The Bottesford Witches

By Sue Mackrell, 2007

Whispers, grudges,
Neighbours' feuds festering,
A village riven with rumour,
Elizabeth Hough, dead,
Bewitched by Anne Baker,
For giving her almes of her second bread.
The Fairbairn child, dead of Plannett sickness.
Joanne Gylls'child,  forespoken.
John Patchett's wife and new born babe,
Death stricken.

Wicked practises and sorcerye,

Fear.

A flawless child, unblemished, perfect,
Dead.
How can that be?
A cow sickens,
How can that be?
Crops are blasted,
A woman is barren,
A neighbour miscarries,

How can that be?

A skilful cunning woman, soothed agues,and palsies,
Eased painful birth with raspberry leaves and camomile,
Meadowsweet and feverfew, lavender and rue.

Then a sickness persists,
A purge fails,
A baby dies.

She's gone to the bad, lost her touch,
Scorned, feared, ostracised.

The Flowers woman,
She has familiars, they say.
Rutterkin, a black cat,
A moldiwarp, speckled rats,
She took the shape of a hare
Running towards the woods,
I swear, she took flight, a white owl.
Swooping to the moon.

Gossip takes on an ingenious spite,
Sprites are seen, black imps, a fiend.
Malice and vengeance,
Old scores to be settled,
Fantastical tales take on evil force.

Hearsay, whispers, a curse uttered in anger,
A gesture, an insult, ingratitude, ill humour.
Have you seen her hovel?  Filthy. Rats.
Poisons in those jars,
Potions of hemlock, aconite, belladonna,
Stinking tisanes and steaming brews.

Her only defence is
Conjuring fear in her tormentors.
Children run, screaming, to their mothers,
Dogs are set on her.

There is talk of nail parings, blood, hair,
Wool from a marriage bed, a stolen glove, pricked,
Dipped in water, rubbed on the bellyof a cat

Malevolent taunts
Become malignant,

The Earl of Rutland's sons
Dead in their beds, and
My lady sickens.

Wicked practises and sorcery..

And they come for Joan Flower
And her daughters.

Whipped through the streets.
Kicked, spat at, heckled,
Wrists twisted, a rope through the mouth,
Bridled, manacled, shackled.
Look, the devil's teat, a claw mark,
See, an incubus, Devil's whore.

Broken, powerless, weak,
They stand before

Francis, Lord Willoughby,
Sir George Manners,
Sir William Pelhorn,
Sir Henry Hastings,
Samuel Fleming, and
Divers others of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace. 

There is no one to speak for them.
Querulous one minute,
Defiant bravura the next.
Pinioned in a dank cell,
Confessions, recantations,
Silence is recalcitrance.

Unbiddable  women must be constrained.
Wilful, provoking, vexatious, insolent. they
Must be made an example of.

Joan swears bread will choke her
If she is guilty,
And it does.

At Lincoln Gaol,
Margaret Flower and Phillipa Flower
Of Bottesford
versus
Sir Henry Hobbert, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and
Sir Edward Bromley, a Baron of the Exchequer.

They are no match for their inquisitors'
Tricksy sophistry, their ease with the
Parlance of law and state
The witty word fencing of slick tongued lawyers
In a climate of witch fervour,
And a rabble baying for blood.
The rack,
Torture by water,
Confessions,
And hanging.

A gibbet casts a long shadow
Over a village left with a legacy of fear.
Those fearing witchcraft
Carry an amulet, a charm, a prophylactic.
Bury Bellarmine bottles, as counter magic

And those fearing accusation
Lock their doors
And keep their silence.