Robert Neill - WITCH BANE

I quite enjoyed it myself! And memo to modern publishers - that's what a horror cover looks like!

From old board:

Lancashire in the time of Cromwell, a county cursed, like the rest of England, by civil war and beliefs in witchcraft ....

Accused of the murder of her husband by witchcraft, Mary Standen is only saved from hanging by the intervention of a young commander of a Troop of Horse as she lies naked and bound hand and foot. That same night, as an unwilling witness to a graveyard orgy, she sees for herself that there is indeed a witch coven in the village. Refusing to betray the participants, some of whom she knows, she finds suspicion once more pointing at her, and as the scene is set for a double battle - between royalists and parliamentarians and the witches and their persecutors - Mary is forced to flee for safety at the same time as the Scots march into Preston and Cromwell comes through the hills from Skipton.

Yeah, definitely something of the Witchfinder General about it, the Ronald Bassett novel more than the film. As blurb suggests, it begins with some fairly salacious scenes of torture (they recur every three or four chapters), followed by a full-blown witch orgy, but for the most part Witch-Bane is an everyday tale of survival in times of Religious hysteria. I'm not quite up to a review just now, but in his afterword Neill writes "There is hardly a detail of this book that is not recorded somewhere [in English or Scottish accounts of the Witch trials". I read it over two days then went onto Eric Maple's non-fiction The Dark World Of Witches (Pan, 1965). Sure enough, many of the most dreadful scenes might have been lifted from two chapters in his book. The basis for the barbaric swimming of Jennet in the novel is an incident that occurred at Lower Marsden near Tring in 1751 - over a century after the Battle Of Preston (which is where Neill ends Witch Bane).

Robert Neill - Witchfire At Lammas (Arrow, 1979)



Blurb
1715. Queen Anne is dead and the German King George reigns over England. Throughout the country, Jacobite support is stirring and in a village at the foot of the Pennines, loyalty to the 'true King across the water' is strong.

Into a community seething with superstition and mistrust comes young Celia Bancroft, well-bred, educated and talented. But her mysterious talents lie in the dark realms of witchcraft, amulets and incantations.

At a time when unrest and the lust for blood run high, the forces of white and black magic begin a power struggle that culminates in a chilling and macabre climax.

True, the patron saint of dubious paperbacks might have seen her way to landing me something with a slightly less boring cover, but beggars can't be choosers, Witch Bane was tidy enough, and besides, it came in a job lot with 25th Pan Book of Horror Stories & a pair too hideous to admit to on a respectable public forum (cover scans/ blurbs/ "in depth reviews", etc soon) for £1. 'scuse me while I have sex with meself.

I guess you never got around to Witchfire at Lammas? If I am remembering correctly, Patricia Crowther mentioned this in one of her books--High Priestess, I think it was--claiming the book was inspired by a conversation she had with the author at a house party somewhere.

Pat Crowther was one of Gerald Gardner's initiates and a High Priestess of the modern Witch Cult in Sheffield.  

Back in 2015, tapes of a radio series Pat did in 1971 were finally released from the vaults and they make for mostly entertaining listening.  The best bits are where Pat, who was an accomplished vaudeville actress, channels an old crone from the 17th century who regales the audience with old spells and tales.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrUmzSKIyNA

H.

Thanks for that interesting note, Dem!

Last night I finished reading "Unburied Bane," a real corker written by one N. Dennet and originally published in a 1933 anthology bearing the original title Horror. This thing is written on a carefully, meticulously crafted note of steadily rising hysteria, finally building to a grisly climax of classic horror at its most hyper-Gothic. 

It could be included in a bibliography of screaming skull tales, if anybody was ever interested in compiling such a tome.

cheers, H.

Thanks, I look forward to reading that.

My legal name is Steve but I don't rate in the filth dept, certainly not in the "Phwoar" sense. I try to mute my obsessive interest in the nude male physique on here because this does not seem to be the place.

H.