The Pendle Witches: England's Most Famous Witchcraft Trial

As a child growing up in England, one of the best and scariest things my family would do was to go to Pendle Hill for Halloween. Pendle Hill, in the English county of Lancashire, is famous for being associated with the most famous witch trial in British history - the Witches of Pendle. On Halloween, my parents would take me to a local stables, on the slopes of Pendle Hill, and here the local kids would bob for apples, eat treacle toffee and watch fireworks. Here also, we would be told scary witch stories about the Witches of Pendle by a woman wearing a black cloak and a big witch's hat, and with a huge wart on her face.

The story of the Witches of Pendle takes place in 1612. Nineteen men and women were imprisoned in the Lancashire in small cells below Lancaster Castle. They were tried at the Lancashire assizes, a traveling court, ten of them were found guilty and sentenced to death. The ten found guilty are famous in Lancashire history. Any child growing up in Lancashire knows the names of the ten, and fears them at night when the lights go out.

The ten were Ann Redfearn, Elizabeth Device, Alice Nutter, Alison Device, James Device, Katherine Hewitt, Jane Bulcock, John Bulcock, Isobel Robey and Anne Whittle (also known as Old Chattox). Elizabeth Southernes (famously known as Old Mother Demdike), would have also probably been found guilty, but she died in prison before this could happen. I remember as a child, if I was naughty, being threatened that Old Mother Demdike would come and take me away if I wasn't good.

Four hundred years after the fact, children all over northern England are threatened with the Pendle Witches if they misbehave. The sad truth is though, the Pendle Witches were nothing more than old and poor men and women who were pulled before the magistrate because of a quarrel between two families.