Daughters of the Witching Hill: A Novel
4/5
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About this ebook
From the author of The Dark Lady, a novel of England’s trial of the Pendle witches of 1612 and a family struggling to survive the hysteria.
Bess Southerns, an impoverished widow living in Pendle Forest, is haunted by visions and gains a reputation as a cunning woman. Drawing on the Catholic folk magic of her youth, Bess heals the sick and foretells the future. As she ages, she instructs her granddaughter, Alizon, in her craft, as well as her best friend, who ultimately turns to dark magic. When a peddler suffers a stroke after exchanging harsh words with Alizon, a local magistrate, eager to make his name as a witch finder, plays neighbors and family members against one another until suspicion and paranoia reach frenzied heights.
This e-book includes a sample chapter of Illuminations.
“Daughters of the Witching Hill offers a fresh approach with witches who believe in their own power and yet, in many ways, are still innocent. Sharratt’s readers—like the magistrate who took the women’s confessions—are likely to be spellbound by their stories.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Full of the reality of the day, this story is stark and real, but Sharratt’s descriptions of landscape and the daily life of the poor at the time are rich enough to feed the senses. The author weaves this vast canvas of changing culture into the personal stories of these women, and in the process transports us to a distant land, a distant time—and deep into the story of people we sympathize with and care about.”—Minneapolis Star-TribuneMary Sharratt
MARY SHARRATT, the author of seven critically acclaimed novels, is on a mission to write strong women back into history. Her novels include Daughters of the Witching Hill, the Nautilus Award–winning Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen,The Dark Lady’s Mask: A Novel of Shakespeare’s Muse, and Ecstasy, about the life, loves, and music of Alma Mahler. She is an American who lives in Lancashire, England.
Read more from Mary Sharratt
Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Vanishing Point: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Real Minerva: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ecstasy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Revelations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Lady's Mask: A Novel of Shakespeare's Muse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for Daughters of the Witching Hill
176 ratings28 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent read, incredibly engrossing, and it provided plenty food for thought throughout and after. I loved the books ability to capture the sort of folk magic bound up in ‘the old religion’ and the stark and often bleak contrast found in upheaval of English society in the 16th century. The characters I could really get behind, so many strong women and interesting voices. The book covers many years and it’s narrative voice switches between two women in the same family, and I really loved both protagonists. It felt like a very believable account of a historical event and weeks later I am still reflecting on these witch trials (which I previously knew nothing about and now am humbled by). Vivid, magical, heartbreaking, captivating - I highly recommend. Historical fiction at its finest.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Based on a true story this book gives a look into the lives of so called witched in England. Elizabeth Southerns and her granddaughter Aliza Device are unforgettable and brave people who endured more than any person should. It is an ugly part of the past but one that needs never be forgotten. Highly Recommended.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fascinating novelistic account of the Pendle witches.This is a fictionalised account of the demise of the witches of Pendle Forest in Lancashire. It follows three generations of one family who use medicinal herbs and Catholic prayers to heal the sick and offer comfort to the ailing.There are also spirit guides who apparently perform the magical parts of the witchery and I have to admit to finding this aspect a bit far fetched.Unfortunately their activities were particularly unpopular during the time of King James I. He outlawed Catholicism and had a vendetta against all forms of witchcraft, both good and evil.The two main characters were Bess Southers, known as Mother Demdike, and her granddaughter Alizon Device, and the book is narrated by both. Their lives were hard, little more than subsistence, and they were paid for their services in food and clothing. There was also a lot of emphasis on cursing and using witchcraft for evil doing, which gave the 'white witches' a bad name.I enjoyed the book, though it dragged a little at times. The imprisonment, trial and ultimate hanging of the Pendle witches was interesting, though somehow lacking in tension. For me the best aspect of the book was the description of life in Pendle Forest at that time, particularly the interactions between the rich and poor, and the way that witchcraft was intimately woven into the beliefs of both.Other witch related books I have read:The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent (4 stars)The Oracle Glass by Judith Merkle Riley (3 stars)The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry (3.5 stars)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bess Southerns, an impoverished widow living in Pendle Forest, is haunted by visions and gains a reputation as a cunning woman. Drawing on the Catholic folk magic of her youth, Bess heals the sick and foretells the future. As she ages, she instructs her granddaughter, Alizon, in her craft, as well as her best friend, who ultimately turns to dark magic.When a peddler suffers a stroke after exchanging harsh words with Alizon, a local magistrate, eager to make his name as a witch finder, plays neighbors and family members against one another until suspicion and paranoia reach frenzied heights.My Thoughts:So far this book is the best I have read about the events leading up to and including the Pendle Witch Trails. The story is dark and atmospheric and it is quite obvious that the author has done her research. Some of the story I knew, some I didn’t. What I did find is that most of the book is about the women who were involved in the trails and there was very little on the trials itself. Only the last quarter of the book focused on the imprisonment of the women and the court trails itself. The rest of the book is about the women’s daily lives. I would have liked to have read a little bit more of the trails itself perhaps in a little more detail.The book had plenty to keep me interested and I din’t find it boring. What I think is that by leaving the trails till the very end, I was engrossed with the lives of the women that by the time of the trails I felt that the women could have been my friends and neighbours. By this point in the book I was really behind the women and I knew what was coming and do nothing about it ( hope this makes sense )A very thought provoking book with plenty of historical detail and up to yet the best book I have read about the Pendle witches.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/53.5 stars
The book is told through the eyes of two persons: Bess (first half) and Alizon (second half). While I liked it told from first person narrative but the characters didn’t come alive to me. You can see that the autohor has done her research but it also slows done the book with going on , and on, and on about their daily lives. I’ve never heard of the Pendle witches before and I’d like to hear more about the actual trials.
