(no subject)
Daughters of the Witching Hill, by Mary Sharratt. Mariner Books, 2010
This 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.
This 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.