Throughout time, witches have been seen as rivals to organized religion, and consequently persecuted. Some have been burned, some hanged, others drowned or decapitated. Certain tests are used to decide whether or not a woman is a witch. These are usually administered by a witchfinder or quisitor, an agent of the Church, although some communities take the law into their own hands. Many of these tests do not work, and spooks don’t hold with them.1
Swimming has been the test most frequently used. The suspected witch is taken to the nearest pond or lake and her hands tied to her feet before she is thrown in. If she floats, she is presumed guilty and taken away to be burned. Sinking supposedly proves her innocence, but in sinking, many innocent women drown or die of pneumonia or shock. Swimming someone in a lake or pond does not work as a means to identify a witch; whether the woman floats or not depends on luck and the kind of body she has.2
Pricking is equally cruel. A pin or bodkin (a sharp dagger) is jabbed hard into the flesh of a suspected witch in order to find the devil’s mark. The object is to discover a section of her body that cannot feel pain. Sometimes the mark is invisible, but a mole or skin discoloration is considered strong evidence of the guilt of the accused. Again, this is not a sufficient test for finding a true witch.
Pressing involves using thirteen stones. The witch is tied down onto a wooden rack, and the stones are then laid on her body one at a time. Once all are in place, she is left for an hour before the stones are removed. If she survives, it is assumed that the Devil has saved her and she is hanged. Some quisitors use stones so heavy that the suspected woman is pressed to death—either her internal organs are crushed, or she suffocates.
Alternatively, in some parts of the world quisitors use the stones as a means to force a confession from a suspected witch. After the eleventh stone, she is barely able to breathe, but one nod will free her from the press. Yet in admitting that she is a witch, the unfortunate woman has signed her own death warrant.
Human Witches
Water witches and lamia witches are only partly human, but each fully human type of witch can be divided up into four general categories.
THE BENIGN
These are wise women who have a great knowledge of herbs and potions. Some are midwives, others healers, and they have saved countless lives. They serve the light, and any monetary gain is small. If their clients are poor, they will usually work for nothing.
In the County there are a number of benign witches, mainly healers and midwives. The foremost among them are:
Maddy Hermside of Kirkham
Jenny Bentham of Oakenclough
Eliza Brinscall of Sabden
Angela Nateby of Belmont
Emma Hoole of Rochdale
Madge Claughton of Samlesbury3
These women can be relied on to help spooks and their apprentices with their local knowledge and healing capabilities. Charges of witchcraft may be brought against them from time to time, and we should be prepared to defend them and educate their neighbors where necessary.
THE FALSELY ACCUSED
These are poor women wrongly persecuted by a witchfinder. Often they are victims of malicious gossip, but sometimes conspiracy is involved when the witchfinder colludes with neighbors in order to have an innocent woman tried and condemned, usually with a view to seizing her house and possessions.
THE MALEVOLENT
These witches draw power from the dark and pursue their own ends—either without any consideration of the consequences for others, or deliberately setting out to do harm. While some serve the Fiend directly, many act of their own volition. There is also a whole spectrum of power and ability. At the lowest end of the scale, witchcraft is dabbled in to survive; it is a means to fill the belly and gain shelter against the cold ravages of winter. Such witches are little more than beggars. At the highest end of the scale, whole kingdoms may rise or fall at the whim of a powerful witch.
THE BINDING OF MOTHER MALKIN
The most dangerous malevolent witch I ever had to deal with was, without doubt, Mother Malkin. She had a long history of slaying children. Living on boggy moss land, far to the west of the County, she had once offered homes to young women who, although expecting babies, had no husband to support them. For this supposedly charitable enterprise, she earned the title Mother. It was, however, a cruel ruse: Years later, when the local villagers finally grew suspicious and drove her out, they found a field full of bones and rotting flesh. She had slain both mothers and babies to feed her insatiable need for blood.
Mother Malkin
I’d spent the long cold winter at my house in Anglezarke, returning late in the spring to find that Chipenden had been terrorized in my absence. Mother Malkin wasn’t working alone; she was with her son, a terrifying creature known as Tusk, and her granddaughter, Bony Lizzie. During that long winter people had been afraid to venture out after dark, and the threesome had used the time to steal, intimidate, and commit murder.
Five local children had been taken, the last over a month earlier so there was no hope of retrieving them alive; they would have been sacrificed for blood magic. All I could do was prevent further abductions by dealing with the witches and their thuggish accomplice.
Tracking them down wasn’t difficult, as they had set up home in an abandoned farm about three miles southeast of my Chipenden house. As I was dealing with three adversaries, I was forced to compromise: I had only one silver chain and could therefore only hope to bind one witch and put her in the pit I had already prepared in my eastern garden. But I also hoped to drive off the other two and make the area safe once more. First I decided to dispose of the creature. It was clear why the villagers had nicknamed him Tusk. His canine teeth were huge and horribly deformed, protruding sharply from his mouth. He was dangerous and immensely strong, so my first priority was to prevent him from getting too close to me. Many of the victims that were dug up from that boggy moss land had clearly suffered broken ribs. It was thought that Tusk had squeezed the breath from their bodies, shattering their bones in the process. I waited until he returned one night, his large sack of ill-gotten gains over his shoulder, and followed him back through the trees.
