Molly Leigh, Molly Leigh,
chase me 'round the apple tree.
(Children's rhyme)
If you should happen to go to the churchyard of St. John the Baptist in Burslem, Staffordshire, you'll have no difficulty picking out the grave of Molly Leigh, the witch of Burslem (1685-1748). Unlike all the other graves, it's laid out North-South instead of East-West.
But let's let Sybil Leek tell the story:
The local witches asked for permission to erect a regular tombstone for Molly Leigh. This request was refused, but a few days later, a rough tombstone had been erected. The local witches had dragged the altar stones from their Sabbat meeting place several miles away and made a crude tomb. No one dared move the stones. The grave can be seen today with the strange rough stones piled over it at the very edge of the churchyard of St. John's in Burslem (21).
Like many of Sybil's stories, this one doesn't quite hold together. Through all the permission-asking and stone-dragging, wouldn't the witches have been outing themselves? What did they do for an altar at Sabbat after they'd moved the stones?
When I first heard this story back in the late 60s, I envisioned—per Sybil's description—something rude and megalithic. Quite other is the real thing, though: sculptured, architectural almost. Well, witches have always been good at Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle. That must have been quite some Sabbat meeting place, though.
In fact, Sybil has grafted her story of the Old Religion onto local folklore. Grafting, of course, is something else witches have always been good at. How, though, did the local children, with their macabre game of tag around the grave, know that the altar's secret name was the Apple Tree?
In the old days, few witches received an identifiable grave. One might expect that Molly's would have become something of a pilgrimage destination for modern witches.
To judge by the flowers regularly left at the grave—you can see some in the photo above—it has. If you like, you too can leave a virtual flower on her grave's webpage.
I left a spray of Sunwort there myself, with a poem: