Elizabeth Southerns had the misfortune to live in a time and place when Catholicism itself became conflated with witchcraft. Even the act of transubstantiation, in which the communion bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, was viewed by some Protestants as devilish sorcery. Keith Thomas's social history,
Religion and the Decline of Magic,
is an excellent study on how the Reformation literally took the magic out of Christianity.
Although it is difficult to substantiate that witches and cunning folk in early modern Britain worshipped pagan deities, the enduring belief in fairies and elves is well documented. In his 1677 book,
The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft,
Lancashire author John Webster mentions a local cunning man who claimed that his familiar spirit was none other than the Queen of Elfhame herself. In 1576, Scottish cunning woman Bessie Dunlop, while being tried for witchcraft and sorcery at the Edinburgh Assizes, stated that her familiar spirit had been sent to her by the Queen of Elfhame. For more background on this subject, I highly recommend Emma Wilby's scholarly study,
Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits.
Mother Demdike is dead but not forgotten. In 1627, only fifteen years after the Pendle witch trial, a woman named Dorothy Shaw of Skippool, Lancashire, was accused by her neighbour of being a "witch and a Demdyke," indicating that the name Demdike had already become a byword for witch.
Jennet Device, Demdike's granddaughter and Nowell's "instrument of God," whose testimony sent her mother, sister, and brother to their deaths, was herself accused of witchcraft in 1633, along with eighteen others, including Miles Nutter's wife. Her accuser, ten-year-old Edmund Robinson, later confessed that he had fabricated his tale in order to escape punishment for coming home late when bringing in his mother's cows. Before he revealed his perjury, three of the alleged witches had died in prison.
In the writing of this novel, I have taken some fictional liberties. Robert Assheton in the book is based on Robert Nutter of Greenhead, and Anthony Holden is a composite of John Nutter of Bull Hole Farm, mentioned in the trial transcripts, and his brother Anthony. Anthony Nutter's daughter, allegedly killed by Chattox's witchcraft, was named Anne, not Nancy. I changed both families' names to avoid the confusion of having too many Nutters in the novel. Henry Bulcock is a composite of Henry Bulcock, who believed that Alizon Device had bewitched his daughter but who declined to speak against her in the trials, and Christopher Bulcock, the husband of accused witch Jane Bulcock and the father of John Bulcock.
There is some controversy as to whether Roughlee Hall was indeed Alice Nutter's home.
The Victoria County History of Lancashire: Volume 6,
published by D. S. Brewer, states that she lived at Roughlee Hall, which was built in 1536 by Miles Nutter, her father-in-law. The relevant passage supporting this is accessible online:
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/source.aspx?pubid=486
. However, Gladys Whittaker, in her pamphlet
Roughlee Hall, Lancashire: Fact and Fiction,
currently out of print, argues that Alice Nutter lived at Crow Trees Farm near Roughlee.
In his speculative local history,
The Lancashire Witch Conspiracy,
John Clayton suggests that Elizabeth Southerns may have come to live in Malkin Tower, a substantial dwelling for someone of her class, because she was the illegitimate offspring of an important family. I have taken this speculation one step further by making her Roger Nowell's illegitimate half sister, although there is no evidence supporting this.
All the magic charms and spells presented in this book are based on documented Lancashire folk magic. Most of the spells were drawn from the witches' own confessions and the information provided by Jennet Device. The spell in which the hen is burned alive was inspired by a nineteenth-century case in which a Lancashire cunning man burned a black cockerel to break a local wizard's curse. This is described in John Harland and T. T. Wilkinson's book
Lancashire Folklore.
My endless gratitude goes out to Jane Rosenman and Wendy Sherman, who believed in this book from the very beginning. It has been a great blessing to work with editors Adrienne Brodeur and Andrea Schulz, whose brilliant insights and critique proved invaluable in midwifing this book. My copyeditor, David Hough, has been wonderfully supportive and sensitive to the material.
I wish to thank all my readers and well-wishers who helped me along the way. My husband, Jos Van Loo, patiently read draft after draft and helped me explore the tracks of Pendle Forest as we hunted down the sites of my characters' homes. Sandra Gulland, Katharine Weber, and Judith Lindbergh were generous enough to read this novel in manuscript. I would be a lost soul without my fabulous writers group: Cath Staincliffe, Pat Hadler, Trudy Hodge, and Jo Hughes.
Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers, home of the seventeenth-century poet William Drummond, provided the perfect setting for writing the first draft. I am indebted to Dame Dru Heinz for her generosity. Enduring friendship goes out to my fellow writers in residence—Caroline Carver, Helena McEwen, David L. Hayles, Rhona McAdam, and Sian Williams—and to Jacob Larsen, administrator of the gnomes.
Lastly, my heartfelt thanks go out to the people of Lancashire for sharing the stories of their history.