FOUR people buried 450 years ago in an English parish had been scared to death by FAIRIES, a historic document has revealed.

Seven were “bewitched” and one was led to a pond to drown by a will o’ the wisp — a ghostly light.

They are among the causes of death in the burial register for the parish of Lamplugh in Cumbria between the years 1656 to 1663 — which even recorded that “Mrs Lamplugh’s cordial water” claimed two lives.

Details were revealed yesterday after it was found in the county’s archives — showing that 17th-century England was a deeply superstitious and often brutal place.

Archivist Anne Rowe said: “I’ve never come across anything like this.

“These were insecure social times and many folk in the 17th century would have been scared of fairies and will o’ the wisps with many a natural death being put down to the evil witchcraft of a harmless old widow.”

The manuscript, a later copy of the original, was found in Whitehaven during a national local history campaign.

It claims four people were “frighted to death by faries” while another died after being “led into a horse pond by a will of the whisp’.

Three “old women” were drowned for witchcraft. Seven men were hanged for “clipping and coyning” — counterfeiting money — one man “broke his neck robbing a hen roost” while others died following the popular pursuits stag hunting, cockfighting and bull baiting.

A drunken duel “fought with frying pan and pitchforks” killed another man, while a second using “a 3-footed stool and a brown jug” as weapons claimed another.

However, the most common cause of death was old age, claiming 57. Eleven died after they “took cold sleeping at church’ — a dig at the length of the rector’s sermons, said local expert Anne.

She said the document was genuine but might not be “entirely serious”.

She added: “I’m not sure whether to attribute this list to our ancestors’ superstitions — or sense of humour!”