ABSTRACT
Harrison Ainsworth’s Lancashire with “the castled heights of Clitheroe, the woody eminences of Bowland, the bleak ridges of Thornley, the broad moors of Bleasdale, the Trough of Bolland, and Wolf Crag … the entrance of the gloomy mountain gorge, known as the Grange of Cliviger,” possesses a brooding air.1 It seems only fitting that it is this region, alongside Essex, which has the dubious honor of holding the title “Witch County.” Over a century, Lancashire hosted two major witch trials and the same number of alleged dispossessions; these incidents would be the subject of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century pamphlets, and a theatrical production. Examining the material as a whole is revealing about the evolution of the portrayal of the supernatural in historical and literary source documents. Just as one can read modern literary and dramatic representations of witchcraft, such as The Crucible and Wicked, as social and political commentaries, the same is true of their predecessors. Each venture featuring Lancashire’s witches discussed below both reflects and contributes to the social, political, and religious discourse of the era. In this article, I will argue that these allegedly supernatural episodes were manipulated to comment upon contemporary issues: religious tenets were disseminated, monarchical policies confirmed and criticized, and popular culture vilified.
