Patricia Nicol
I AM writing from my parents’ home in Scotland, where Halloween preparations are under way. The children living opposite have put out pumpkins. And I was amused to see a wedding-dress boutique had changed its elegant window display from virginal ivory-silk robes to something more bride of Dracula.
Scotland is steeped in spookiness, from tales of kelpies, banshees and monsters to having been one of the European centres of witch-hunting for two centuries. Following the Scottish Witchcraft Act in 1563, as many as 4,000 were prosecuted — mostly women — and an estimated 2,500 tortured and executed. Now an Edinburgh QC, Claire Mitchell, is campaigning for a retrospective pardon and national monument to mark that miscarriage of justice.
Who were those women? Well, many of the symbols we associate with witches — broomsticks, cauldrons and pointy hats — were also used by ‘alewives’, amateur brewers who scratched a living selling beer in medieval times. When brewing became big business, aspersions were cast on their brews.
Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet imagines the life and death of Shakespeare’s only son. Its heroine Agnes is wise, with knowledge of herbs, brews and potions passed down from her mother. The people of Stratford regard her with suspicion. But when Agnes marries Shakespeare, her mother-in-law is impressed by her household skills. Those skills haunt Agnes, when she cannot save her child.
Gifted female outsiders are often viewed with suspicion. Charlotte Higgins’s Greek Myths: A New Retelling, explores the stories of Ovid and Homer from a female vantage. There is a poignancy to her account of the witch Medea, urged to use her powers to aid Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece, but then scorned by him. She unleashes hell.
The new film version of Frank Herbert’s Dune is out. Its Lady Jessica is a scion of the Bene Gesserit Order, a group of wise women with mindcontrol powers who can choose the sex of their child. She ends up training rebels in the ‘weirding’ ways.
Let these books cast a spell.