Today in Salem: Rev Samuel Parris’s wife is also wrinkling her nose and breathing shallowly, trying not to inhale the stench of stinking gum. She’s tried remedy after remedy for 2 months now, trying to help her 9-year-old daughter Betty, but nothing is working. And it’s not just Betty: It’s also her 11-year-old niece Abigail Williams, who’s been living with the family since she’d lost her own parents. The girls were practically sisters.
Betty wails in the next room, and a thud quickly follows. Her crying barely stops, though, and now Abigail joins in. For weeks they’ve been sobbing, moaning, throwing things, crouching under chairs, fainting, and gasping. At times they panic so severely that they cannot breathe, and Abigail has complained constantly of a severe headache. No amount of prayer has helped, though. In fact, praying only seems to make it worse. Could it be something evil?
Today Mrs. Parris has reached the end of her list, and is mixing wine with stinking gum. Betty and Abigail’s eyes water as they drink the foul-smelling concoction, which is supposed to be as powerful as it is obnoxious. But the stench makes them choke until they gasp and fall on the floor as if they are dying.
LEARN MORE: What medicinal herbs were used as remedies for witchcraft?
Like other women of the time, Mrs. Parris would have had a “kitchen garden” that included medicinal herbs, plants, and roots. But the commonly known remedies against evil were more exotic than she would have had at hand. History doesn’t tell us what remedies she tried: only that she’d used several, and none had worked.
Asafetida soaked in wine, as described here, would have been easy to find, and was also known to counteract the “foul vapors of the uterus.”
Folklore also recommended soot or blood mixed with hartshorn (the ground up antler from a deer), blood from a male cat’s ear, dewdrops refined into dust, and amber soaked in castor oil.
Parsnip seeds soaked in wine were also thought to be among the most powerful elixirs, but Mrs. Parris would have had a great deal of trouble finding them. Parsnips were easily acquired, but to produce seed they needed to stay in the ground, unharvested for a full season. Food was too precious to let it go to seed, so it’s unlikely she tried them.
WHO was Betty Parris?
Betty was the 9-year-old daughter of Reverend Samuel Parris. She and her cousin Abigail Williams, who lived with the Parris family, were the first girls to suffer from strange fits and afflictions. Betty was the youngest of the afflicted girls and among those who accused the first three suspects. As the trials began to pick up steam, Reverend Parris grew alarmed and sent her to live with his cousin in Boston.
Betty suffered occasional fits at her new home, but was cared for and went on to lead a healthy and happy childhood. She married and had four children, two of whom she named after her siblings, and lived to the old age of 77. Case files: Betty Parris
WHO was Abigail Williams?
Abigail was 11 and lived with her uncle, the Reverend Samuel Parris. History doesn’t tell us, though, who her parents were or how she came to live with the Parris family.
Abigail and her cousin Betty Parris were the first girls to suffer afflictions. Ultimately Abigail testified in 7 cases and was involved in up to 17 of the capital cases.
Abigail’s later life is also a mystery, as she disappears from the records once the trials were over. Case files: Abigail Williams
Tomorrow in Salem: Another church truant: the fornicating Sarah Osborne