I don’t know much about that time period and it was interesting to read about common people of that time but I also think that it slowed down the book a little particularly in the beginning. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rating: 3.75 StarsDaughters of the Witching Hill brings history to life in a vivid and wrenching account of a family sustained by love as they try to survive the hysteria of a witch-hunt.Based on actual accounts of the 1612 Lancashire witch trials, Daughters of the Witching Hill tells the tale of cunning woman Bess Southerns, and the talents she passes on to her granddaughter, Alizon. Bess doesn't discover her power until late in life, when her familiar, Tibb, appears to her in the form of a handsome young man. At first, Bess welcomes the opportunity to earn wages and food for her starving family by using her magic for healing. And at first her talents are welcomed by her friends and neighbors, too, and Bess rises to a position of admiration and respect."Cunning craft is well different from witchcraft," he said. "Every fool knows that."Yes, everyone appreciates the talents of a gifted healer, that is until the weather turns, or a bit of bad luck occurs, or someone dies of an unknown affliction, and suddenly there's not much difference between a cunning woman and a witch after all. Events unfold slowly and purposefully as suspicion mounts among the residents of the forest, as fear of witchcraft itself and the fear of being accused of witchcraft finds neighbor turning on neighbor, and family loyalties tested as the line between light and dark is blurred. This book has some spooky elements that raised the hair on the back of my neck a few times and always present, lying underneath the surface, is the tension of a formerly Catholic village forced to submit to the new religion under Elizabeth, and later James I, who played a large role in inciting the seventeenth-century witchcraft frenzy. I liked this book. Told in the pleasant and humble voice of Bess and later in the confused and more forceful voice of Alizon, the story has a mystical quality, and the historical context, period detail and rich prose enhance that feeling. My main complaint would be that the narrative moves too slowly, and then when it does finally heat up it it leads to an inevitable, yet undesireable conclusion that just didn't hold resonance for me.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I suppose you could call this a creative retelling of a historical event. The author took a primary document, which sounds very detailed for the time (during the rule of James I of England) and imagined the lives of the characters within.The imagery is very good, and the characters fully fleshed out. It started a little slow, with the grandmother as narrator, with her discovery of her "powers" and her familiar. It's somewhat easy to see all the pieces assembled for the endgame even at the beginning of the story, which I suppose would be difficult to obscure given the foregone nature of the event (which is mentioned obliquely on the back cover blurb). But even with the set things that have to happen, the characters don't seem like their actions are forced. It seems only natural that the people would behave as they do. For people living in that time period, anything unusual could be construed as magic, and anything frightening could be shown as proof that the Devil had shown his face.I'm not quite sure that Liza's daughter Jennet was given quite a good enough reason to betray her whole family, but the way she grew up is completely alien to me, so perhaps if my home had seen so much misfortune perhaps I could relate.The author manages to write it so sometimes you could believe that the cunning ones were truly working magic, while leaving clues that it could only be unfortunate coincidence. The scenes of incarceration at the end were moving and bittersweet, even more so when you realized that the prisoners had no respite and no way to defend themselves against the system that had already condemned them. It makes me glad to know we live in more enlightened times, when we know the symptoms of a stroke without calling it a curse and realize that living in clean environments can prevent disease. If you like historical fiction, give this a try. It's a little depressing at the end, given what has to happen to coincide with the historical record, but the writing is very good, with the characters each having individual voices and sounding appropriate to the period.Full disclosure: I received this book through Goodread's First Read program.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I've read other books about witch trials, but mostly what happened in Salem. This book is just as heartbreaking of course. The author did a great job of bringing the characters to life and giving them personality. It's easy to see how a small community could easily turn on itself in the wake of superstition. The book is written in the words of two characters. The first half by one and the last half by another. I thought I might not like the changeover, Sharratt was successful at making the transition very smoothly.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5**This is an ARC I received from the Goodreads First Reads program.** This is an amazingly wonderful read. I couldn't put this book down. **possible spoilers**Author Mary Sharratt tells the story of the Daughters of the Witching Hill from the perspective of Bess or Old Demdike as she is known by most in Pendle Forest. Bess, an impoverished widower, becomes a healer or "cunning woman" which lends her some degree of respect amongst her neighbors and a means by which to put food on the table for her growing family. There is a fine line at this time in history, however, between healing and witchcraft and political maneuvering and greed lead many of the poor women (and a few men)of Pendle Forest to be accused of witchcraft. The details of their imprisonment while awaiting trial, and of the trial itself, are told from the perspective of the young Alizon Device.A 5-star read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Though other books have tackled a fictitious account of Lancashire Witchcraft Trials of 1612, Mary Sharratt is the first author among them to give Mother Demdike and her granddaughter, Alizon Device, their own say. Daughters of the Witching Hill is told in two voices. The first section being narrated by Bess Southerns (Mother Demdike) and the second by Alizon. Through this we see how both women viewed their world and their gift of cunning craft. Of course, some liberties were taken with the novel but this is what makes it historical fiction and not a boring textbook (the changes are clearly addressed in Afterword for those interested). Mary writes with such a beautiful, yet subtle, poetic flair that I was utterly transfixed in this late sixteenth century world, and nearly read the book in one sitting. Take this line from page 126 for instance, "His was the might concealed in the tiny purple flowers of nightshade." Gorgeously vivid. On par with her prose, is her painstaking attention to historical detail. Even the most minute of particulars is included to fully immerse the reader in Mother Demdike's world and time. Daughters of the Witching Hill is an engrossing and emotional look at a horrible period of upheaval and change in England's history, all brought to a roaring crescendo by King James I and his vendetta against the supernatural and Catholicism.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The book is told through the eyes of two persons: Bess (first half) and Alizon (second half). While I liked it told from first person narrative but the characters didn’t come alive to me. You can see that the autohor has done her research but it also slows done the book with going on , and on, and on about their daily lives. I’ve never heard of the Pendle witches before and I’d like to hear more about the actual trials.I don’t know much about that time period and it was interesting to read about common people of that time but I also think that it slowed down the book a little particularly in the beginning.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The major characters and events are based on the 1612 Lancashire witch trials. In this documented case, seven women and two men from Pendle Forest were hanged as witches. The author brings history to life.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bess Southerns is a charmer, a wise woman, a healer - trained in the forbidden folk magic of the Catholic church. By helping her neighbors she risks bringing the law down on not only herself, but her family and friends. We watch as she has a family, some that stand by her and some that leave because they fear her skills. We follow the family through her daughter and her granddaughter.When a neighbor accuses someone of witchcraft, however, the hunt for witches begins and Bess finds her family under scrutiny. This was an interesting look into not only the way the lower class lived, but also how the fear of witches could be contagious, drawing many innocents in along with the guilty.The book could have been a tad bit shorter. There were a few times I had to set it down because I felt that it had stalled and I needed a break from it.3.5/5
