Widdershins

by Helen Steadman

  With all my love always,

  Your Tom

  Afterword

  This novel was inspired by the Newcastle witch trials in 1650 when either fifteen or sixteen people were executed on the same day. There is a discrepancy in the number executed. The parish burial records for St Andrew’s Church in Newcastle list fifteen women and one man buried as witches in the graveyard. However, according to John Wheeler’s deposition in Ralph Gardiner’s book, England’s Grievance Discovered in Relation to the Coal-Trade (1655), fourteen women and one man were executed for witchcraft; this list does not include the name of Jane Martin. I have erred on the side of caution and included her name in the list of those executed.

  This particular witch trial took place after a Scottish witch-finder rounded up people from the streets of Newcastle. According to John Wheeler, the witch-finder was revealed as a fraud and one girl was set free. However, the others were still executed and the witch-finder escaped. There are no details about the freed girl or the witch-finder. So Widdershins is my imagined story of the girl who escaped the hangman’s noose. This book and its characters are a work of fiction. However, the witch trials were real, and I hope the people killed will forgive my addition of Annie Chandler to their number. Here are the names of those executed:

  Elizabeth Anderson

  Elizabeth Brown

  Margaret Brown

  Matthew Bulmer

  Jane Copeland

  Katherine Coulter

  Elizabeth Dobson

  Elianor Henderson

  Alice Hume

  Jane Hunter

  Margaret Maddison

  Jane Martin

  Margaret Muffet

  Mary Pots

  Elianor Rogerson

  Ann Watson

  About the Author

  Helen Steadman lives in the foothills of the North Pennines with her family and their dogs. She is particularly interested in writing historical novels about the north east of England. Helen wrote this novel for her master’s degree in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is currently working on a new historical novel for her PhD in English at the University of Aberdeen. For more information about her writing, please visit helensteadman.com.

  Copyright

  First Published 2017

  by Impress Books Ltd

  Innovation Centre, Rennes Drive, University of Exeter Campus,

  Exeter EX4 4RN

  © Helen Steadman 2017

  The right of the author to be identified as the originator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Typeset in Garamond by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon

  Printed and bound in England by Short Run Press Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission

  in writing from the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction for entertainment purposes only.

  Do not attempt any recipe, procedure, or prescription in this book.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978–1–911293-04–0 (pbk)

  ISBN: 978–1–911293–05–7 (ebk)