James Sharpe

Knowledge and Truth

Reading Witchcraft: Stories of Early English Witches

By

Routledge 233pp £45 hbk £14.99 pbk order from our bookshop

On 18 March 1612 Alizon Device was out begging near Colne in Lancashire, when she met a pedlar called John Law. The pedlar refused the young woman’s request that he should show her his wares, and when Alizon grew angry with him, a black dog appeared and offered to harm the pedlar on her behalf. When Alizon said ‘lame him’, the dog promptly did so. The left side of Law’s body was paralysed, and, as a result, Alizon Device was tried and subsequently executed for witchcraft at the Lancaster assizes a few months later.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'It would be nice to think that women will achieve equal pay in my lifetime, rather than to watch gloomily as stati… ,
    • In 1660, two of the signatories of King Charles I's death warrant fled across the Atlantic to New England. But were… ,
    • Howard Jacobson's sixteenth novel is 'a love story of sorts, one characterised not by physical desire or even conta… ,
    • 'The sudden immersion in the new and unfamiliar can lead people to write with a rare lack of self-consciousness' P… ,
    • 'Pools bend the rules. Clothes slip off, skin glistens, consciousness heightens. A dreamlike scenario unfolds' Jam… ,
    • 'Although he surely didn’t know W H Auden’s theory that every high C proclaims human freedom and our capacity to tr… ,
    • RT : With beginning tomorrow, we've uncovered a 1997 article from the archive reviewing 'Golf Dream… ,
    Follow Us