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Daughters of the Witching Hill is a beautifully written and well-researched story - a fictional account of real-life events during the Pendle witch hunt. Mary Sharratt weaves a spell-binding story, rich in detail and utterly engrossing. Despite its morbid subject matter, I could not put this book down. Sharratt explores the decisions and motivations that lead up to the witch hunt in an easily readable voice. Daughters of the Witching Hill offers the reader a deeply emotional chronicle of a group of people struggling to endure in a time of terrible persecution. It is a wonderful novel of historical fiction, with realistic characters and rich historical details. The story is truly heartbreaking, especially when you consider the real events it is based upon. Daughters of the Witching Hill is a dense and vivid read, and one that anyone interested in good historical fiction should pick up.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharratt's book is one of the best books to come out of the recent "witch craze" in publishing. It is based on the trial records of the accused witches of Lancashire county, England in the time of James I. The book follows a coherent pattern which makes it easy to understand and the writing is wonderful and brings the time period and the characters to life for the reader. She begins with Mother Demdike who is a cunning woman, but who also has a strange relationship with a "familiar". Demdike's powers for healing are passed on to her daughter and granddaughter in varying degrees. The tragedy occurs as James I obsession with witches causes men in search of power and influence to exploit these simple people. Ms Sharratt truly captures the essense of a time before technology when people attempted to understand and control some aspects of their lives such as disease, poverty, and political change. It is one book that I intend to add to my personal library. Highly recommended.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Author Mary Sharrat moved to the Pendle region in England seven years ago. On learning the history of the area, she began to research the infamous 1612 Pendle Witch trials. Based on actual court transcripts from that time, Daughters of the Witching Hill was born.Sharrat has chosen Bess, also known as Mother Demdike as the main character. She lives with her daughter, son and granddaughters in the Pendle Forest. They are impoverished, but as Bess begins to discover her powers to heal sick animals and humans alike, to predict the future, their lot in life improves. Bess focuses only on helping and healing. Her grand-daughter Alizon also seems to have the gift. Mother Demdike's childhood friend Anne begs her to teach her the 'cunning' ways. But Anne is not honourable as Mother Demdike. She begins to use dark magic to take revenge on others. Situations escalate until Mother Demdike and 11 others stand accused of witchcraft by a man determined to make his name as a witch finder.Sharratt paints a detailed picture of the landscape and society at the time. The hand to mouth existence of the less fortunate and the obligation of those better off to help - as they see fit. Everyday details of homes and chores bring the locale to life. But it is the relationships between the women themselves that are the focal point. Mother Demdike is an incredibly strong woman. Her fortitude, her beliefs, her desire to do the right thing make her a strong and sympathetic protagonist. Althoughtthe bond between Mother Demdike and Anne has existed from childhood, I disliked Anne from the very beginning. The second half of the book is told from the viewpoint of Alizon. She does not yet have the control that her grandmother does and this contributes to their downfall. The suspicion that is directed towards Mary and her family is inevitable, but I felt a real sense of sadness, having become quite invested in Mother Demdike and knowing that this had really occurred.I found the differences between 'cunning' and healing and the mental idea we have of 'witches'and magic to be quite interesting. Sharrat has blended fact with fiction to create an absolutely a fascinating, bewitching read, one I couldn't put it down. The end is inevitable, but the journey there is a highly enjoyable one.If you enjoyed The Heretic's Daughter or The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, you'll want to read Daughters of the Witching Hill.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bess Southers lives in Pendle Forest with her small family. A cunning woman she's called by some, by others a witch. A fine line in 16th Century England. She wanders the forest helping to heal animals and people alike, careful not to run afoul of the authorities or tout her powers.Bess's best friend from childhood, Anne, comes seeking her help to protect her daughter from their cruel landlord. Bess, who has only ever used her powers for good, balks at the idea of stirring up evil even if it may lead to good. She knows the path she walks can easily blur but in spite of herself, she agrees to help Anne and instructs her in her spiritual ways. Anne eventually turns to evil, embracing her dark powers and the two once close friends find their friendship broken. As Bess grows older and begins to feel her powers ebb, she longs to teach her granddaughter Alizon and pass down her knowledge. Alizon does not want to learn, knowing full well what people think of her family. It causes her and her grandmother great pain and suffering yet she holds firm to her decision. Unfortunately, Jamie, Bess's grandson, also seems to have inherited some of her abilities. A slow child who has grown into a wayward soul, he doesn't seem to understand the distinction of good and evil and what his abilities are. While Alizon struggles to help control him, she finds out more haunting information about what he may have done, scaring not only herself but also her family. When the witch hunt begins, Bess and her family are arrested knowing full well what can and, probably will happen, to them all.Daughters of the Witching Hill is based on a true account of a witch hunt and trial in Lancaster, England in the early 1600s. Seven women and two men were accused and hanged as witches. The fictionalized version here plays the frenzy and paranoia cards well especially when the hunt gets underway. Accusations fly and neighbors turns against life long friends and family causing everyone to wonder if their closest friends are courting evil. You begin to wonder about the people involved and how they are able to believe something so preposterous.This is first and foremost a story about strong women. Bess stands up to almost everyone and whether it's because of her powers or confidence, you don't know. However, throughout the story, she felt like a stranger to me, but an admirable one. She has an incredible love for her family and she'll do whatever she can to protect them. Alizon on the other hand, was very open and likable, struggling to be strong for her family and hold her own when others want her to be something she cannot fathom.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This had a slow start for me and I actually thought about giving it up, but I'm so glad I didn't because once I got far enough into it the book opened itself up to me like a flower and revealed its stark beauty, sadness, and pain.I didn't know anything about this particular set of witch hunts, but I'm familiar with the time period (and grateful I don't live in it). I've read a lot of books recently where the tension between the old faith (Catholicism) and the new one (Protestantism) has played a key role - it's amazing the things people will burn or hang each other over.What makes this book unique is the beautiful realization of its characters. Sharratt has written women who feel authentic and real in the ways they live their lives - and these are hard lives. I think more than anything I've read in the past this book brought home to me how difficult the lives of these people were, how tenuous their hold on their existence, and how thin the line between life and death. There is nothing remotely romantic about the fight for survival here - life is all begging and hard work, rags on your feet and going to bed hungry and hoping not to bury all of your children. Is it any wonder these people turned to cunning craft to lighten their loads, cure their ills, make their lives brighter?
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beth Southerns is a poor beggar woman who lives in Pendle Forest in Northern England. Desperate to keep her family fed, she draws from the folk magic taught to her as a youth and begins to heal the sick and foretell the future. She draws her power and strength from Tibb, her familiar. As her ancestors taught her, she teaches her granddaughter Alizon in the family “trade.”This family trade is a sensitive one and healers must tread lightly. All it takes is one accusation for them to be cast out as witches. When Alizon uses her powers in a fit of anger, the Southerns women are imprisoned and charged with witchcraft.Daughters of the Witching Hill is more than just a mere tale of witchcraft. It is the story of an incredibly strong family of women, whose future is put in the hands of the local townspeople. Friends become enemies and they are forced to survive by their own strength alone.It is obvious that Sharratt did a great deal of research on this subject. The setting of the story was the author’s own backyard, giving her unique access to historical data. Daughters of the Witching Hill is based on the Pendle witch hunt of the early 1600s. The author paints a very detailed portrait of the lives of these women. They were among twelve others who were imprisoned for their supposed crimes. Nine individuals were ultimately hanged. These victims weren’t witches, but innocent bystanders in a war between old and new religion.Sharratt’s prose was vivid and detailed. It was easy to become engrossed in the setting. Sharratt portrayed extremely powerful and dedicated women, their dedication to family was paramount. There were so many levels to this story. As I read it again in preparation for this review, I uncovered so many details that were missed in my first reading. This is definitely a story that will stick with you. This trait is the sign of a very talented author. This book has encouraged me to find out more about this witch hunt, which took place before the infamous witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts. Sharratt has given the characters a chance to be reborn and a long-forgotten story to be revitalized. I look forward to reading more of Sharratt’s work.