The Hellripper song about Demdike rules.

155. The Daylight Gate – Jeanette Winterson

The Lancashire witch trials precede one Witchfinder General I tend to talk about by several years. They, however, follow the tumultuous time of trying to succeed Elizabeth I and James I being all, “I am the king and I wrote about Demonology, go forth and root it out.” And he wrote that because he got mad about a storm and had some women killed in Scotland for “plotting against him,” these would be known as the North Berwick witches. Anyway, people like Thomas Potts in this novel (and in real life, he wrote his own book about it) take James I up on that and go after poor women, ones who aren’t appealing for maybe being Catholic, and then any upstart know it alls who point things out to them like Alice Nutter. She has money, in this story she also has a level of magic that is borne of a relationship with Dr. John Dee and cohorts, and yet, she is made vulnerable by annoying the wrong people and maybe harboring a Catholic part of the Gunpowder Plot whose sister is the only one acquitted from the shitty (literally) dungeon hole in Lancaster Castle. As mentioned previously, I have seen this place and it had been cleaned probably several times since the 1600s, but was still quite depressing.

The liberties taken with what might have been actually going on in Lancaster during this time are very entertaining and put an emotional point on the story and the desolate conditions of the time. One particular historical liberty is taken with Old Demdike that even as one with exes who didn’t try to substitute my soul for theirs in a devil’s bargain I still wasn’t quite tracking with, but it was good nonetheless. It gave Alice Nutter a real reason to be so protective of a family that does not come off well no matter their circumstances. So much abuse and grave robbing and just no good future options.

 

Is it Dr. John Dee and Alice Nutter? Nope. Thaddeus and Pickles, not doing alchemy where you could see them as usual.