Tylor's Bewitched Onion
Among the curious treasures of the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford is this preserved onion, supposedly used for sympathetic magic - which is not as kindly as it sounds. Anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor produced it as evidence of wizardry done by the landlord of the Barley Mow pub in Rockwell Green, Somerset, in 1891. This essay on the onion has the full story, along with other tales attached to a witch's ladder made of cock feathers; an infant's caul used as a sailor's charm, and a slug impaled on a thorn said to cure warts. All part of "England: The Other Within", an analysis of the collections to "gain a picture of Englishness". Pub sorcery, magic onions and lucky amniotic sacks - yes, that seems to cover it.