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In the late 1500s and early 1600s in the English county of Lancashire in Pendle Forest a cunning woman known by the nickname Old Demdike served the local populace. Demdike, whose real name was Elizabeth Southerne, lived in the ruins of Malkin Tower with her daughter Liza and her grandchildren James (Jamie), Alizon, and Jennet. In 1612 a local magistrate who wished to attain favour with the witch-hating King James mounted a witchhunt in Lancashire. Demdike, along with nineteen others including her daughter and two of her grandchildren, were charged and jailed. While four were acquitted and set free, one was found guilty of bewitching a horse and sentenced to stand in the pillory; Demdike died in prison before her trial and the remaining fourteen accused, including Demdike's daughter and two of her grandchildren, were hung.That is a summary of the facts of the story recorded as part of the very real history of England. Mary Sharratt's touching novel "Daughters of the Witching Hill" adds flesh, blood, and bone to the impersonal facts.The story starts with the narrative told from Old Demdike's point of view. She relates details about her childhood, how life changed as the Kings and Queens of England played their politics transforming the official (legally permitted) religion from Catholicism to Protestantism. We learn how she grew into the role of cunning-woman. We see her as a very real person with real loves, disappointments, and problems which she tries her very best to resolve. And in the background we know that she is doomed thanks to what is really nothing more than politics.The story switches in the last half to the perspective of Alizon, one of Demdike's granddaughters, who was the one destined to carry on her grandmother's Craft and therefore also doomed to face the witchhunters. Alizon is a sympathetic, intelligent, appealing young woman who did amazingly well considering the circumstances. It broke my heart knowing that the end was shrouded in degradation and finally death for all the very loveable main characters.As with any historical novel the author had to speculate about a lot of the details as we don't have anything like personal diaries of the main characters from which the story could be told. Despite that the author's preparation and research were evident – she clearly did her homework in figuring out how life would likely have been for people like Demdike and her neighbors in that period in history. She drew on the trial records to build up a picture of how Demdike likely practiced her cunning-craft, and showed how easy it was to twist evidence to support the claim of Satanic cult activity and destructive magick which was used to condemn the accused."Daughters of the Witching Hill" transported me to a sad time in history and helped me to understand the tragedy of what happened. I cried when it was over because I felt so close to the characters and felt grief over their fates. Thank you Mary Sharratt for bringing Demdike, her family, friends, and neighbors to life for me.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So you know how Salem had a bunch of trials for witches in the 1600s? Well, Daughters of Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt has nothing to do with Salem. It takes place in England, in this place called Pendle Forest. The story is first told in first person through the eyes of Bess Southerns, this old woman who is super poor, like she begs for money and eats bark. Anyways, she gets visited by this familiar and finds out she can do magic and bless things. And whoo-hoo she begins to eat better food, such as oats. Eventually, her granddaughter, Alizon Device takes over narration.Daughters of Witching Hill was definitely not a warm fuzzy story. The characters are impoverished. They eat gross food. They live in the time when England is transitioning from Catholicism to Anglicanism, so there's this frenzy in getting rid of anything that could even so much as hint at the old ways. Instead of church being fun and full of cool things like saints and rosaries, it becomes dour. With the rise of King James I, comes a rise in witch-hunting, as James writes this book on how to catch witches, and well apparently in real life they had 500 witch executions at this time, according to Wikipedia. Yeah so, while Bess Southerns aka Old Demdike is going around doing good things for people like curing them of diseases, her BFF is going around cursing people, and giving witches a bad name. Eventually, all hell breaks loose, and the book takes a sad turn of events.As for the characters, like I stated, the book is told in first person, and while I think first person is a great plot device and a wonderful way to get to know a character, I do think we lose a little something when there isn't a third person narrator, as well only know the true motivations of the narrating character. I enjoyed reading from the perspective of Bess and from Alizon, although there were times when I wanted to shake both characters, regardless of them being products of their times. I found it interesting how quickly suspicion was thrown on women who were unmarried. It felt like if a woman didn't have a man to keep her in line, then obvi she is a witch. If a woman holds to the Roman Catholic religion, clearly, she's consorting with the devil. I hated how much power certain characters had over the fates of Bess, Alizon, and their families. I thought Sharratt did a great job of building a creepy atmosphere. I was so drawn into the tale of Pendle Forest. I guess I'm still picturing woods and fog and hovels. Also, am picturing that scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where the woman is all "I'm not a witch! You dressed me this way." And the villager is all, "she turned me into a newt." Yes, I understand that is a little inappropriate for how serious this book was, but you'll need a laugh after finishing this one. It was fantastic, but yes, you'll need something to lighten the mood after.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Historical fiction based on a real witch trial event in England, this book does the rare thing of helping us understand the position of many of the women who were accused. Many were cunningfolk or healers, but when society demanded scape goats for the religious turmoil occurring, these people were unfairly accused, interrogated, and held. This does not mean they were perfect; this book shows their humanity and attempts to avoid trouble were sometimes flawed as well. Great book that feels genuine.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the afterword it says that each of the characters in this novel were drawn from Court Clerk Thomas Potts account of the 1612 Lancashire Witch trials.The story revolves around the family of Elizabeth Southerns, also known as Mother Demdike, her daughter Liza, and grandaughter Alizon. A family whose lot it was to dwell not only in poverty, but for much of each of their lives in shame. Mother Demdike was a blesser, a healer, like her grandfather before her.She was a woman of such profound power, that she was admired by those she blessed, and feared by those who lacked understanding. Not only was Elizabeth..Bess.. a healer, but she had been and in her heart still was a catholic in a time when that was a dangerous thing to be.From the time she Tbb her "spirit" came into her life, her ability to heal grew stronger with each season. Never did she turn her hand to using her gifts for ill purposes. Time passed and both her daughter and grand daughter found that they too, had the gift. There was a grand son, as well. James did not have the intellect to use his gifts well. Some called him idiot. This was to contribute to the downfall of Demdike's family, as well as some of her friends.Before I knew that this story had its roots in history, I found the characters compelling, and their lives nearly unbearably sad. The author was able to draw me into the story so well that I felt the cold seep into my bones and the hunger gnaw at my belly. She brought me into Malkin Tower where they made their home. I felt the hopelessness and the moments of shining joy. Finally there is betrayal and death.Fluff is what I expected, but it is surely not what I found. This book was from Amazon vine.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great historical story. True facts and characters opening up a little known, but fascinating, chapter in Lancashire history.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bess Southerns is a poor peasant living in the Pendle forest in England. Catholocism is outlawed and the new religion has made traditions and worship very different. Bess holds to the old religion and prayers, and through that uses herbs and a spiritual friend to help her neighbors. She educates a friend in her cunning craft and eventually tries to teach her grand daughter Alizon the same. When a peddler suffers a stroke after having harsh words with Alizon, a member of the local gentry, trying to make a name for himself with the king, plays neighbors and family members against one another to create the notion of a group of witches practicing in Pendle forest. I liked this book -- I had no knowledge of the Pendle trials in 1612 and how easy it was to create hysteria that would get people killed. Power is a frightening thing. The story flowed well, and the characters were interesting and sympathetic.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Daughters of the Witching Hill is a novelization of the events leading up to Pendle Witch Trials in 1612 England, one of the few trials of that time that had substantial written documentation. The novel follows one family as the grandmother learns the "healing arts" and encourages her daughter and granddaughter to follow in her footsteps. The author did a great job of depicting the lives of poor people in this time and place, and made it easy to see how a person could convince themselves that they or another had special powers. The first 3/4 of this book is a very slow building of the popular opinion against Demdike (Bess Southerns) and her family. It's too slow, really. I was getting bored by this point. The last 1/4 book of the book is when the family and others are jailed and stand trial. This part rushes by too fast. I would expect this to be a dramatic, emotional, suspenseful part of the book, but it feels like we just skimmed over the trial.I'm glad I read it. It made impressions of the time and place that will stick with me. But it's not necessarily one I'd recommend as a good story.