1291 – Wax Poppet with black headed pins

Physical description:

Flat, yellowish wax poppet, partly melted head, with 7 black headed pins driven into stomach.

Museum classification:

Curses

Size:

123x60x30

Information:

Original text by Cecil Williamson: In this glass box are a selection of poppet dolls as one finds them up and down the counties of Devon and Cornwall. The string-line figure is not a common type and the one made from bamboo sticks is a strange poppet, being a love doll made by the Egyptian mistress of a Devon- born navy man. A tale with a sad ending 1944. Plymouth.
Another text by Cecil Williamson reads: 'Wax figure made by a French wise woman. In practice the next stage of the operation would be to slowly melt the figure in front of a naked flame.

This object was loaned to Wiltshire Museum in 2022 for an exhibition about Thomas Hardy (there are frequent references to folk magic in his books).

Returned October 2022

Resource:

Object

Materials:

Wax and metal pins

Original text by Cecil Williamson: In this glass box are a selection of poppet dolls as one finds them up and down the counties of Devon and Cornwall. The string-line figure is not a common type and the one made from bamboo sticks is a strange poppet, being a love doll made by the Egyptian mistress of a Devon- born navy man. A tale with a sad ending 1944. Plymouth.
Another text by Cecil Williamson reads: 'Wax figure made by a French wise woman. In practice the next stage of the operation would be to slowly melt the figure in front of a naked flame.

This object was loaned to Wiltshire Museum in 2022 for an exhibition about Thomas Hardy (there are frequent references to folk magic in his books).

Returned October 2022