Get Lost, Mr. Anachronistic Witchfinder General

 

I have just read on the Lancashire Telegraph website (12^th January 2012) that a sculpture trail is to be set up at Aitken Wood near Barley to celebrate the witches’ anniversary. 

 

 I thought this was a lovely idea until I went on to read that one of the sculptures will apparently portray a Witchfinder General.  This information caused my hackles to rise immediately.  Witchfinder General was a very specific title assumed and invented by Matthew Hopkins, a disgusting and pathetic excuse for a human being, who – along with his colleague John Stearne - was responsible for the torture and death of numerous  ‘witches’ in and around East Anglia in the mid 1600s. He was famously portrayed by Vincent Price in the film Witchfinder General in 1968 - one of the few occasions when I felt no inclination to laugh along with the wonderful Price's performance.  Hopkins had nothing whatsoever to do with the Lancashire witches of 1612 – all long dead by his time. 

 

Vincent Price as Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General

1. http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=matthew+hopkins&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=642&tbm=isch&tbnid=W4XNe8OLMoFm9M:&imgrefurl=http://beautyandterrordance.tumblr.com/post/270813575&docid=ec9TFvRkmh1FoM&imgurl=http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ku7aa8Lo4w1qaun7do1_500.jpg&w=500&h=329&ei=OTIVT7m6AsWwhAfE5uSfAg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=484&vpy=286&dur=279&hovh=182&hovw=277&tx=125&ty=125&sig=113496791261492495512&page=2&tbnh=135&tbnw=180&start=24&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:10,s:24

1.  

 

This man was such a horrifying and compelling character that he has become something of a gift for storytellers, the result being that people cannot seem to resist inserting him into any tale involving witches – however anachronistic.  R.T. Gunton, for example, was guilty of inveigling the horrid creature into his comic opera “The Lancashire Witches: Or King James’ Frolic”, written in 1879.

 

2012, however, is supposed to be all about the Lancashire witches of 1612.  Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General, has no place in their story.  There was NO “witchfinder general” in the Lancashire case – just local Justices of the Peace and that other piece of work Thomas Covell, the gaoler of Lancaster Castle.  And he didn’t hunt witches (as far as we are aware) – he just dealt with them once he had got his vicious hands on them.  Therefore, please let’s NOT use Hopkins' made-up title to describe ANYONE  in the Lancashire witch case of 1612.  The lazy and loose use of such terms is most misleading.

This man has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES!

 

Jennie, exasperated again

Fitting Tributes to the Lancashire Witches?

Lancashire Museums Service is, I hear, putting on a couple of exhibitions about the witches - one in spring at Gawthorpe Hall, Padiham which will move to Lancaster City Museum later in the year. Another is to examine witchcraft in popular culture and will be staged at the Judges' Lodgings (former home of Lancaster Castle gaoler Thomas Covell)), also in Lancaster.  All well and good (I trust) - I really wouldn't know.  When I asked about the planned exhibitions at an unsuccessful interview at Gawthorpe Hall last year, I was loftily informed that 'we have experts in Lancaster who are dealing with all that', which certainly put me in my place!  Bite me!

Entrance to the witches' memorial at Salem, Mass.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrissy575/3064029249/

All the plans I've seen so far seem a bit on the ephemeral side. I would personally have liked to  see something a bit more permanent to mark the witches' 400th anniversary - a plaque at Lancaster Castle with a list of those executed (similar to that erected in Exeter in memory of the Devon witches, or a series of stone benches similar to those dedicated to the witches of Salem) perhaps, or maybe some sort of statue at Newchurch - or somewhere else of relevance to the witches' lives. I haven't seen any plans for a lasting tribute to those who died.

It is almost as if we, in contrast with the inhabitants of Salem and elsewhere, don't really give a monkey's about our witches, and don't feel they are worthy of a more lasting memorial  Surely a competition could have been held to come up with good ideas.  Perhaps I'm missing something here (I certainly hope so), so if you know of any plaques/statues in preparation, please let me know....

Plaque to the Bideford witches on the wall of Rougemont Castle, Exeter

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=memorials+to+bideford+witches&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=642&tbm=isch&tbnid=0wYGkhflkUpSOM:&imgrefurl=http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/333605&docid=G12kLGjqOezvdM&imgurl=http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/33/36/333605_747ade5f.jpg&w=640&h=480&ei=5DAVT7XdMpOLhQeC653kCQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=178&vpy=148&dur=1093&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=157&ty=138&sig=113496791261492495512&page=1&tbnh=136&tbnw=179&start=0&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

............And I'm not at all sure that people humming along to a harp at Clitheroe Castle in any way captures the mood of the imprisoned witches.  Screaming, or crying in terror, perhaps, but humming?  Don't think so.

What do YOU think would be a fitting memorial to the Lancashire witches?  And if you have heard of any interesting ideas, do share!