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What an amazing book. It is gripping in its style, its language, its subject matter, and just kept drawing me in. And it had to, given that the trials of the "Witches of Pendle Hill" were a tragic, actual event in Lancashire in 1612. Given how much I've read about Thomas Cromwell and the Wives of Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I, this volume shows the tragedy that the dissolution of the Abbeys under Cromwell brought about. And is a good balance to the lives of the rich and royal.It is written in two voices, Bess Southern ("Demdike") and her granddaughter, Alizon. Bess remembers the Old Ways, when life was still hard for the poor but there was Whalley Abbey and its monks to provide food and alms, and the Feast Days and the Saints to provide some joy and beauty in life. What we now call "work-life balance." The juxtaposition between Bess' earliest girlhood memories and the life under Puritans is stark. And harsh.Bess recounts those years and goes on to describe how she met her familiar, Tibb, and how he brought her joy and light in the dark years after her girlhood. This information was recorded at her trial, so the historical record is accurate in its description. Once she meets him and is able to understand how he can help her, she begins to use her new-found powers for healing and comfort.Her girlhood friend is Anne ("Chattox") whose personality is quite different. Both women are single (Bess abandoned, Anne widowed twice over) and they struggle to raise their daughters on their meager begging. Anne's daughter attracts the eye of a nobleman's son, and Bess teaches her how a clay figure could be used to balance the scales in her favor. Which draws Anne into Bess' work with charms and potent magic, and Anne's personality is more given to redressing grievances.The second part of the book is the growing up of Alizon, Bess' granddaughter, who is raised in a much different household. The effects of Puritanism are all around her, familiars and healing work are seen as bad things, even though her grandmother heals, and Alizon's "Mam" wants nothing to do with these little magicks. So Alizon tries to be good and does not learn from her Gran, and realizes too late what such learning could have meant for her life.Written in the cadence of what Bess and Alizon and their neighbors might have spoken, all of which furthers the drawing into the events. And the tragedy is not the final entrapment, imprisonment, and trial; it is also the ending of ways that the changing of the Church brings about, due to one man's lust for power and a new wife.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is one of the most engrossing and touching historical novels I’ve ever read. The characters are so vivid and the setting so well drawn that I felt I knew these people. Set late in the reign of Elizabeth I and the earlier years of James I, the novel takes place in Lancashire, England in the Pendle Hill area. The protagonists are the family of Bess Southerns, a poor widow who has no land and no trade but her healing ability and some day labor. They live in stark poverty- almost nothing to eat most of the time, freezing in winter, rags for clothing. She, her daughter, and her daughter’s three children live in a two room stone tower that they have the use of. Bess has a familiar, a spirit named Tibb, as well as a lot of herbal healing knowledge and a reliance on the outlawed Catholic folk magic. In time, her daughter, her best friend Anne and Anne’s daughter also come to have familiars and learn to work magic. But they aren’t as set on using their magic to heal as Bess has been, and Anne and her daughter use ‘clay pictures’ to work ill on those who have injured them. Finally Alizon, one of Bess’s granddaughters, discovers that she, too, has magical powers - by accidentally causing a peddler to have a massive stroke- or at least yelling at him right before he has it. The time and area was ripe for a witch hunt; King James was convinced there were evil witches all around him and had recently written a book about discovering them. Suddenly Bess, who has done her curing for decades unmolested, is arrested as evil. Many lives are shattered when accusations fly and spite indulged in. Based on a historical record, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, these people were real. And that is part of what makes it so heartbreaking to read. But even though you know from the start how this book must end, it’s still a cannot put it down read. The joy these impoverished women can feel in family and nature, the fierce strength of some of them, the horror of their situation at the end leaps up off the pages and engulfs the reader. If you have any interest in witch trials, folk healing or that era, you need to read this book. It’ll stay with you a long time.
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Daughters of the Witching Hill - Mary Sharratt
Contents
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
First Dedication
Second Dedication
Epigraph
A Charme
Map: Pendle Forest
By Daylight Gate
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
The Black Dog
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
By Stick and Stake
17
18
Assumption Day
19
20
21
22
A Light Far-Shining
23
Afterword
Sample Chapter from ECSTASY
Buy the Book
About the Author
Connect with HMH
Copyright © 2010 by Mary Sharratt
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.
hmhco.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Sharratt, Mary, date.
Daughters of the Witching Hill / Mary Sharratt.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-547-06967-8
1. Witchcraft—England—Lancashire—Fiction. 2. Trials (Witchcraft)—England—Lancashire—Fiction. 3. Witchcraft— England—History—17th century—Fiction. 4. Lancaster (England)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.H3449D38 2010
813'.54—dc22 2009042057
Map by Jacques Chazaud
Author photograph © Reg Whitman
eISBN 978-0-547-48848-6
v5.0218
FOR MY MOTHER
Dedicated to the memory of Elizabeth Southerns,
alias Mother Demdike.
And to Alizon Device, Elizabeth Device,
James Device, Anne Whittle, Anne Redfearn,
Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, Jane Bulcock,
John Bulcock, and Jennet Preston.
She was a very old woman, about the age of Foure-score yeares, and had been a Witch for fiftie yeares. Shee dwelt in the Forrest of Pendle, a vast place, fitte for her profession: What shee committed in her time, no man knowes. . . . Shee was a generall agent for the Devill in all these partes: no man escaped her, or her Furies.
—THOMAS POTTS, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, 1613
A CHARME
Upon Good-Friday, I will fast while I may
Untill I heare them knell
Our Lords owne Bell,
Lord in his messe
With his twelve Apostles good,
What hath he in his hand
Ligh in leath wand:
What hath he in his other hand?
Heavens doore key,
Open, open Heaven doore keyes,
Steck, steck hell doore.
Let Crizum child
Goe to it Mother mild,
What is yonder that casts a light so farrandly,
Mine owne deare Sonne that’s naild to the Tree.
He is naild sore by the heart and hand,
And holy harne Panne,
Well is that man
That Fryday spell can,
His Childe to learne;
A Crosse of Blew, and another of Red,
As good Lord was to the Roode.
Gabriel laid him downe to sleepe
Upon the ground of holy weepe:
Good Lord came walking by,
Sleep’st thou, wak’st thou Gabriel,
No Lord I am sted with sticke and stake,
That I can neither sleepe nor wake:
Rise up Gabriel and goe with me,
The stick nor the stake shall never deere thee.
A charm to cure one who is bewitched, attributed to Elizabeth Southern’s family and recorded by Thomas Potts during the 1612 witch trials at Lancaster.
I
By Daylight Gate
Bess Southerns
1
SEE US GATHERED HERE, three women stood at Richard Baldwin’s gate. I bide with my daughter, Liza of the squint-eye, and with my granddaughter, Alizon, just fifteen and dazzling as the noontide sun, so bright that she lights up the murk of my dim sight. Demdike, folk call me, after the dammed stream near my dwelling place where the farmers wash their sheep before shearing. When I was younger and stronger, I used to help with the sheepwash. Wasn’t afraid of the fiercest rams. I’d always had a way of gentling creatures by speaking to them low and soft. Though I’m old now, crabbed and near-blind, my memory is long as a midsummer’s day and with my inner eye, I see clear.
We three wait till Baldwin catches a glimpse of us and out he storms. Through the clouded caul that age has cast over my eyes, I catch his form. Thin as a brittle, dead stalk, he is, his face pinched, and he’s clad in the dour black weeds of a Puritan. Fancies himself a godly man, does our Dick Baldwin. A loud crack strikes the earth—it’s a horsewhip he carries. My daughter fair leaps as he lashes it against the drought-hard dirt.
Whores and witches,
he rails, shrill enough to set the crows to flight. Get out of my ground.
Slashes of air hit my face as he brandishes his whip, seeking to strike fear into us, but it’s his terror I taste as I let go of Alizon’s guiding hand and step forward, firm and square on my rag-bundled feet. We’ve only come to claim what is ours by right.
Whores and witches,
he taunts again, yelling with such bile that his spit sprays me. I will burn the one of you and hang the other.
He speaks to Liza and me, ignoring young Alizon, for he doesn’t trust himself to even look at this girl whose beauty and sore hunger would be enough to make him sink to his knobbly knees.
I take another step forward, forcing him to back away. The man’s a-fright that I’ll so much as breathe on him. I care not for you,
I tell him. Hang yourself.
