On making the 17th century book video
An increasing number of authors are creating video trailers to promote their books. Historical fiction gives an added depth and flavour to the process, a chance to show off your period garb or highlight the elements of history that your book draws out.I was very fortunate that my publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, arranged for me to create such a trailer for my forthcoming novel, Daughters of the Witching Hill. The history of the Pendle Witches is so rich in its own right, it’s just crying out to be filmed. My marketing director arranged for me to work with London filmmaker Callum...
Read MorePendle Witch photo album
Some beautiful scenery for inspiration in this cold and dark time of year!This is the view of Pendle Hill taken from the back of my house, taken in May 2009. My mare Boushka adorned on Midsummer’s Day, 2009. My equine muse makes a cameo appearance in my new novel, DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL, as Alice Nutter’s horse.Stanfield Tower on Blacko Hill. This tower is a Victorian folly not far from the site of Malkin Tower, my heroine Mother Demdike’s home. Malkin Tower no longer exists, unfortunately. Modern outbuilding in West Close, near Fence. Mother Demdike’s friend...
Read MoreAuthor spotlight: Erika Mailman
Erika Mailman’s novel, The Witch’s Trinity, is set in a remote German village in 1507. Guede Mueller’s world falls apart when her daughter-in-law accuses her of witchcraft. Guede plunges into a world of frightening visions, not knowing what to believe. Mary Sharratt: What inspired you write about historical witches? Erika Mailman: I have long been fascinated by the witchcraft persecutions of the past, both in the U.S. and Europe. I’m not sure why the topic so compelled me, but as a child I read everything I could get my hands on and can still remember a few library...
Read MoreMost Haunted’s Pendle Witch Hunt: A Sceptic’s Guide
Halloween, 2004Living TV’s Most Haunted investigated several farmhouses around Newchurch in Pendle in search of the ghosts of the Pendle Witches of 1612. Their team of ghost hunters not only claimed to have had a direct encounter with the Pendle Witch “coven” in an old house on Lower Well Head Farm, but that the spirit of Old Demdike attempted to strangle TV psychic Derek Acorah, who has since been outed as a fake.While I realise that the people most likely to read this blog take TV psychics with a healthy dose of scepticism in the first place, Halloween seems to drag out...
Read MoreMargaret Fell & George Fox
Pendle Hill will forever be associated to the Pendle Witches who live on in the undying soul of the landscape and its folklore. Pendle Hill also gave birth to the Quaker movement.In 1652, George Fox, a weaver’s son and cobbler’s apprentice turned dissenting preacher, wandered across England on a spiritual quest. When he climbed Pendle Hill, his revelation came to him—an event that would change both Fox and the world forever. He envisioned a “great multitude waiting to be gathered.”As we travelled, we came near a very great hill, called Pendle Hill, and I was moved of the Lord to go up to the...
Read MoreResearch trip to Bingen, Germany
I just returned from Rhinehessen where I was tracing the path of medieval powerfrau Hildegard von Bingen, the subject of my current novel-in-progress. Here are some pictures.Hildegard was born of a noble family in the village of Bermersheim near Alzey. Nothing remains of her family home, but here is the view of the village church:At the age of eight, according to most sources, her parents offered her, their tenth child, as a tithe to the Church. Hildegard was sent to the remote monastery of Disibodenberg where she was enclosed in an anchorage with Jutta von Sponheim, a noblewoman only seven...
Read MoreAbout Mary Sharratt
An American author living on the Silver Coast of Portugal, Mary Sharratt is on a mission to write women back into history. She is the author of Revelations and seven previous critically acclaimed novels, including Daughters of the Witching Hill, the Nautilus Award–winning Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen, The Dark Lady’s Mask: A Novel of Shakespeare’s Muse, and Ecstasy, about the life, loves, and music of Alma Mahler. When she is not writing, you can find her riding her beautiful Welsh mare.
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