1638 – Tree sprite protection doll

Physical description:

Figure of elf or tree sprite made of leather, wearing a leather tunic with a fringed collar and a pointed hat, and holding a broom.

Museum classification:

Modern Witchcraft

Size:

420 x 90 x 60

Information:

This figure was originally donated to the museum in 1994/5 by a lady from Plymouth, after several people she knew felt it had a sinister or unlucky quality. She had been given it by an old lady who had bought it from an antique shop during the Second World War. Cecil Williamson identified it as a tree sprite.  He speculated that it was a protection doll for a young girl who would probably have been sent to the Big House to work. It's dress, though faded now was a bright green and she would have held a besom broom in one hand and a pail in the other (she still hold the besom but the brush has almost disappeared). She was wearing 2 capes and jewellery (denoting a superior sprite). He found the hair under her cap to have been red in colour.

The overlarge feet denote the story of the little bigfoot (Where people from the Big House walk over the Little people). 

Cecil had given this sprite to his dear friend Brownie Pate, and it was returned to the museum in 2006 as part of a collection of Brownie's estate bequeathed to the museum after her passing.

Resource:

Object

Materials:

Leather, wood

Copyright ownership:

Treetrunk Ltd

This figure was originally donated to the museum in 1994/5 by a lady from Plymouth, after several people she knew felt it had a sinister or unlucky quality. She had been given it by an old lady who had bought it from an antique shop during the Second World War. Cecil Williamson identified it as a tree sprite.  He speculated that it was a protection doll for a young girl who would probably have been sent to the Big House to work. It's dress, though faded now was a bright green and she would have held a besom broom in one hand and a pail in the other (she still hold the besom but the brush has almost disappeared). She was wearing 2 capes and jewellery (denoting a superior sprite). He found the hair under her cap to have been red in colour.

The overlarge feet denote the story of the little bigfoot (Where people from the Big House walk over the Little people). 

Cecil had given this sprite to his dear friend Brownie Pate, and it was returned to the museum in 2006 as part of a collection of Brownie's estate bequeathed to the museum after her passing.