Paper short abstract:

History is negotiated and represented in diverse and contested ways. Narratives generated around the display and burial of the skeleton of Joan Wytte provide a lens to examine how the past is used to help shape senses of meaning and identity in the world through materiality, place and narrative.

Paper long abstract:

The skeleton of Joan Wytte was displayed in the Museum of Witchcraft in Cornwall in the UK for several decades until her eventual burial in nearby woodland in the autumn of 1999. Her earthly remains proved a valuable focus for many visitors to the museum in search of tangible threads to magical histories. Described as 'the fighting fairy woman of Bodmin', her story has been deployed as a critical historical source for over 50 years: as a demonstrable link between Cornwall and magical histories, as an ancestral connection for contemporary pagan practitioners, and as inspiration for a folkloric performance that explores the story of the healer-witch.

This paper explores the ways that place, materiality, and narrative are enmeshed as people shape their lives and worlds. It is well established that the past is recorded and represented through narratives, artefacts and events in multiple and diverse ways, and museums are often idealised sites for representation. Nevertheless, narratives are contingent on current needs and agendas, and are often contested. Through retelling over time, or across different interested groups, certain elements are highlighted or downplayed, or notions of continuity are reified. Since the burial, the life and death of Joan Wytte has become vividly invested with new meanings as her story becomes incorporated into the landscapes of folklore, Cornish histories, and magical practices. At the same time, evidence for Joan's identity is also under scrutiny, which may raise further questions for the ambiguous territory between everyday perception of folklore, history and the past.