infamy.
So the torture began. Methods of finding out if the accused woman was a witch included stripping naked and looking for bruises, skin-tags, moles and birth-marks. The fact that Lucretia’s skin was smooth and unblemished as a babe’s was cause for suspicion, but lacking proof, the Witchfinder could do nothing.
Or so you’d think.
The Witchfinder had other methods of finding and proving a person a witch and he set about using his vast knowledge.
Forcing a person to sit with her legs folded under her, or to sit on a steel bar would, of course, render the lower legs numb.
That’s what he did. She was forced to sit with her shins to the floor, knees bent and her full weight sitting on the backs of her upper thighs. Hours and hours she had to sit and then she was made to stand up.
She screamed when she tried to stand because, as you know, when pins and needles take over your feet, it can be most excruciating. Think how excruciating it was for Lucretia.
The Witchfinder pushed a needle into Lucretia’s leg, thoroughly expecting that she would not feel any pain and that there would not be any blood. Again, he was wrong and he had to start again.
He berated and badgered her for days, asking about her involvement with Satan. Time and time again she denied his accusations and claimed that the husband in question had made advances to her and the wife had become angry when she found out, hence the false accusations.
One day, however, she allowed her guard to slip and she was caught out. He pressed a crucifix to her leg and she screeched in agony.
Triumphant, he led her to the courthouse to declare her a witch. She stood shamed and naked before her neighbours and someone pointed out that she was with child.
The Witchfinder was puzzled, bemused and then angry because it meant that one of his trusted guards had been dallying with his prisoner.
Though they all denied the charge, the Witchfinder forced them all to confess. His trusted guards did not hold out so well under his interrogation as had Lucretia. One by one they all confessed that they had ‘dallied’ with the prisoner and the child could well be his.
By the time Lucretia came to trial, her belly was distended and large. The judge declared her guilty and it’s said the shock sent her into labour. She gave birth almost in the courtroom itself and because the babe was an innocent, it was given over to a relative for them to bring up.
Lucretia the Ancient was taken to the gallows, still bleeding from childbirth, and she was hanged.
She didn’t curse her accusers, but she did laugh as they placed the noose around her neck.
Lucretia did not die well. She was slowly and methodically strangled in one final act of revenge and when they cut down her corpse, her face was purple and distended. Her eyeballs protruded from her head in a most alarming fashion and were horribly bloodshot. Her tongue was black and swollen and her beautiful throat was marked with a clear rope impression.
My best friend, Lucretia told me all about her ancestor’s demise and she told me that the babe went on to become a woman of means. She had uncanny fortune when it came to marriage. Four husbands, each one wealthier than the last and none that survived her.
Her children, all girls all married well and their line stretches past empires and as long as the first-born is a girl and her name is given as Lucretia, long may that tradition reign.
I didn’t know whether to laugh when Lucretia told me her story.
Until she took off her scarf.
Lucretia has a strange hereditary birthmark. It is vivid and purple and looks exactly like the impression of a rope.