Our Master Baldwin will play the righteous churchman, but what I know of him would besmirch his good name forevermore. He can spout his psalms till he’s hoarse, but heaven’s gates will never open to him. I know this and he knows I know this, and for my knowing, he fears and hates me. Beneath his black clothes beats an even blacker heart. Hired my Liza to card wool, did Baldwin, and then refused to pay her. What’s more, our Liza has done much dearer things for him than carding. Puritan or no, he’s taken his pleasure of her and, lost and grieving her poor murdered husband, ten years dead, our Liza was soft enough to let him. Fool girl.
Enough of this,
I say. Liza carded your wool. Where’s her payment? We’re poor, hungry folk. Would you let us starve for your meanness?
I speak in a low, warning tone, not unlike the growl of a dog before it bites. Man like him should know better than to cross the likes of me. Throughout Pendle Forest I’m known as a cunning woman, and she who has the power to bless may also curse.
Our Master Baldwin blames me because his daughter Ellen is too poorly to rise from her bed. The girl was a pale, consumptive thing from the day she was born, never hale in all her nine years. Once he called on me to heal her. Mopped her brow, I did. Brewed her feverfew and lungwort, but still she ailed and shivered. Tried my best with her, but some who are sick cannot be mended. Yet Baldwin thinks I bewitched the lass out of malice. Why would I seek to harm a hair on the poor girl’s head when his other daughter, the one he won’t name or even look at, is my own youngest granddaughter, seven-year-old Jennet?
Richard.
My Liza makes bold to step toward him. She stretches out a beseeching hand. Have a heart. For our Jennet’s sake. We’ve nothing more to eat in the house.
But he twists away from her in cold dread and still won’t pay her for her honest work, won’t grant us so much as a penny. So what can I do but promise that I’ll pray for him till he comes to be of a better mind? Soft under my breath, masked from his Puritan ears, I murmur the Latin refrains of the old religion. How my whispered words make him pale and quake—does he believe they will strike him dead? Off to his house he scarpers. Behind his bolted door he’ll cower till we’re well gone.
Come, Gran.
Alizon takes my arm to lead me home. Can’t make my way round without her in this dark ebb of my years. But with my inner eye I see Tibb sat there on the drystone wall. Sun breaks through the clouds to golden-wash his guilesome face. Dick Baldwin would call him a devil, or even the Devil, but I know better. Beautiful Tibb, his form invisible to all but me.
Now I don’t generally stand by woe-working,
says my Tibb, stretching out his long legs. But if you forespoke Master Baldwin, who could blame you, after all the ill he’s done to you and yours?
He cracks a smile. Is revenge what you want?
No, Tibb. Only justice.
I speak with my inner voice that none but Tibb can hear. If Baldwin fell ill and died, what would happen to his lawful daughter, Ellen? Her mother’s long dead. Another poor lass to live off the alms of the parish. No, I’ll not have that burden on my soul.
Justice!
Tibb laughs, then shakes his head. Off the likes of Dick Baldwin? Oh, you do set your sights high.
Tibb’s laughter makes the years melt away, drawing me back to the old days, when I could see far with my own two eyes and walk on my own two legs, with none to guide me.
2
BY DAYLIGHT GATE I first saw him, the boy climbing out of the stone pit in Goldshaw. The sinking sun set his fair hair alight. Slender, he was, and so young and beautiful. Pure, too. No meanness on him. No spite or evil. I knew straight off that he wouldn’t spit at me for being a barefoot beggar woman. Wouldn’t curse at me or try to shove me into the ditch. There was something in his eyes—a gentleness, a knowing. When he looked at me, my hurting knees turned to butter. When he smiled, I melted to my core, my heart bumping and thumping till I fair fainted away. What would a lad like that want with a fifty-year-old widow like me?
The month of May, it was, but cold of an evening. His coat was half black, half brown. I thought to myself that he must be poor like me, left to stitch his clothes together from mismatched rags. He reached out his hand, as though making to greet an old friend.
Elizabeth,
he said. My own Bess.
The names by which I was known when I was a girl with a slender waist and strong legs and rippling chestnut hair. How did he know my true name? Even then I was known to most as Demdike. The boy smiled wide with clean, white teeth, none of them missing, and his eyes had a devilish spark in them, as though I were still that young woman with skin like new milk.
Well, well,
said I, for I was never one to stay silent for long. You know my name, so you do. What’s yours then?
Tibb,
he said.
I nodded to myself, though I knew of no Tibbs living anywhere in Pendle Forest. But what of your Christian name?
After all, he knew me by mine, God only knew how.
He lifted his face to the red-glowing sky and laughed as the last of the sun sank behind Pendle Hill. Then I heard a noise behind me: the startled squawk of a pheasant taking flight. When I turned to face the boy again, he had vanished away. I looked up and down the lane, finding him nowhere. Couldn’t even trace his footprints in the muddy track. Did my mind fail me? Had that boy been real at all? This was when I grew afraid and went cold all over, as though frost had settled upon my skin.
First off, I told no one of Tibb. Who would have believed me when I could scarcely believe it myself? I’d no wish to make myself an even bigger laughingstock than I already was.
Ned Southerns, my husband, such as he was, had passed on just after our squint-eyed Liza was born, nineteen years ago. He blamed me for our daughter’s deformity because he thought I’d too much contact with beasts whilst I was carrying her. In my married years, I raised fine hens, even kept a nanny goat. There was another child, Christopher, three years older than Liza and not of my husband, but he was far and away from being the only bastard in Pendle Forest. The gentry and the yeomen bred as many ill-begotten babes as us poor folk, only they did a better job of covering it up. Liza, Kit, and I made our home in a crumbling old watchtower near the edge of Pendle Forest. More ancient than Adam, our tower was. Too draughty for storing silage, but it did for us. Malkin Tower, it was called, and, as you’ll know, malkin can mean either hare or slattern. What better place for me and my brood?
But folk whispered that it seemed a curious thing indeed that one such as I should live in a tower built of stout stone with a firehouse at its foot that boasted a proper hearth when many a poor widow made do with a one-room hovel with no hearth at all but only a fire pit in the bare earthen floor. In truth, my poor dead mother got the tower given her for her natural life—towers named after slatterns hide guilty secrets.
When my mam was young and comely, she’d served the Nowell family at Read Hall. Head ostler’s daughter, so she was, and she’d prospects and a modest dowry besides. But what did she do but catch the eye of Master Nowell’s son, then a lad of seventeen years? The Nowells were not an old family, as gentry went, nor half as grand as the Shuttleworths of Gawthorpe Hall or the de Lacys of Clitheroe. The Nowells’ fortunes had risen along with the sway of the new religion. Back when Old King Henry’s troops came to sack Whalley Abbey, the Nowells sent their men to help topple the ancient stone walls. The King rewarded their loyalty by granting the Nowells a goodly portion of the abbey’s lands. One of Old Man Nowell’s sons went to faraway Cambridgeshire to make his name as a Puritan divine, or so I’d been told. Far and wide, the Nowells let it be known that they were godly folk. But even the pious are prey to youthful folly.
