Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

I've shared stories about ghosts.  I've shared stories about witches.  It's not often that you see the two combined.   The "Glasgow Daily Record," September 10, 1928:

The "ghost" of an old woman, reputed to be a witch, who died two years ago, is said to have been seen by many people in the Cambridgeshire village of Horseheath, and, in consequence, women and children are afraid to leave their homes after dark. 

While she lived in Horseheath, " Mother Redcap," as the "witch" was known, had a sinister reputation, and the ghost seems determined to live up to this record. The apparition is said to have shaken its fist in the faces of villagers whom it has met at night, and generally to have behaved in a very menacing manner.

Remarkable tales are told in the village about the old woman. 

"She was employed at a farm," a villager stated. "One day a black man called, produced a book, and asked her to sign her name in it." 

The woman signed the book, and then the mysterious stranger told her that she would be the mistress of five imps who would carry out her orders.

Shortly afterwards the woman was seen out accompanied by a rat, a cat, a toad, a ferret. and a mouse. When she died, her "imps" were killed, it is said, and buried with her in her coffin.

I couldn't find much more about "Mother Redcap," but apparently Horseheath was a village with a strong tradition of witchcraft that lasted well into the 20th century.  It may still exist, for all I know.