The Wicked Nuns of St Mary’s

This is an approximate transcript of storytelling gig I performed recently in a Medieval church in Suffolk (England). We’re talking history, folklore, and demonology spiced with a large dose of imagination…

Let me tell you a story about the Wicked Nuns of St Mary’s in the centre of the Suffolk town of Bungay — and also of what really lies beneath the so-called Druid’s Stone in the churchyard.

Today St Mary’s church is no longer used for religious services but back in Middle Ages — so from about 900 years ago until King Henry the Eighth’s Dissolution of the Monasteries about 500 years ago — St Mary’s was a priory housing nuns belonging to the Benedictine Order. If you head out into the churchyard to the rear of the building, so can still see some of the ruins of the old priory buildings.

Ah… nuns, you say, nice little ladies who have dedicated their lives to religion and good works. EXCEPT this was definitely not the case in the Middle Ages. Instead, convents, nunneries, and priories were places where the local gentry and wealthier merchants would dump their teenage daughters who were either unmarriageable — or else their families were unwilling to spend money on their dowries. That said, as their daughters were to become ‘Brides of Christ’ they still had to pay the convent some money.

Not unexpectedly these young nuns did not take too kindly to being locked away in a convent — particularly those who had already enjoyed, let’s just say, the fruits of the flesh. Add in the fact many of these young nuns would have also been suffering raging hormones and sexual frustration and you’ll not be surprised to learn that their behaviour often left a lot to be desired.

How do we know this! Because the Church authorities — and in Bungay it would have been the Bishop of Norwich’s officials used to conduct regular inspections — called ‘Visitations’ — and we still have some of the records of what they found. One visitation to Bungay Priory found instances of:

“Gluttony, Gambling, Drunkenness, Disobedience, Slothfulness, Idleness, Insolence, Impropriety, Failure to attend Church Services, Not Sleeping in their Dormitory, Lechery, Licentiousness, Lewdness, Wantonness — and even Fornicating with Local Boys.”

And if you think Bungay Priory was bad, the situation seems to have been even worse just down the road at nearby Flixton Priory. There the Prioress was accused in embezzling priory funds — spending far too long in the company of her Chaplain — a male priest — including going with him on overnight trips away from the priory. Use your own imagination to guess what they got up to, but we can assume they did more than feel each other’s Rosary beads.

As for the young nuns the Prioress was meant to be supervising, there were complaints that when they were not sharing their beds with other nuns, they were sharing their beds with young men from the local villages. And then there were the dogs… The nuns of this era were notorious for keeping pet lapdogs and puppies. In fact, there were so many dogs at Flixton that their barking often disrupted church services.

What was the cause of all this wicked behaviour by the nuns? As already mentioned, these convents were a writhing stew of sexual tension. But there was also alcohol involved. Records from the Middle Ages reveal that the average nun drank 56 pints of beer a week — that’s 8 pints a day, every day.

However, let’s not forget that on special occasions, including religious festivals, holy days and saints days — and a place like Bungay Priory would celebrate at least a dozen during the course of the year — plus Sundays of course, the nuns would also drink wine with their meals.

They would have been so sozzled it’s hardly surprising they were accused of being drunk, idle, slothful and failing to attend church services — and we can only applaud their stamina that they were still able to pursue the sins of Gluttony, Gambling, Disobedience, Insolence, Impropriety, Lechery, Licentiousness, Lewdness, Wantonness — and Fornicating with Local Boys.

BUT… could there have been another cause for their bad behaviour? Perhaps the nuns of St Mary’s Priory had been tempted by demonic forces? But what sort of demonic force? In fact, there are tales from across Europe in the Medieval period of priories, abbeys, and monasteries being plagued by a type of demon called an Abbey Lubber — that’s like land Lubber but with abbey as the prefix.

These lubbers were demons who would take possession of nuns and monks who were in a position to tempt other members of the religious community into the sins of the flesh. Typically, they were the cellarers — the people in charge of the beer and wine cellars — or the refectorians — the people in charge of the food in the kitchens.

You can just imagine the scenario: “Another piece of pie, Sister? And perhaps another flagon of ale to go with it? I’m sure nobody will notice if you miss midnight mass tonight.”

Gradually the Abbey Lubbers would tempt more and more members of the community into sinful ways — and as they did so, they would grow ever more stronger until the poor individual they had possessed ceased to exist.

But there was a way to defeat an Abbey Lubber.

First you needed an exorcist or demon slayer who could create a demon trap. This involved cutting a stave of blackthorn at sunrise — splitting it at the top — then forcing the sides apart with loops of iron. Next, in the centre of the stave you would place a candle that had been blessed by a priest.

Next thing, and I know it’s beginning to sound like a Blue Peter project but there’s no sticky-back plastic involved, you take a ball of red wool or twine and wind it around the thorns to create a mesh-like net. Finally, last thing at night, you place the demon trap where you think the Abbey Lubber is most likely to lurk — in the kitchens or wine cellar — and light the candle.

The next day you examine the red wool net looking for a large moth, perhaps one of those Deaths Head moths or bug, such as a cockchafer beetle — some people call them Billy Witches — that fly around making that creepy clicking noise with their wings, or even a small toad that has become trapped in it overnight — for these are just some of the forms an Abbey Lubber takes when it is not manifesting itself as a human being.

What you do next is carefully cut the red wool trapping the bug or moth then drop both the bug and wool into a bottle while changing the following words:

Thread, tie up this sprite

Free us from its spite

Tangle up the bane

Let not a piece remain

Then you drop into the bottle some pins, needles, rosemary and wine — the pins and needles are to impale the evil, the wine drowns it, and the rosemary sends it back to Hell.

Finally, you place a cork in the top of the bottle, seal it with candle wax and bury it.

That my friends is what really lies beneath the Druid’s Stone in the churchyard at St Mary’s Bungay. A medieval demon slayer once captured an Abbey Lubber, trapped it in a bottle, then buried it forever beneath a large block of stone.

This also explains the legend surrounding the Druid’s Stone, namely that if a young woman dances around the stone 12 times at midnight — in an anti-clockwise or widdershins direction — she’ll hear the answer to any question she might ask. Such as “Does my boyfriend really love me?” Or “When will I be married?” Although today a more likely question may be “Will I ever get a face-to-face appointment with my doctor?”

The legend says it is the fairies who answer the question — but it’s not — it’s the Abbey Lubber — and it always lies, so don’t believe a word it says.