The
Lancashire Witches (1848) - Ainsworth
One of Ainsworth's best-known
novels, set in the North of England, is based on Potts's
Discovery of Witches in the County of Lancaster (1613), which was loaned to the author by Crossley, and it's one of the fundamental texts which began the still-thriving 'witch industry' in the Pendle area. The novelist transformed Potts’s factual and
rather dry account into a gothic tale of huge proportions, with chilling
accounts of midnight meetings in
desolate ruins of Whalley Abbey and Hoghton Tower There are curses, spells,
charms and diabolical incantations to be found, and Potts himself puts in an
appearance as a scheming and self-serving lawyer of a type which might have been familiar to both
Crossley and Ainsworth. The historical
background is outlined at the beginning of the book, recalling the Pilgrimage
of Grace in 1536-7 when there arose ‘a formidable rebellion in the Northern
counties of England’ in protest against the dissolution of the monasteries, and
subsequent land enclosures. The
Lancashire Witches is the only one of Ainsworth’s novels still in print,
and copies can be obtained at various points on the ‘witch trail’, which
tourists can take across Pendle to Lancaster.
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