The magical time of Halloween is fast approaching – I wonder if any of you readers have been to Pendle Hill in Lancashire on Halloween night. The trials of the Pendle witches are among the most famous witch trials in English history. All one needs do is search Google to realize that.
I enjoyed the experience of Pendle Hill some thirty years ago. It was a mild night and a half moon was showing itself on high. There were hundreds of people on the wide grass verge at the side of the road, hotdog stands supplying refreshments, everyone seemed to be having a good time.
As midnight approached, some of the crowd, including myself walked on Pendle Hill, not only to feel the atmosphere of the place, but in remembrance of the ten innocent people who were convicted and hanged for Witchcraft in 1612.
The Witchcraft Act of 1542 was England’s first witchcraft law and for the next three centuries, the people of England held witch trials to try to rid their towns and villages of people they felt were working for the devil. The Witchcraft Act was repealed in 1951 and the madness of the witch hunts ended. Historians believe that somewhere between 500 and 1000 people were found guilty and executed during this time.
It was an accepted part of village life for people to practised palm reading and deal in herbs and medicines, talismans and charms. There were those who were mediumistic. Such people were (often) labelled as witches. In most cases there was finger pointing and accusations against those suspected of being involved with witchcraft. The story of the Pendle witches is proof of that.
Covens of Witches
Understandably, secrecy is the key to anonymity. If a coven of thirteen people was discovered, they would ultimately be put to death and the fact would be well publicized. Most, if not all witch trials were of an individual person, or maybe several more, believed to be witches but not in a collective whole as a coven.
This begs the question; did such covens exist at the time? Did serious-minded people take part in religious (witchcraft) ceremonies? Ten years before my visit to Pendle Hill, I was shown they did.
I was born in the county of Lincolnshire, it was forty years before I moved away. I was twenty-seven when I rented a small cottage near the small village of Wickenby. It in a bit of a state, piled with rubbish inside and of course it was unoccupied. I came to an agreement with Roy, the farmer, that if I ‘did up’ the cottage he would charge a low rent. With the help of friends I created a home from home, set in an idyllic setting. 200 yards from the cottage was an old rectory where an old, married couple lived. One afternoon, not long after I occupied the cottage, there was a knock on the door and the husband introduced himself as Tony. He was a tall man, in his late sixties with a fine head of hair. We got on very well together and often he would come to the cottage for a cuppa and a chat. His delightful wife kept herself to herself, I rarely saw her.
One evening, Tony told me he was the last member of The Wickenby Witches, one of the oldest covens in England that had survived until the twentieth century. The coven went back to the fourth century. It was said Oliver Cromwell never came up to this part of Lincolnshire because of The Wickenby Witches.
Next to the village of Wickenby is the slightly larger village of Faldingworth. In the village, there is an old coaching inn called The Coach and Horses. It serves as a restaurant and a public house with an old-fashioned feel to the place. On one of the walls, there is a large oil painting of Winston Churchill with a serious expression on his face, sitting at a table, under low light, writing what is obviously an important letter.
In June 1940, Winston Churchill sent a letter by telegram to the Wickenby Witches requesting that they contact other covens in England and use their ‘cone of power’ to help ward off the suspected German invasion. At a later date, Tony showed me the letter but this was almost forty years ago and I have no idea where the letter is now.
Interestingly, during the Second World War, the author Dennis Wheatley worked with planning staff for the War Office. He wrote numerous papers for them including suggestions for dealing with a possible German invasion. The Germans had conquered Europe and an invasion of England was imminent. Wheatley was the only civilian given this position. Winston Churchill was the leader, the Prime Minister, of England and obviously he and Wheatley communicated with each other suggesting to me that the subject of the occult was high on the agenda and taken seriously by Churchill. Of course, Wheatley was very knowledge on the subject.
In Wheatley’s novel Strange Conflict, the Nazis employ the services of a Nazi occultist who can astral project. The aim is to discover the secret routes of the Atlantic convoys and attempt to stem the flow of merchant shipping that enabled England to keep fighting. Of course, the Duke of Richleau saves the day by doing battle with the occultist on the astral plane. The novel was published in 1941 so Wheatley must have been working on it while he was a member of the war cabinet. Obviously, Churchill took him very seriously. I can fully understand the reason for the telegram to The Wickenby Witches.
The icing on the cake is the fact that the name Wickenby comes from the Anglo-Saxon Wicca (witches) and by (with) so the name Wickenby means with witches. I don’t know any other place name that has such an affinity with the old religion.
Article by Richard Adamski