Tusk
“Put that down, thief!” I called, putting a mixture of disdain and imperiousness into my voice in an attempt to rile the creature so he would charge me recklessly.
It worked almost too well! Even faster than I’d anticipated, he whirled round, dropped the sack, and charged straight at me, bellowing like an angry bull. I used my staff, stepping to one side to deliver a heavy blow to his head. He went down hard but scrambled back to his feet within seconds to attack once more. Four or maybe five times I managed to fend him off, bringing him to the ground on two occasions at least. But he became wilder and more aggressive, and I began to tire. I was worried that he’d succeed in grappling with me at close quarters. I had two witches still to deal with, so it was time to finish it.
I pressed the recess in my staff, and with a click, the retractable blade emerged. I was prepared to kill him—after all, he’d already played his part in the abduction and murder of children. When he charged again, I wounded him in the shoulder. Even that was not enough to deter him, so the next time I stabbed him in the knee. He fell down in the long grass and howled with pain like a whipped dog. He started to crawl away from me, so I let him go. He was no longer a threat, and my priority was the witches.
I set off for the house of Mother Malkin and Bony Lizzie. As expected, they’d sniffed out the danger and were waiting for me in the trees as I approached. They were strong and very malevolent. The old one, Mother Malkin, used dark magic against me—the powerful spell called dread. I’d never experienced anything like it, and waves of fear washed toward me so that I began to shiver, shake, and sweat. For a few moments I couldn’t move; I stood there, struggling even to breathe, while the younger witch, Bony Lizzie, slowly moved closer, her eyes glistening with blood lust, a sharp blade raised to take my life.
My perceptions distorted by the spell,
I saw the two women as demons with horned heads and the forked tongues of fanged snakes. Only by a great effort of will was I able to swing my staff and dash the blade from Lizzie’s hand. That done, I stunned her with a blow to the head and turned my attention to Mother Malkin. She was by far the more dangerous of the two, the one I most needed to bind.
Mother Malkin and Bony Lizzie
I reached under my cloak and eased my silver chain onto my wrist. As I approached, she began to back away warily. Casting a silver chain is a skill that must be honed, and I’ve always practiced dutifully, routinely throwing the chain at a post in my garden. Of course, it’s far harder to cast successfully against a moving target, and other factors have to be allowed for, such as the force of the wind and the elevation of the ground.
I cracked the chain and threw it, and it fell in a perfect spiral to enfold the witch and tighten against her limbs and teeth. She collapsed into the long grass, twitching and struggling, but to no avail. Seizing her by the left foot, I dragged her for quite some distance until she became quiet. Once she was docile, I carried her over one shoulder back to my eastern garden, calling in at the outskirts of the village on my way to hire the services of the local stonemason and blacksmith.
Under my supervision, they fashioned a stone border for the pit I’d already prepared, and the witch was safely bound. I was pleased with how things had turned out—but that night, to my surprise, the other witch made an approach to the garden in a hopeless attempt to rescue Mother Malkin. The roar uttered by the boggart must have made her almost jump out of her skin. She ran, but I gave chase. Her flight was difficult because there are many streams east of Chipenden and a witch cannot cross running water! There were no witch dams here, such as one found in the Pendle district.4 Nonetheless, she had a good head start and I was unlikely to catch her. Instead I shouted out to her, telling her of the terrible fate that awaited her should she dare to return. And when she turned to check my progress, I whirled my silver chain aloft to drive the point home.
After that I was content to let her go. The warning from the boggart and the fate of Mother Malkin should have scared her badly, making it unlikely that she would venture into the area of Chipenden again.5
The following day I searched for Tusk; on further reflection I had decided to take his life. There were bloodstains in the grass and a clear trail where he had crawled away, but the signs ended mysteriously; clearly, powerful dark magic was involved. Despite my best endeavors I was unable to track him down.6
THE UNAWARE
It is possible for a witch to live out her whole life and not once realize her potential. This never happens in witch communities such as Pendle: here, an unaware witch is quickly sniffed out by the coven and pressure put on her to develop her abilities for the good of the clan. But in some isolated villages, the ability may jump two or three generations and suddenly manifest itself in a child who is completely unaware of her own power. Sometimes this is revealed in a crisis: For example, when her own life or that of a loved one is threatened, a witch’s latent power may flare up. Even then, many attribute it to a “miracle” or the intervention of some deity, rather than realizing that the true power lies within.
Celtic Witches
These witches come mainly from the southwestern regions of Ireland, sometimes known as the Emerald Isle because of its lush green grasslands, a consequence of even heavier rainfall than the County endures. It is a mysterious land, often shrouded in mist.
Little is known about these Celtic witches other than they worship the Old God called the Morrigan and operate alone (they do not belong to clans). They also form temporary alliances with the goat mages of that region, who sometimes use them as assassins to kill their enemies.