An update on 21st January - I have just found this link:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-5733340       which describes how a statue of Alice Nutter is being commissioned for Rough Lee village.  Good!  (But, of course, I only mean good as long as it isn't a hideous ultra-modern monstrosity!)


Jennie

My author profile

Rather like my new author profile at Carnegie Publishing - take a look at their site if you have time!

 http://carnegiepublishing.co.uk/2012/01/jennie-lee-cobban/

I'm still immersed in researching the Samlesbury witches at the moment - there is so much more to it than meets the eye. Jesuits, teenage hysterics, allegations of child cannibalism, rape by black things with inhuman faces - pity it's fiction (apart from the Jesuits of course).  Our seventeeth century Jesuit priests were fab - rather like the James Bonds of the Roman Catholic church.  Anyway, watch this space.

All the best Jennie

EEEEK! Scary Website Found

Well it didn't take long for me to find lots of misinformation.  Check out Haunted Happenings (Pendle Witch Hunts/A Haunting Experience), a website rendered truly terrifying in its lack of grammatical and historical knowledge.  I was particularly haunted by the indiscriminate use of the capital letter and mystified by the horrific disappearence of the full stop.

Most horrible of all, however, is the blatant lack of knowledge about the Pendle witches manifesting itself throughout this frightening website. Let's have a look at some examples.  Don't get too scared now.

1. Malkin Tower, where some of the witches lived, was a huge limestone tower.  WOW!  New information! No, wait, that's how Malkin Tower is described in Harrison Ainsworth's nineteenth century novel The Lancashire Witches - a work of FICTION.  We do not know what the real Malkin Tower was like - most probably it was a little cottage, possibly attached to a peel tower.  Alizon Device refers to 'our firehouse', which was a contemporary term for a small cottage.

2. The witches made clay effigies using human hair and teeth.  Euuuwwgh!  But wait.  While the witches were certainly accused of making clay effigies, (according to Thomas Potts' Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, 1613), nowhere does he (or anyone else) say that the Pendle witches incorporated human hair and teeth in their 'pictures of clay'.  Stop making things up. Read the original source material rather than watching 'Most Haunted'.

Me and the late Cecil Williamson during 'voodoo doll' research at his Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall
in January, 1991

A wax figure in the museum designed to cause the victim a hernia

Another 'poppet' or 'picture' from Cecil's collection

3. On one of the tours by this 'Pendle Hill Expert' you will actually walk on the hill in the exact footsteps of Demdike, Devise (sic) Chattox etc.  Oh no you won't.  Or at least it is most unlikely.  In the whole of The Wonderfull Discoverie (our only substantial historical source of information) Pendle Hill ISN'T MENTIONED ONCE!

Plenty more, but bored now.  Don't think I'll bother shelling out £65.00 for one of these 'journeys of facts', however.

Jennie, exasperated

Lancashire Witches - 400th Anniversary

1. 2012 - 400th Anniversary of the Lancashire Witch Trials

So it's finally here - the year Lancashire witchcraft scholars and self-styled experts alike have been awaiting with bated breath!  Hopefully the world has begun to forget the ridiculous 'mummified cat' in Pendle cottage story which recently infested our TV sets, newspapers and PCs.  How very embarrassing it was to be made  to look globally stupid by a certain local tour guide in a top hat, who described the find to an agog world as of similar importance to the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb.  The find of the cat's body (actually a skeleton, not a dried specimen) was indeed a fab find in the annals of Lancashire's archaeology of ritual and magic, but let's not go overboard with the hype!

Unfortunately, I fear we are in for a lot more of the same ill-informed garbage this year.  In the course of 2012 I am intending to comment here on any particularly ridiculous, precious, pretentious or just plain wrong information about the witches circulating the web and appearing in the media generally.  I will also be taking the opportunity to publish small articles on various aspects of the Lancashire witch case.  In preparation is a small piece on the Samlesbury witches who tend to be ignored, but it's a great anti-Catholic propaganda story, probably grafted onto a genuine complaint made by yet another adolescent witness who had been pestered by pesky 'witches'. Let's not forget that it's their anniversary too...

In the meantime, check out my new book, The Lure of the Lancashire Witches (Carnegie Publishing), which examines the execution and burial of the witches, their role in popular culture to the present day, and how people protected their homes and farm buildings against their maleficia.  And finally, if you want to know anything about Lancashire witchcraft through the ages, (and want ACCURATE information, not fairy tales) feel free to ask - if I don't know the answer I will almost certainly know someone who does. (I am a graduate archaeologist and historian, and have been researching witchcraft and the archaeology of ritual and magic for the past 25 years or so in case you're wondering about my own credentials!) And do  let me know what you think of the anniversary celebrations as they unfold throughout the year.

Have an excellent 2012
Jennie.