My mam, before her fall from grace, had been an upright girl, so the young Master Roger could hardly discard her as easy as he would some tavern maid. And that was why Mam was given Malkin Tower for the rest of her life on the condition that she never trouble the Nowells of Read Hall. Far enough from Read, it was, for them not to be bothered by the sight of her, but it was close enough for them to keep watch of her, should she seek to blacken their good name. My mam and I were never respectable—respect costs money and we hadn’t two pennies to rub together. We’d Malkin Tower to live in but no scrap of land for grazing sheep. Most we could manage was a garden plot in the stony soil. By and by, I think the Nowells had fair forgotten us. When my mam passed on, bless her eternal soul, the tower was in such poor repair they didn’t seem to want it back. So I stayed on, for where else had I to go? It seemed they preferred to have no dealings with me and that it shamed them less to allow me to carry on here like a squatter, not paying a farthing’s rent.
My natural father died some years back, happy and fat and rich. His eldest son, my own half-brother, also named Roger, had become the new master of Read Hall, part of it built from the very stones his grandfather’s servants had carted away from the ruined abbey. Younger than me, was my half-brother, by some twenty years. Rarely did our paths cross, for the Nowells went to church in Whalley with the other fine folk, never in the New Church in Goldshaw with the yeomen and lesser gentry. But once, of a market day in Colne, I clapped eyes on Roger Nowell. Impossible to miss him, the way he was sat like some conquering knight upon his great Shire horse, blue-black and gleaming, with red ribbons twisted in its mane. That was some years ago, when my half-brother’s face was yet smooth and unlined. A handsome man, he was, with a firm chin just like mine. I looked straight at him to see if he would recognise his own blood kin. But his sharp blue eyes passed over me as though I were nowt but a heap of dung.
Over the years he’d become a mighty man: Magistrate and Justice of the Peace. We in Pendle Forest were careful not to cross him or give him cause for offence. On account of my being a poor widow, he granted me a begging license. Did it through the Constable without speaking a word to me. And so I was left to wander the tracks of Pendle Forest and wheedle, full humble, for food and honest work.
But gone were the days when Christian folk felt beholden to give alms to the poor. When I was a tiny girl, the monks of Whalley Abbey fed and clothed the needy. So did the rich folk, for their souls would languish a fair long time in purgatory if they were stingy to us. In the old days, the poor were respected—our prayers were dearer to God than those of the wealthy. Many a well-to-do man on his deathbed would give out food and alms to the lowliest of the parish if they would only pray for his immortal soul. At his funeral, the poor were given doles of bread and soulcakes, so my mam had told me.
The reformers said that purgatory was heresy. It was either heaven for the Elect or hell for everyone else, so what need did the rich have to bribe the poor to pray for them? We humble folk were no longer seen as blessed of the Lord but as a right nuisance. When I went begging for a mere bowl of blue milk or a handful of oats to make water porridge, the Hargreaves and the Bannisters and the Mittons narrowed their eyes and said my hard lot was God’s punishment for my sin of bearing a bastard child. Mean as stones, they were. Little did they know. Liza, my lawful-begotten child, was deformed because her father, my husband, gave me no pleasure to speak of, whilst Kit, my bastard, borne of passion and desire, was tall and beautiful and perfect in form as any larch tree. Ah, but the Puritans would only see what they wanted to see. The most so-called charity they doled out was to give me half a loaf of old bread in exchange for a day laundering soiled clouts.
But I’d even forgive them for that if they hadn’t robbed my life of its solace and joy. In the old days, we’d a saint for every purpose: Margaret for help in childbirth, Anne for protection in storms, Anthony to ward against fire, George to heal horses and protect them from witchcraft. Old King Henry forbade us to light candles before the saints but at least he let us keep their altars. In the old days, no one forced us to go to church either, even for Easter communion. The chapel nave belonged to us, the ordinary people, and it was the second home we all shared. Dividing the nave from the chancel with the high altar was the carved oak roodscreen that framed the priest as he sang out the mass. We didn’t stand solemn and dour during the holy service, either, but wandered about the nave from one saint’s altar to the next, gazing at the pictures and statues till the priest rang the bell and held up the Host for all to see, the plain wafer transformed in a glorious miracle into the body and blood of Christ. Just laying eyes upon the Host was enough to ward a person from witchcraft, plague, and sudden death.
When I was twelve, they finished building the New Church of St. Mary’s in Goldshaw to replace the old crumbling chapel of ease where I’d been christened. The Bishop of Chester came to consecrate it just in time for All Souls’ when we rang the bells the whole night through to give comfort to our dead.
Back then we still had our holidays. Christmas lasted twelve days and nights with mummers and guizers in animal masks dancing by torchlight. The Lord of Misrule, some low-born man, lorded it over the gentry to make poor folk laugh. The Towneleys of Carr Hall used to invite all their neighbours, rich and poor alike, to join their festivities. Upon Palm Sunday everyone in the parish gathered for the processions round the fields to make them fertile. After dark the young folk would go out to bless the land in their own private fashion. Everyone knew what went on, but none stood in our way. If a lass and her young man had to rush to the altar afterward, nobody thought the worse of them for it. I went along with the other girls, arm in arm with my best friend, Anne Whittle, both of us wearing green garlands and singing. Cherry-lipped Anne loved to have her sport with the boys, but mindful of my own mother’s fate, I did nowt but kiss and dance and flirt in those days. Only went astray much later in life, when I was a married woman and sore unsatisfied, seeking my pleasures elsewhere.
In my youth, upon May morning, we arose before dawn to gather hawthorn and woodruff. We’d dance round the Maypole and drink elderflower wine till the very sky reeled. At Midsummer’s, upon the eve of the feast of John the Baptist, we carried birch boughs into the church till our chapel looked like a woodland grove. Bonfires blazed the whole night through. Some folk burned fires of bone, not wood, so that the stench might drive away evil wights from the growing crops. Most of us gathered round the wake fire of sweet apple wood where we danced all night, collapsing upon the grass at sunrise. On Lammas Day the reapers crowned the Harvest Queen and one year, by Our Lady, it was me, a lass of fifteen, crowned in roses and barley, the lads begging me for a kiss.
Old King Henry was dead by then, and we lived in hope that the old ways would live again. Crowned in roses, I led the procession of maidens on the Feast of the Assumption, each of us bearing flowers and fruits to lay upon the altar of the Queen of Heaven. Only weeks later Edward the Boy King sent his men to smash every statue in our church, even that of the Blessed Mother herself, whilst we clutched ourselves, full aghast. They tore down the crucifix over the high altar and burned it as though it were some heathen idol. They destroyed our roodscreen, outlawed our processions, and forbade us to deck the church with greenery upon Midsummer or to bring red roses and poppies to the altar on Corpus Christi. They set fire to our Maypole, forbade us to pray for the dead, or celebrate the saints’ feast days.
Six years on, weakling Edward wasted away and his sister Mary Tudor promised to bring back the old religion. For the five years of her reign we had our holidays again, our processions, our mass with swirling incense, and the sea of candles lit for the saints. The Towneleys, the Nutters, and the Shuttleworths paid for the new roodscreen, the new statues, altar cloths, and vestments. We had our Maypole and rang the church bells for our ancestors on All Souls’ Night. But our joys soured when the news came of the heretics Mary burned alive, near three hundred of them, their only hope to end their agony being the sachets of gunpowder concealed beneath their clothes. Our Catholic queen was nowt but a tyrant. Before long Mary herself died, despised by her own husband, so the story went.
