The story of the Pendle Witches is one of the best known examples of alleged witchcraft in the history of England.

On August 20, 1612, 10 men and women were hanged at Lancaster Castle for the alleged murder by witchcraft of 17 people in the Pendle Forest area of Lancashire.

Those hanged were Jane Bulcock, John Bulcock, Alizon Device, Elizabeth Device, James Device, Katherine Hewitt, Alice Nutter, Anne Redferne, Isobel Robey, and Anne Whittle (aka Chattox). Additionally, Margaret Pearson was found guilty of witchcraft but not murder and was sentenced to one year in prison. Jennet Preston was hanged at York (she lived over the county border) and Elizabeth Southerns (aka Old Demdike) died before her trial.

The Pendle Witches incriminated each other, perhaps in the hope of saving themselves but also gave remarkable accounts of their own activities. Had they remained silent, there would very probably have been no trial and no executions.

Why did Alizon and James Device, Demdike and Chattox make the extraordinary statements that they did? Torture was not used in England to extract confessions from witches, as it was on mainland Europe. However, thirty years later, Matthew Hopkins was known to use various methods of browbeating to extract confessions from some of his victims. He used sleep deprivation as a sort of bloodless torture. He also used a 'swimming' test, to see if the accused would float or sink in water, the theory being that witches had renounced their baptism, so that all water would supernaturally reject them. He also employed 'witch prickers', who pricked the accused with knives and special needles, looking for the Devil's mark that was supposed to be dead to all feeling and would not bleed. It was believed that the witch's familiar would drink their blood from the mark and that all the examining officer had to do was to wait for the appearance of the familiar. Whatever the true nature of the statements, towards the end of the trial the prisoners would have confessed, in the hope of receiving mercy but the most important confessions were given pre-trial and apparently under little duress.

Alizon Device gave her first damning account of witchcraft quite voluntarily and seems to have genuinely believed in her own guilt and that of her family. A brief extract from her confession: (The word 'examinate' here refers to the one being examined, ie, Alizon Device).

"The said alizon device sayth, that about two years ago, her grandmother, (called elizabeth southerns, alias old demdike) did sundry times in going or walking together as they went begging persuade and advise this examinate to let a devil or a familiar appear to her; and that she, this examinate would let him suck at some part of her; and she might have and do what she would. And so not long after these perswasions, this examinate being walking towards the rough-lee, in a close of one john robinsons, there appeared unto her a thing like unto a blacke dogge: speaking unto her, this examinate, and desiring her to give him her soule, and he would give her power to do any thing she would: whereupon this examinate being therewithall inticed, and setting her downe; the said blacke-dogge did with his mouth (as this examinate then thought) sucke at her breast, a little below her paps, which place did remaine blew halfe a yeare next after: which said blacke-dogge did not appeare to this examinate, until the eighteenth day of march last:

"At which time this examinate met with a pedler on the high-way, called colne-field, neere unto colne: and this examinate demanded of the said pedler to buy some pinnes of him; but the said pedler sturdily answered this examinate that he would not loose his packe; and so this examinate parting with him: presently there appeared to this examinate the blackedogge, which appeared unto her as before: which black dogge spake unto this examinate in English, saying; what wouldst thou have me to do unto yonder man? To whom this examinate said, what canst thou do at him? And the dogge answered againe, I can lame him: whereupon this examinat answered, and said to the said black dogge, lame him: and before the pedler was gone fortie roddes further, he fell downe lame: and this examinate then went after the said pedler, and in a house about the distance aforesaid, he was lying lame: and so this examinate went begging in trawden forrest that day, and came home at night: and about five dayes next after, the said black-dogge did appeare to this examinate, as she was going a begging, in a cloase neere the new-church in pendle, and spake againe to her, saying; stay and speake with me, but this examinate would not: sithence which time this examinate never saw him."

Some of the suspected witches protested their innocence to the end; some were acquitted when evidence against them was found to have been fabricated. The trials - however dubious by today's standards - were not a forgone conclusion.

Questions are still being raised by these well-recorded tragic events in Lancashire all those years ago. Certain component parts of the witches confessions appear suspiciously similar to what a psychiatrist would now recognise as being symptoms of a psychotic illness, possibly schizophrenia with its associated delusions and hallucinations. It may also be of interest to note that the Psilocybin mushroom, the Liberty Cap grows in immense profusion on and around Pendle!

It has also been suggested that the alleged witches were innocent dupes, sacrificed by ambitious, powerful Lancastrian political figures in order to impress and curry favor with the reigning monarch James I, King of England who is known to have attended the North Berwick Witch Trial in 1590, in which several people were convicted of having used witchcraft to create a storm in an attempt to sink the very ship on which he had been travelling! This made him very concerned about the threat that witches and witchcraft were posing to himself and the country. During this period, he wrote a huge treatise on demonology, sorcery and witchcraft. As a result, hundreds of women in Scotland were put to death for witchcraft. A passage from his work on witchcraft sounds remarkably familiar:

"Their mindes being prepared before hand, as I haue alreadie spoken, they easelie agreed vnto that demande of his: And syne settes an other tryist, where they may meete againe. At which time, before he proceede any further with them, he first perswades them to addict themselues to his seruice: which being easely obteined, he then discouers what he is vnto them: makes them to renunce their God and Baptisme directlie, and giues them his marke vpon some secreit place of their bodie, which remains soare vnhealed, while his next meeting with them, and thereafter euer insensible, how soeuer it be nipped or pricked by any, as is dailie proued, to giue them a proofe thereby, that as in that doing, hee could hurte and heale them; so all their ill and well doing thereafter, must depende vpon him. And besides that, the intollerable dolour that they feele in that place, where he hath marked them, serues to waken them, and not to let them rest, while their next meeting againe: fearing least otherwaies they might either forget him, being as new Prentises, and not well inough founded yet, in that fiendlie follie: or else remembring of that horrible promise they made him, at their last meeting, they might skunner at the same, and preasse to call it back. At their thirde meeting, he makes a shew to be careful, to performe his promises."

Pendle Hill, which dominates the landscape of the area, continues to be associated with witchcraft, and every Halloween large numbers of visitors climb it.

Several local corporate bodies and businesses use a 'flying witch' logo to link themselves to the area, much to the distaste of some local people who claim the area could be identified by other event and groups.

Until recently, it was possible to give great offence by calling someone 'Chattox' or 'Demdike'. The word 'Nutter' allegedly entered the English language via its connection with witchcraft and associated behaviour.

Fiction

These events formed the inspiration for the following novels:

• Mist over Pendle by Robert Neill, ISBN 0099067803
• A Cry of Innocence: A Novel of the Pendle Witches by Kate Mulholland, ISBN 0860671291
• Lancashire Witches: A Romance of Pendle Forest by W Harrison Ainsworth, ISBN 1872226558

External links

• Story of the Pendle Witch Trial, includes details of their 'confessions', and a comprehensive bibliography.
• Pendle Witches at Lancashire Grid for Learning
• King James' Daemonology 1597
• The Malleus Maleficarum 1486 'A terrible warning of what can happen when intolerance takes over a society'.

English folklore | History of Lancashire | People executed for witchcraft