Category Archives: Witchcraft

2016: A Year In Non-Fiction

22 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in Amy Winehouse, Books, Brighton, Film, History, Lana Del Rey, Music, Non-Fiction, Politics, Witchcraft, Writing

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British journalist Gary Younge has a sharp eye for how political events impact on ordinary lives. While living in Chicago, he investigated the stories behind the blunt statistics of ten children and teenagers shot dead in a single day. Never intrusive, but quietly devastating, Another Day in the Death of America illuminates with rare power. Continue reading →

The Art of Witchcraft

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Art and Photography, History, Witchcraft

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Lachlan Goudie, son of the Scottish figurative painter Alexander Goudie, is an artist himself. In 1999, Alexander finished a cycle of paintings based on Robert Burns’ 1791 narrative poem, Tam o’ Shanter, about a farmer led astray by a young and beautiful witch, Nannie Dee. He was strongly influenced by the work of Albrecht Dürer and Francisco Goya. Continue reading →

Best Books of 2012

20 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by in Art and Photography, Books, Fiction, Marilyn Monroe, Non-Fiction, Witchcraft

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My ten favourite reads of 2012, including new fiction; books commemorating the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death, and the 400th anniversary of the Pendle witch trials; and some previously published books that I’ve just caught up with.

I had never read Kate Grenville’s work before, but Sarah Thornhill (and its predecessor, The Secret River) really evokes the stark beauty of the outback, contrasted with the tumult of the early settlers.  Continue reading →

The Curse of Pendle

28 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by in History, Radio, Witchcraft

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Installation on Pendle Hill: photo by Brett Dixon/BBC, 2012.

The Curse of Pendle is a 30-minute documentary, broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on November 23rd, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Lancashire Witch Trials. It is presented by the novelist Jeanette Winterson, who grew up in Accrington, within view of Pendle Hill.

‘We all knew the stories of Chattox and Demdike – names you’d never forget,’ Winterson recalls. ‘Were they witches? Did they still haunt the hill? It scared us kids to death.’ Continue reading →

1612 Underture

27 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by in Film, History, Music, Witchcraft

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The Eccentronic Research Council (ERC) is a collective founded by Sheffield musicians Adrian Flanagan and Dean Honer.

1612 Underture, their new concept album, also features the Bolton-born actress Maxine Peake. Continue reading →

The Pendle Witch Child

19 Friday Aug 2011

Posted by in History, Television, Witchcraft

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Simon Armitage – one of Britain’s leading poets – was born in West Yorkshire. Like many local children, he would have been raised on stories of the Pendle Witches in nearby Lancashire.

A grimly intoxicating blend of history, crime and folklore is richly evoked in Armitage’s new BBC Four documentary, The Pendle Witch Child. Next year marks the fourth centenary of the notorious 1612 trial, the largest of its kind in England at the time. Continue reading →

Wicked Enchantments

24 Saturday Jul 2010

Posted by in Books, History, Non-Fiction, Witchcraft

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Wicked Enchantments: A History of the Pendle Witches and Their Magic by Joyce Froome

With its 400th anniversary approaching, the Pendle witch trial of 1612 is once again the focus of historical discussion. What was the largest investigation of its kind in England (until the Matthew Hopkins purges in East Anglia some thirty years later) is now, ironically, a mainstay of the East Lancashire tourist industry.

In 2007, John C. Clayton’s The Lancashire Witch Conspiracy brought a new focus on local history and genealogy to the now legendary case. This year, Joyce Froome, an assistant curator at the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall, has brought her own knowledge of magic to the table. Continue reading →

The Lancashire Witches

25 Monday Jan 2010

Posted by in Books, Fiction, History, Witchcraft

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Original artwork by John Gilbert

William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-1882) was a historical novelist and one of the most popular English authors of the later 19th century. Born in Manchester, he trained as a lawyer and practised in London, but his true ambitions were always literary. In his youth, Ainsworth read adventure stories and was an admirer of Dick Turpin, the highwayman whose exploits were the subject of popular legend. The tale of Turpin’s overnight ride from London to York on his steed, Black Bess, featured in Ainsworth’s first novel, Rookwood (1834.)

Among Ainsworth’s nearly forty novels, several were set in his native Lancashire, including his most famous work, The Lancashire Witches: A Romance of Pendle Forest (1848.) Continue reading →