“Soon after the appearance of this person a young woman named Marie Clément declared ‘her blood was frozen in her veins.'”

No matter how advanced the world becomes in a variety of ways–our world included–plenty of people still cling to superstition, whether it be religion or medical quackery or what have you. The opening of a story from an article in the May 4, 1922 New York Times, which reported on fears of witchcraft in a decade known for automobiles and flappers:

“Paris–Witchcraft, a demon-haunted village, people possessed by devils and final exorcism of the evil spirits by a priest are features of a strange story of peasant superstition that reaches the Matin today from a tiny hamlet on an island off the Breton coast. The epilogue to the story is more prosaic–intervention of the police authorities of twentieth century France and the arraignment of the dreaded sorceress before a modern court of justice.

The distress and terror which fell on the village of Tyhair were traced directly by the frightened inhabitants to the invasion of the island by a strange woman popularly known by the name of the Witch de Grach. Soon after the appearance of this person a young woman named Marie Clément declared ‘her blood was frozen in her veins,’ Her father was next affected, his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth when he attempted to speak. Soon after the father of Marie’s fiancé found his cattle wasting away and the milk drying up. Clément was accused by his neighbor of having cast a spell over the cattle and the two families were embroiled in a feud.

The other inhabitants having had troubles of their own took to the side of Clément, declaring the distress of the village was due to the sorceress who had turned loose devils. These devils, after working evil, they declared, always disappeared in ratholes.”