Witchery

Beck and I had a very pleasant Valentine's yesterday evening, courtesy of an M&S 'dine at home' offer, chat and the kids making themselves scarce...

This morning I've been distracted by witchery, both camera and otherwise. I picked up a book by Jeanette Winterson yesterday at work that I'd not heard of, 'The Daylight Gate', about the Pendle Witches and published, intriguingly enough, by Hammer. Anyway, it's a very good read - simple, brutal and poetic. I've not quite finished it but I've a feeling all is not going to end well for Alice Nutter! It was funny because I'd been listening to Darren Hayman's recent album about the Essex Witch Trials (I've already banged on about it here...) earlier on, though JW's book is a bit more Maxine Peake than Hayman, if you know what I mean:

"The North is the dark place.
It is not safe to be buried on the north side of the church and the North Door is the way of the Dead.
The north of England is untamed. It can be subdued but it cannot be tamed. Lancashire is the wild part of the untamed.
The Forest of Pendle used to be a hunting ground, but some say that the hill is the hunter - alive in its black-and-green coat cropped like an animal pelt.
The hill itself is low and massy, flat-topped, brooding, disappeared in mists, treacherous with bogs, run through with fast-flowing streams plunging into waterfalls crashing down into unknown pools. Underfoot is the black rock that is the spine of this place.
Sheep graze. Hares stand like question marks.
There are no landmarks for the traveller. Too early or too late the mist closes in. Only a fool or one who has dark business should cross Pendle at night."

Suffice to say, there seems to be a lot of witchery in the cultural air right about now...

Today's musical choice is either more sacred or more profane, I can't quite decide which...!