Einor Is Lynched and Leaves a Curse

Einor Is Lynched and Leaves a Curse is the central atrocity in Thomas Woolgar’s account of the sixteenth-century events at St. Joseph’s Church in Banfield. The chronicle portrays Einor’s death not as a straightforward triumph over an accused witch but as the consequence of a crowd’s vengeance, enabled by Woolgar’s betrayal and evasion of responsibility. Her final curse, and the unexplained disturbances reported after her death, make the episode a hidden history that reaches beyond its apparent ending.

Accusation and the Making of a Crowd

Woolgar’s account presents the accusation as arising from both genuine crimes and self-preservation. He admits that he had been Einor’s accomplice and that he had helped conceal the deaths of three children. He also describes how the Prioress learned of Einor’s conduct after a novice confessed, and how Einor was denounced as a witch and heretic. The Prioress sent for a Summoner, the official who would bring her before an ecclesiastical court, but Woolgar understood that a formal proceeding might expose his own part in the events. His influential father’s standing with the Church further shaped the pressures around the case.

Rather than wait for the trial, Woolgar returned to Banfield and told members of his congregation what he and the Prioress had supposedly discovered. His account says that anger spread quickly, especially among parents whose children had disappeared. He followed the villagers as they went to St. Joseph’s Church, and acknowledges that he encouraged their passion. This admission complicates his later presentation of himself as powerless: he did not merely witness the crowd gathering, but helped turn accusation into collective action.

The villagers found Einor in the church with Rosemund, a novice associated with her. Woolgar describes Einor being seized and dragged away. When her gaze met his, he says he fell to the ground, while the crowd interpreted his reaction as evidence that she had bewitched him. He denied her accusation that he had been her partner and directed the villagers to search for the supposed Devil’s Mark. The mark, understood by the crowd as proof of witchcraft, helped convert suspicion into apparent confirmation. In his telling, the same community that had revered Einor now treated her as an enemy whose punishment could avenge its violated faith and its lost children.

The Lynching and the Curse

The villagers tortured Einor and demanded a confession. Woolgar says that his pleas for the punishment to stop were weak and ultimately ceased. Under sustained violence, Einor confessed to witchcraft, but Woolgar admits that he wanted the accusation to be true and was ready to accept the confession as confirmation. His account thus exposes how the confession could serve the crowd’s need for vengeance, while relieving him of confronting the crimes he had helped commit.

The mob took Einor to a nearby ditch for the ordeal and then hanged her from a young oak, burning her beneath it. As she died, she cursed Woolgar and everyone present—men, women, and children—as well as their descendants. She also cursed the name of Mary; Woolgar cannot determine whether she meant the Virgin Mary or the reigning queen, Mary Tudor. The curse gives the execution a reach beyond the immediate gathering: the condemned woman names both the crowd and its future generations as its targets.

Woolgar’s account of the execution is inseparable from his guilt. He recalls his failure to intervene, and admits that the villagers’ violence continued even as he recognized that it had gone beyond any punishment he could control. His testimony does not make him a detached observer of the lynching. He helped set the crowd in motion, concealed his own involvement with Einor, and watched as the accusation he had promoted became a public killing.

Disturbance, Flight, and Official Explanation

Woolgar interprets the moment of Einor’s death as the release of an evil force. He reports that the sky darkened, the ground trembled, and stones fell from the nearby church. He also describes seeing the earth open and infernal creatures emerge, though later authorities do not confirm those visions. The distinction matters: the chronicle places supernatural horror alongside events that other witnesses reportedly described more narrowly as a thunderstorm, low dark clouds, and damage to the church. Woolgar’s account preserves his conviction, but also his fear and compromised state of mind.

After fleeing the scene, Woolgar took refuge in the church crypt and hid there for three days. His father’s servants eventually found him; afterward, he was confined at his father’s house while physicians tried to calm him. His father and a Bishop told him that the people of Banfield remembered Einor as having confessed to witchcraft and the murder of the children, and as having cursed them before her death. They did not accept his account of demons or a pit opening in the ground. Instead, they attributed his visions to drugs Einor had given him and to a mind made ill. Woolgar continued to insist that he had witnessed something real, but the account leaves that claim unresolved.

Aftermath and the Chronicle’s Purpose

Woolgar was removed from Banfield and assigned to serve at St. Peter’s Church on his father’s estate. He understood the move as both protection and exclusion: the Prioress did not welcome him back, and his father’s influence helped determine where he would live and serve. Repairs were made to St. Joseph’s Church, with the damage explained as a lightning strike. The account also says that the church chest, containing parish records, was transferred to St. Peter’s. Woolgar suspects that his father wanted to inspect those records for material that might disgrace the family, but claims that the hidden account of Einor’s death escaped that search.

The chronicle presents itself as a warning written for future readers, although Woolgar’s confession is shaped by self-exculpation as well as remorse. He describes Einor as the source of his corruption, yet concedes that his own will had to participate; he condemns the crowd, yet admits that he helped incite it and failed to stop its violence. That tension makes the lynching more than a tale of a curse following an execution. It is also a record of how religious authority, local grievance, social influence, and a desire to escape blame converge in a killing—and of how the witness’s account remains unsettled between historical testimony and the visions of a man others called mad.