Hello, I am Tiddler.  Come and sit by my fireside, kitties, and I will tell you a story of long, long ago that happened not very far from where I live.

It is a story that I think that you cats will find quite interesting.  It is a story of (alleged) witchcraft.

Long ago one of my humans won a prize at school and the book that he chose as his prize was called "The Lancashire Witches".  It is a book which was written over a hundred years ago by a man called William Harrison Ainsworth.  Parts of that book are written in an ancient Lancashire dialect which is very difficult to understand even for me, and I have lived here all my life so far.  The book is a romantic novel built around the happenings around Pendle Hill around 1600 and up until 1612.  That book intrigued my human and he always wondered what was the true story of the 'witches'.  If it had not been for the book by Harrison Ainsworth then the Lancashire witches would probably have been forgotten, as so many English 'witches' have been forgotten in the past.  As it is they are the most famous witches in England.

Recently another book has been written about the local witches of that time.  Some other people were fascinated by whatever the true story might be and they researched the actual records of the trials, which they say were frequently difficult to decipher, but they have come up with a good idea of what took place.  Their book is called "The Trials of the Lancashire Witches", it is by Edgar Peel and Pat Southern, and it is the general story from this book which I would like to tell you.

There were three seperate groups of trials around the same time in this area.

• The trial of Jennet Preston, in York.
• The trial of the rest of the Pendle group in Lancaster.
• The trial of the Samlesbury witches.  (Samlesbury is a small place between Blackburn and Preston).

Both the trials of the Samlesbury witches and those of the Pendle witches took place at Lancaster, at the same Assizes, in 1612.  Jennet Preston was an associate of the Pendle group.  Although she lived within 5 miles of Pendle Hill, the county boundary came in between.  She lived just across the county boundary (at Gisburn) in Yorkshire and so was tried at York. The trials of the Samlesbury and Pendle witches had one noticeable thing in common.  This was that the chief witness in each case for the prosecution was a child who was accusing her own family, amongst others, of witchcraft.

This will give you some idea, kitties, of the area that this story took place in.  Don't worry, though, the shape of Great Britain has not changed due to global warming. :)  I may not have got the coastline exactly right but it is really only to give you a rough idea.