Rev F G Scrimner, writes from Sutcombe Rectory to the ‘Western Morning Fews’ –

North Devon is full of strange folklores and beliefs (we won’t call them supertitions). On Sunday the Parish Church of Sutcombe, a small village between Holsworthy and Hartland, was the scene of a revival of an interesting old faith cure.

A woman in the parish has of late been a sufferer from epileptic fits, and at the persuasion of a neighbour who 19 years ago had done the same thing and had not suffered fits since, she went round the parish and got 30 married men to promise to attend the Parish Church at the morning service. It was a gratifying sight to see so large a congregation, drawn together out of sympathy for a neighbour and a desire to do anything she thought might help her. At the close of the service the Rector desired the selected men to pass one by one, and as they passed through the porch they found the woman seated there, accompanied by the neighbour who had done the same thing 19 years ago (as many who were present remembered). Each man as he passed out put a penny in the woman’s lap, but when the thirtieth man (the rector’s churchwarden) came he took the 29 pennies and put in half-a-crown.

A silver ring is to be made out of this half-crown, which the woman is to wear, and it is hoped that the result will be as satisfactory in her case as it was on the previous occasion.

In a small parish (less than 300 population) it was not easy to find 30 married men, but all were willing to help – farmers, labourers, and tradesmen – and the whole incident passed off very quietly, and all was done with the utmost reverence and decorum. The woman takes her seat in the porch when the preacher begins his sermon, and from the time she leaves her house until she returns she must not speak a word. We have not heard whether she complied with this condition.

Can any of your readers furnish me with the details of any similar case?

Gazette article dated 15 May 1906