Lamia Witches
The first Lamia was a powerful enchantress of great beauty. She loved Zeus, the leader of the Old Gods, who was already married to the goddess Hera. Unwisely, Lamia then bore Zeus children. On discovering this, the jealous Hera slayed all but one of these unfortunate infants. Driven insane by grief, Lamia began to kill children wherever she found them, so that streams and rivers ran red with their blood and the air trembled with the cries of distraught parents. At last the gods punished her by shifting her shape so that her lower body became sinuous and scaled like that of a serpent.
Thus changed, she now turned her attentions to young men. She would call to them from a forest glade, only her beautiful head and shoulders visible above the undergrowth. Once she had lured her victim close, she wrapped her lower body around him tightly, squeezing the breath from his helpless body as her mouth fastened upon his neck until the very last drop of blood was drained.
Lamia later had a lover called Chaemog, a spider thing that dwelled in the deepest caverns of the earth. She bore him triplets, all female, and these were the first lamia witches. On their thirteenth birthday, they quarreled with their mother and, after a terrible fight, tore off her limbs and ripped her body to pieces. They fed every bit of her, including her heart, to a herd of wild boars.
Chaemog
The three lamia witches reached adulthood and became feared throughout the land. They were long-lived creatures and, by the process of parthenogenesis (needing no father), each gave birth to several children. Over centuries the race of lamia witches began to evolve and breeding patterns changed. Those who consorted with men took on human characteristics and sometimes bore hybrids; those who shunned human companionship retained their original forms and continued to give birth to fatherless children.
Lamia witches can now be classified as either feral or domestic. The former retain the shape of the originals—the triplets who emerged from Lamia’s womb. In their feral form, the majority scuttle about on all fours, have sharp claws, and drink the blood of humans and animals. They use blood magic and can summon victims to their presence and hold them in thrall just as a stoat transfixes a rabbit. Their homeland is Greece, but they often range far be-yond that nation’s boundaries and have been found in the County.
Those classified as domestic are human in appearance, but for a line of green and yellow scales that runs the length of the spine. They also use blood magic but augment this with bone magic; some even use familiars (see Witch Powers, page 120).
A Feral Lamia
Lamia witches are slow shape shifters. Those who associate with humans gradually take on the human female form. The opposite is also true. Bound in a pit, or somehow cut off from communication with humans, a domestic lamia witch gradually reverts to her feral form.
Some feral lamias, called vaengir,7 also have wings and can fly short distances, attacking victims from the air. These are relatively rare and seem doomed to extinction.
Hybrid lamias take many forms. Those born of human fathers are never totally human or totally lamia.
A Vaengir
MEG SKELTON8
One of the natural enemies of a spook is a witch, so it pains me to confess that the love of my life was the witch Meg Skelton. As a young man, I rescued her from a tower where she had been imprisoned by an abhuman who had been terrorizing the district, a fierce creature that I slew with my staff.
Finding Meg bound with a silver chain, I released her, and such was her powerful allure that I fell in love with her there and then. But when the morning came, I saw the line of green and yellow scales running the length of her spine and knew that Meg was a lamia witch in her domestic form, and that it was my duty to bind her in a pit. I dragged her to its edge, but finally could not bring myself to do it. Love binds a man tighter than a silver chain.
We walked away hand in hand and lived together for one happy month in my Chipenden house. Unfortunately Meg was strong willed, and despite my advice she insisted on visiting the village shops. Her tongue was as sharp as a barber’s razor, and she argued with some of the village women. A few of these disputes developed into feuds. No doubt there was spite on both sides, but eventually, being a witch, Meg resorted to witchcraft.
She did no serious harm to her enemi
es. One was afflicted by nasty boils all over her body; one exceptionally house-proud woman suffered recurrent infestations of lice and a plague of cockroaches in her kitchen. At first the accusations were little more than whispers. Then one woman spat at Meg in the street and received a good slap for her discourtesy. It would have stopped at that, but unfortunately the woman was the sister of the parish constable.
One morning the bell rang at the withy-trees crossroads and I went down to investigate. Instead of the poor haunted farmer that I expected, the stout, red-faced parish constable was standing there, truncheon in his belt and hands on his hips.
“Mr. Gregory,” he said, his manner proud and pompous—had I been a poor farm laborer, the weapon would already have been in his hand—“it has come to my attention that you are harboring a witch. The woman, known as Margery Skelton, has used witchcraft to hurt some good women of this parish. She has also been seen at midnight, under a full moon, gathering herbs and dancing naked by the pond at the edge of Homeslack Farm. I have come to arrest her and demand that you bring her to this spot immediately!”
While Meg always gathered herbs at the new moon and did indeed dance naked, she had the power to ensure that, unless she wished it, nobody could see her. So I knew that the last of the charges was a lie.
“Meg no longer lives with me!” I said. “She’s gone to Sunderland Point to sail for her homeland, Greece.”
It was a lie, of course, but what could I do? There was no way I was going to deliver Meg into his hands. The man would take her north to Caster, where no doubt she’d eventually hang.
I could see that the parish constable wasn’t satisfied, but there was little he could do. Being a local, he dared not enter my garden for fear of the boggart, so he went away, his tail between his legs. I had to keep Meg away from the village from that day forth. It proved difficult and was the cause of many arguments between us, but there was worse to come.
The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection Page 294