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Meet Pendle’s black magic woman
Which witch: Joyce and Elizabeth Demdike ready to sign copies and posters at the book launch
Though she lives at the other end of the country and had never even visited Lancashire, Joyce Froome became so fascinated by the Pendle Witches that she wrote a book on them. Judith Dornan asks how she fell under their spell
Acedemic Joyce Froome possibly knows more about the Pendle Witches than anyone else alive today.
Inspired by a 16th century pamphlet of trial statements from the accused Device family called The Wonderful Discoverie of Witchcraft in Lancashire, she spent three years getting under their skins, visiting their homes and even recreating spells which convicted them.
The ultimate result of all this is her book, Wicked Enchantments, a history of the Pendle Witches.
Although Joyce works at Cornwall’s Museum of Witchcraft, she knew nothing of the case, had never seen Lancashire – and certainly never dreamed she’d end up writing a book defending a family executed hundreds of years ago.
She says: “If you had told me three years ago, I’d write a book about witchcraft, I’d have been surprised because, although I was working at the museum, I was only writing things like captions for the displays and fact sheets.
“A lot of people visit the Museum from Lancashire who say, ‘Ooh, I come from Pendle Witch country’ and want to talk about it, and so I felt that I really should know more about the whole business.
“When I first started writing the book, I thought it was going to be a fact sheet for the museum.
“I thought it would be like two A4 sheets stapled together. Then it just turned into a book because there was so much material.”
Two things began it. The Museum worked on a touring exhibition with a group called the Lancashire Witch Project and were also contacted by the Oxford-based Pitt Rivers Museum about an artefact called a witch ladder.
She turned to the Wonderful Discoverie pamphlet for answers. She says: “It was written by Thomas Potts who was court official at the trial so it’s really detailed.
“I was absolutely riveted and very horrified by it. Then I realised that, because it was written by one of the court officials, it was actually part of the propaganda.
“They wanted things both ways, they wanted to represent people who were involved in magic as being evil devil worshippers who had to be destroyed but they also wanted to represent them as stupid.
“People who were involved in magic were essentially the underclass, people who were poor and ignorant and superstitious and ‘the devil’ gave them ideas above their station really, there was a definite class element in it.”
She read the statements of grandmother Elizabeth Southerns, also known as Demdike, her daughter Elizabeth Device, Elizabeth’s child-ren, teenagers Alizon and James and their kid sister Jennet, nine and some from Anne Whittle, member of a rival family.
When she read of healing charms used in court as evidence, she realised the trial judge hated witchcraft for its own sake.
She says: “I thought, you’re trying to represent them as evil witches who only harm people, why would you use this healing charm as evidence against them?
“Roger Knowle was actually quite opposed to magic. He wasn’t only interested in these people because there were rumours that they had harmed people by magic, he was also interested in getting rid of them because he was opposed to the whole idea of people practising magic, no matter whether it was to heal or to harm people.”
Joyce found an earlier trial involving the JP’s nephew who believed his family was cursed after he took part in a magic circle ritual as a child, creating a deep prejudice against magic in Knowle.
Joyce and her neighbours recreated many of the spells described. She says: “We tend to think that, if people did practise magic in the past, it was all very secretive.
“What really surprised me was how much material there was. because as soon as I started to dig, I was just coming across all this fascinating information.”
Finally, for photographs to illustrate her book, she came to Pendle, visiting Malking Tower and Pendle Hill and Waterside.
Joyce felt a deep connection with the Devices. She says: “One of the things that makes it such an intriguing story is because it’s a family.
“The pamphlet puts a particular propagandist view that actually they were all giving evidence against each other.
“But the pamphlet gives their statements in the order they were read out in court.
“If you look at the order in which they made their statements to Roger Knowle, a different pattern emerges and it looks more like they were confessing to save each other.
“At Elizabeth Device’s trial, he says she confessed after her children, Alizon, James and Jennet incriminated her. But Alizon never made any statements against her mother.
“Although James did make a statement that apparently incriminated his mother, that was after her confession.”
She says: “People who opposed magic were fixated with this idea that you gave your soul to the devil who gave you magical power in return but the people who practised magic didn’t feel that at all.
“Magic was this divine creative energy that was in everything and they were just drawing on it. .
“Having gone to Pendle, it is a very magical place and I can understand why people would feel that way.”
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Friday 25 May 2012
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