Post by blacky on Mar 30, 2010 7:46:16 GMT 10
Decades before the Salem Witch Trials, Lancashire, England had a similar trial where twelve innocent people near Pendle Hill were accused of murdering other citizens with their witchcraft. All but two were tried in August of 1612—nine women and two men and ten ended up being executed by public hangings. In looking at the culture and history of the trial the accused witches lived in an area of Lancashire which was considered to be wild, lawless and lax when it came to sexuality and other moral issues. The Pendle Witches were accused of selling their souls to evil spirits or devils in return for the powers to kill or maim anyone they wished. In truth, people tended not to attend church in Pendle Hill and remnants of paganism thrived.
Tales of the Pendle Witches have their embellishments but it does appear a number of the witch’s practices in the arts of the cunning folk, meaning they used divination, healed the sick and perhaps cast spells or charms. The Lancashire witchcraft trials centered around two local families led by two elderly women by the names of Chattox and Demdike. Locals had considered these two women to have been witches or “cunning folk” for years and were the subjects of a number of rumors concerning their use of the “black arts.” In reality, the Lancashire witches likely told fortunes, assisted at births, used herbal remedies and other charms and by most would have been considered both ignorant and superstitious.
However, their witchcraft was looked upon more seriously when Alizon Device, the niece of Demdike, was accused of putting a curse upon an itinerant tailor who refused to sell her pins. It was believed Alizon wanted the pins for her poppet dolls.
Soon after the argument the tailor was struck down by a stroke and it was thought the girl’s curse was to blame. Alizon was brought up on witchcraft charges and she later confessed that the Devil would enter her at night and suck out her blood out through her toes leaving her “stark mad.” In this confession, the girl implicated both Chattox and Demdike. The three were all imprisoned in a nearby castle and the witch hunt promptly began. Soon seven more “witches” were caught, including Alice Nutter, a genteel woman who had never broken the law from nearby Roughlee Hall.
Already advanced in age, Demdike died in prison. The others were tried and found guilty of witchcraft. The judge hesitated to put the convicted witches to death and in saying, he was “moved by the ruin of so many poor creatures at one time.” But because the public demanded it, the Pendle Witches were hanged on Lancaster Moor. The tomb of Alice Nutter can still be seen in St. Mary’s Churchyard.
Pendle Hill was an area of Lancashire where Catholicism still held strong and it’s possible the witch hysteria too was inspired by King James, who was anti-Catholic and had written a book in 1597 called Daemonologiewhich was published in 1597. At that time Catholics were accused by Protestants of killing infant children and being in league with the Devil. In his book King James approves and supports the practice of witch hunting. King James wrote in his forward "The fearful abounding, at this time and in this country of these detestable slaves of the devil, the witches (...) hath moved me to dispatch in post, this following treatise of mine (...) to resolve the doubting (...) both that such assaults of Satan are most certainly practised, and that the instrument thereof merits most severely to be punished."
The witch trial was covered in a book called The Wonderful Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, written by a man named Thomas Potts who was the clerk for Lancaster Assizes. Potts asked to write an account of the trial by the judges and it was completed on November 16, 1612. The book became very popular and set a precedent upon how witches should be treated and no doubt became the inspiration for part of the Salem Witch Trials in American decades later.
It comes as no surprise that the area would be haunted when considering the unjust nature of the witch killings as well as other tragedies in the area. In a field outside of Pendle Hill the ghost of a young girl has been seen weeping— many say it is for her love, thought to be a soldier who never returned. In a local gift shop called “Witches Galore” the owner, Maureen Stopforth, has claimed to feel unseen presences on the premise. She once witnessed a female form standing against the wall on the adjoining property. When an elderly woman passed away next door to the shop, her daughter mentioned to Stopforth, that her mother’s “visitor” had finally called her. The woman later explained her mother had been seeing the sorrowful apparition of a girl drifting across the upper rooms of the house that seemed to be connected to the property where the “Witches Galore” shop stood. In the Pendle Hill area where the witches were hung, visitors experience feelings of terror, dread and that of being choked by unseen hands.
To this day Pendle Hill is considered to be intensely haunted with both positive and negative spirits, appearing on such television shows as the Ghost Hunters and Most Haunted.
Saw the most haunted one because I like the place and the legends about it!
it is supposed to be one of the most haunted places in Britain, the only problem with the most haunted episodes here was the fact that derek Ocurah said there were spirits of alien residing here too!