Western Times of 2nd January 1841 reported at length the inquest following the death of a fortune teller called Sarah Gribble who had died in her bed in the two-room tenement she occupied in a back court in St. Mary Arches Street the week before. The report includes this description of her:
"Clothes or linen upon her person, she had none - if we except an old pair of stays which she wore next her skin and a piece of coarse fustian cloth which was tied round her waist. A dirty brown handkerchief was thrown over her shoulders, and tied in a knot upon her breast, and her head was covered with a cap, which she had never been known to change during the time she had resided in the house. She wore neither shoes nor stockings, but, dressed as above described, used to sit continually in her bed, remaining constantly in the same position, with...."her nose and knees together."
"In her bedplace were found, after her death, a great quantity of articles of food, which appeared to have accumulated for some time, and which there is much reason to fear had been purloined by servant girls, who probably found it more convenient to satisfy their curiosity at their masters' expense rather than their own. There were heaped together, in one heterogeneous mass, potatoes, turnips, and vegetables of all kinds, fruit, butter, bacon, dripping and a variety of articles of similar description, which the deceased was never know to have purchased, and the possession of which can only be accounted for in the way in which we have described. A half pound of butter was found under her thigh immediately after her death and the other provisions were directly at her feet.
".....And yet, wretched as was her abode, Sally Gribble had numerous visitors, many from among the more respectable classes of society, and on a market day especially, her ante-room was thronged with customers, anxious to obtain admittance. She was the daughter of a woman who was famous as a fortune teller in her day, and had never been married, and she delivered her predictions with an air of authority, which no doubt gave them all the greater weight. Her manner was anything but conciliatory; and when displeased or unreasonable interrupted, she would order the intruder away, with the most horrible imprecations.
"She was always pretending the greatest poverty, although....a large quantity of money was found in her apartment, and the necessaries of life were evidently supplied to her in abundance."
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Sometimes Victorian Exeter seems not to have moved far from the Middle Ages. The description of this old witch whose imprecations could be most horrible sitting on half a pound of butter in her bed with her naked legs drawn up to her chin and telling fortunes to silly servant girls and matrons who should have known better could be Geoffrey Chaucer's.
It's a pity we are losing the fun of the old pet names. I had forgotten that Sarahs were Sallys.
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