Sibella Cottle
Sibella Cottle was the mistress of Sir Henry Lynch-Blosse, 7th Baronet (popularly known as Sir Harry) of Balla, County Mayo, Ireland. His family conformed to Protestantism in the mid-18th century[1]. Sibella had seven children by him each of whom was left a generous legacy in their father's will of 1788[2].
Sibella was portrayed by Matthew Archdeacon as uneducated and a ‘professed woman of pleasure[3].’ T. H. Nally maintained she was not a peasant but joined Sir Harry as a governess from a local Big House[4].
Sir Harry was urged to dump Sibella and marry a woman of his own class and religion. Sibella responded by commissioning a powerful love charm, the spancel of death (an buarach bháis). The spancel was ‘an unbroken hoop of skin cut with incantations from a corpse across the entire body from shoulder to footsole and wrapped in silk of the colours of the rainbow and used as a spancel to tie the legs of a person to produce certain effects of witchcraft.[5]’ The spancel was made by Judy Holian, an bean feasa (a woman of knowledge and wisdom), reputedly a local witch. It was guaranteed to spellbind Sir Harry for life.
Whether the spancel was ever used is not known. What we do know is that Sir Harry, who died young in 1788 remained faithful to Sibella and their seven children. Her fate and that of her children is explored in a work of historical fiction by Paul B McNulty of Ireland. The novel is provisionally entitled Spellbound by Sibella.[citation needed]
References
- ^ McNulty, Paul, ‘The genealogy of the Anglo-Norman Lynches who settled in Galway’, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, 2010, volume 60, pages 30-50; Eileen O'Byrne, editor, The convert rolls, IMC, Dublin, 1981, p 16.
- ^ Nicholls, K. W., ‘The Lynch Blosse Papers’, Analecta Hibernica, 1980, volume 28, pages 113-219.
- ^ Archdeacon, Matthew, Legends of Connaught, Irish Stories, etc, Dublin, 1839, 406 pages (available National Library of Ireland).
- ^ Nally, Thomas H., Papers, Collection List No. 104, Ms 36,213, item 4, Letter to William Butler Yeats, 9 January 1916, National Library of Ireland, [1]; Dalsimer, Adele, [2] ‘The Spancel of Death: a play by T. H. Nally,’ Irish Studies, New York, 1983, 21 pages (available National Library of Ireland).
- ^ MacLochlainn, Alf, ‘Father Dinneen and His Dictionary,’ Studies: an Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 91, No. 361 (Spring, 2002), page 74,[3].