With Queen Elizabeth came the new religion once more to replace the old. The Queen’s agents stormed in to hack apart our new roodscreen. But they could not demolish the statues or the crucifix this time round, for the Towneleys, Shuttleworths, and Nutters had divided the holy images between them and taken them into hiding in secret chapels inside their great houses. In those early days, some said Elizabeth’s reign couldn’t last long. Anne Boleyn’s bastard, she was, and it seemed half of England wanted her dead. On top of that, she refused to marry and produce an heir of her own religion. Yet the Queen and her crushing rule had endured.
In truth, the old ways died that day Elizabeth’s agents sacked our church. For the past twenty-odd years, there had been no dancing of a Sunday, no Sunday ales like we used to have when we made merry within the very nave of the church. Though the Sabbath was the only day of leisure we had, the Curate refused to let us have any pleasure of it. No football, dice-playing, or card-playing. Magistrate Roger Nowell, my own half-brother, forbade the Robin Hood plays and summer games, for he said they led to drunkenness and wantonness amongst the lower orders. Few weeks back, the piper of Clitheroe was arrested for playing late one Sunday afternoon.
The Curate preached that only the Elect would go to heaven, and I was canny enough to know that didn’t include me. So if I were damned anyway, why should I suffer to obey their every command? Mind you, I went to church of a Sunday. It was that, or suffer the Church Warden’s whip and fine. But I’d left off trying to hold myself to the straight and narrow. Perhaps I’d have fared no better even if the old church had survived, for hadn’t I been an adulteress? But still my heart was rooted, full stubborn, in that lost world of chanting, processions, and revels that had bound us together, rich and poor, saint and sinner. My soul’s home was not with this harsh new God, but instead I sought the solace of the Queen of Heaven and whispered the Salve Regina in secret. I swore to cling to the forbidden prayers till my dying day.
I am getting ahead of myself. Back to the story. That evening, after Tibb first appeared to me, I hared off in the long spring twilight, heading home to Malkin Tower. Wasn’t safe to be about after dark. Folk talked of boggarts haunting the night, not that I was ignorant enough to believe every outlandish tale, but I was shaken to the bone from seeing the boy who disappeared into nowhere. The moon, nearly full, shone in the violet sky, and the first stars glimmered when, at last, I reached my door.
Our Malkin Tower was an odd place. Tower itself had two rooms, one below and one above, and each room had narrow slits for windows from the days, hundreds of years ago, when guardsmen were sat there with their bows and arrows, on the look-out for raiders and poachers. But, as the tower had no chimney or hearth, we spent most of our time in the firehouse, a ramshackle room built on to the foot of the tower. And it was into the firehouse I stumbled that night. My daughter Liza, sat close by the single rush light, gave a cry when she saw me.
So late coming home, Mam! Did a devil cross your path?
In the wavering light, my girl looked more frightful than the devil she spoke of, though she couldn’t help it, God bless her. Her left eye stood lower in her face than the other, and whilst her right eye looked up, her left eye looked down. The sight of her was enough to put folk off their food. Couldn’t hire herself out as a kitchen maid because the housewives of Pendle feared our Liza would spoil their milk and curdle their butter. Looking the way she did, it would take a miracle for her to get regular work, let alone a husband. Most she could hope for was a day’s pittance for carding wool or weeding some housewife’s garden.
Ignoring her talk of the devil, I unpacked a clump of old bread, the gleanings of the day’s begging, and Liza sliced it into pieces thin as communion wafer.
Liza, myself, Kit, and Kit’s wife, also Elizabeth, though we called her Elsie, gathered for our supper. Kit hired himself out as a day labourer, but at this time of year there was little work to be had. Lambing season had just passed. Shearing wouldn’t come till high summer. Best he could do was ask for work at the slate pits and hope to earn enough to keep us in oatmeal and barley flour. Elsie was heavy with child. Most work she could get was a day’s mending or spinning.
When we were sat together at the table, my Liza went green in the face at the taste of the old bread and could barely get a mouthful of the stuff down before she bolted out the door to be sick. Out of old habit, I crossed myself. I looked to Kit, who looked to his wife, who shook her head in sadness. Elsie would deliver her firstborn within the month and now it appeared that Liza was with child as well. First I wondered who the father could be. Then I asked myself how we would feed two little babes when we were hard-pressed to do for ourselves. We were silent, the lot of us, Elsie doling out the buttermilk she had off the Bulcocks in exchange for a day’s spinning. Our Kit gave his wife half of his own share of bread—wasn’t she eating for two?
Then I found I couldn’t finish my own bread, so I passed it to Kit before hauling myself out the door to look for Liza. By the cold moonlight I found my poor squint-eyed broomstick of a girl bent over the gatepost, crying fit to die. Taking Liza in my arms, I held her and rubbed her hair. I begged her to tell me who the father was, but she refused.
It will be right,
I told her. Not the first time an unwed girl fell pregnant. We’ll make do somehow.
What else could I say? I’d no business browbeating her for doing the same as I’d done with Kit’s father, twenty-two years ago.
After leading my Liza back inside, we made for our beds. I climbed to the upper tower. Room was so cold and draughty that everyone else preferred sleeping below, but of a crystal-clear evening I loved nothing better than to lie upon my pallet and gaze at the moon and stars through the narrow windows. Cold wind didn’t bother me much. I was born with thick skin, would have died ages ago if I’d been a more delicate sort. Yet that night the starry heavens gave me little comfort. I laid myself down and tried to ignore the hammer of worry in my head. The Church Warden and Constable were sure to make a stink about Liza. Another bastard child to live off the charity of the parish. They’d fine her at the very least. She’d be lucky if she escaped the pillory. Sleepless, I huddled there whilst the wind whistled through the thatch.
When I finally closed my eyes, I saw Tibb, his face in its golden glory. Looked like one of the angels I remembered seeing in our church before the Queen’s men stripped the place bare. Out of the dark crush of night came his voice, sweet as a lover’s, gentle as Kit’s father was in the days when he called me his beauty, his heart’s joy. Tibb’s lips were at my ear.
If I could,
he told me, if you let me, I’d ease your burdens, my Bess. No use fretting about Liza. She’ll lose the child within a fortnight, and none but you and yours will know she fell pregnant in the first place.
My throat was dry and sore. Couldn’t even think straight.
You’re afraid of me,
he said. But you shouldn’t be. I mean you no harm.
You’re not real,
I whispered. I’m just dreaming you.
I’m as real as the ache in your heart,
he whispered back. You were meant to be more than a common beggar, our Bess. You could be a blesser. Next time you see a sick cow, bless it. Say three Ave Marias and sprinkle some water on the beast. Folk will pay you for such things. Folk will hold you in regard, and you won’t have to grovel for the scraps off their table.
What nonsense. The Church Warden would have me whipped and fined for saying the Ave Maria—and that was but mild chastisement. Catholics were still hanged in these parts, their priests drawn and quartered. I told myself that there was no such boy called Tibb—it was just my empty stomach talking. I rolled over, pulling the tattered blanket to my ears.
He wouldn’t give over. It runs in your blood. You’ve inherited the gift from your mam’s father.
I shook my head no. My grand-dad was an ostler. An honest man.
He was a horse-charmer, if you remember well.
Tibb’s voice summoned the memories. I was sat on Grand-Dad’s knee, and he jostled me so that I could pretend I was riding a bouncy pony whilst he chanted the charm to St. George to ward horses from witchcraft. Enforce we us with all our might to love St. George, Our Lady’s knight. Grand-Dad died when I was seven, but he’d taught my mam all his herbcraft for healing beast and folk alike, which she, in turn, had taught me, though