Ratings4
Average rating4.3
The first half of the book is from the point-of-view of Mother Demdike, an elderly healer in mid 1500s through early 1600s Lancashire, England. She gains a familiar and uses the knowledge and magic of now-illegal Catholic rites (this is during the reign of Protestant Elizabeth I) and other charms to help her small village survive during famine and the hard life of every-day Tudor England peasants. Her son marries and moves away with his family while her daughter, born out-of-wedlock and with a lazy eye, is seen as evil by the superstitious villagers but Demdike gains their trust by being a formidable healer and elder and manages to help them both survive.
The latter half of the book is from the point-of-view of Demdike's granddaughter (from her daughter), who has also been gifted with healing prowess, but which ultimately leads to the village's downfall.
This is a gripping, well-written look into the lives of those who are mostly forgotten (peasants and country-folk of bygone eras) that seems to be very well researched with just enough of the supernatural to make it more than a historical narrative.
As it says in the afterword, it's based off of a real witch trial in Lancashire, which characters based off of the actual women and men who were wrongly accused of witchcraft and subsequently tortured and killed for their “crimes”.