ON THE HILL: REPRESENTATIONS AND RETELLINGS OF THE PENDLE WITCHES’ HISTORY WITHIN THE RURAL LANDSCAPE OF LANCASHIRE, ENGLAND

 

Introduction

This article examines the legacy and legend of the Pendle witch trials of 1612 through visual, material, and embodied retellings embedded in this region of North West England. Ten residents were hung having been found guilty of witchcraft, with a number of others accused as paranoia grew. The number and names of those facing charges is one of debate, as some other local trials were drawn into the hysteria and tried alleged witches in the summer of 1612. For the purposes of exploring the Pendle Witches in this article, however, I will use the figure of the ten found guilty and sentenced to death at the Lancaster Assizes of August 1612, although noting another accused (the widow matriarch of one family ‘Old Demdike’ Elizabeth Southerns) had already died in prison. Those executed were Anne Whittle ‘Old Chattox’, Ann Redfearn, Elizabeth Device, Alice Nutter, Alison Device, James Device, Katherine Hewitt, Jane Bulcock, John Bulcock, and Isobel Robey (Sharpe 2003: 3).

The history of the trial and execution of the alleged Pendle Witches is tied to the cultural identity of their namesake; a small region on the edge of Eastern Lancashire consisting of working farmland, tranquil villages, and larger towns at the feet of the Pennine hills. Growing up in the county, versions of this history delivered as folk legend are embedded in the consciousness from an early age. Stripped back to the barest essentials of a story where the presence of Pendle Hill looms large (as it does within the physical landscape itself), with sketchy connections made between the executions, alleged sorcery and witchcraft, tensions between Catholic communities and Protestant rulers, and lost practices of natural healing. Until the fourth centenary of the trials in 2012, many of the retellings and associated imagery were framed as folklore, divorced from the factual and political context of the history, parallel to the denial of witch hunts throughout Europe as violence against the othered female body (Federici 2004). More recent interpretations have reframed accounts through artistic interventions within the landscape itself, acknowledging the persecution of witches as linked to place in Pendle and the wider implications of land ownership and capital in these histories (Federici 2018). The retelling of these historic events as specifically located in the Lancashire landscape yet historically distant starts to lend them the patina of contemporary legend.

Using the framework of contemporary legend to understand the Pendle Witch trials allows for an examination of the ways these narratives are relayed through current material culture and site-based arts projects, alongside how these are presented to audiences and the interaction that occurs. This article explores the ways witches act as an unofficial motif for the Pendle region: caricatures of witches are used to signpost walking routes, identify bus operators, sold as fridge magnets, used as logos for local businesses, and added to the door number plaques of village homes. By analysing current depictions of witches in the region I will examine the political and gendered implications of using this type of traumatic history as a key component in establishing a local heritage and tourism-oriented identity.

Firstly, I will outline how the legend developed and the ways it has been communicated through visual culture. The article will then focus on two distinct ways in which the narrative is communicated and engaged with by audiences: the material culture of heritage tourism, ephemera and souvenirs; then the interventions experienced by visitors within the landscape such as walks, monuments and artworks.

 

Context

Contemporary legend is understood here in relation to Gillian Bennett’s explanation of the form as being:

 

situated somewhere on a continuum between myth and folktale at one pole and

news and history at the other, moving along this continuum depending on the

individual story and the whims or objectives of the individual storyteller who relates it

(2005: 8).

 

The Pendle Witches sit at the intersection of these elements, with retellings of the story including elements of supernatural curses and witches leaning towards folklore, the religious and moral viewpoints of myth, and some claim towards historical fact through court records of the trial and executions. The retellings of the legend may not be set in the present day, but are contemporary in each variation, and, in the case of this research, how the story becomes a part of the physical and visual landscape for the Pendle region.

Material and visual culture are used to communicate the story as legend to those visiting Pendle; these objects and images merging history, mythology and folk beliefs make present the narrative as tied to the landscape. Folklore scholars historically pointed to the perceived lack of material culture analysis in Anglo-American studies with a self-imposed limitation of confining studies to oral cultures alone (Riedl 1966). Although this has shifted with the development of folklife studies in the UK and North America, there was still a separation in terms of the ways these categories of verbal traditions, folk customs and objects are interrogated as distinct rather than intertwining fields (Stanley 2004). Contemporary folklore studies have brought together interdisciplinary research across storytelling, arts, literature, history and other subjects allowing for combined methodologies and viewpoints to be explored (Cheeseman and Hart 2022). The focus on objects is especially apt here in mirroring some of the beliefs and superstitions of the 17^th Century: the accusations of witchcraft began when Alizon Device asked to buy pins from a local trader, pins being objects associated with spells and enchantments. Those working with material cultures acknowledge the power and potency of objects in terms of their wild and magical qualities (Attfield 2000; Connor 2013); here they are explored in their potential to communicate and engage with contemporary legend.

These literatures are combined with the joint lenses of Heritage Studies and Dark Tourism, using both as a means to understand how this particular contemporary legend has been adapted as a local heritage identity which is performed for, and contributed to, by those visiting the area. Pendle is an example of a geographically small and low populace area which uses a historically traumatic event to bring a sense connection to the towns, villages and walking trails which make up this region. This tourism offer is recontextualised by heritage organisations, shops and businesses but remains a consistent visual signifier whilst moving through the space: a dominant cultural identity founded on the execution of citizens by the state. In many instances throughout Pendle, little is done to contextualise the history in terms of contemporary thoughts on class, religion or gender. Instead, the history is sanitised, satirised or enters into the genre of folktale. Although earlier work in the Dark Tourism field focused on traumatic events associated with war and genocide in recent memory (Lennon and Foley 2000), later writers have pointed to the different registers of trauma that can be engaged with across a ‘spectrum’ or framework of darkness (Stone 2006; Raine 2013) to the distinctions between strands of Dark Tourism, Thanatourism, and other related forms (Light 2017). Marita Sturken began to connect Dark Tourism behaviours with material culture and the stories of place and nationhood cultures tell themselves (2008). Jane Brown analyses how heritage commerce in the form of museum shops interacts with sites of Dark Tourism and traumatic memory (2013). Alexis Bevan’s walking parts of the Lancashire Witch Trail as a means of analysing the embodied qualities of what is termed ‘literary tourism’ is significant for this study (2020). This intersection of research between Dark Tourism, heritage and sites of historic trauma offers up a means to investigate how the Pendle Witches’ history is communicated in different forms.

 

Developing the witch as motif in Pendle

As a motif for the region tied to the history of the accused, the figure of the witch in relation to Pendle has shifted and developed over centuries. The figure stands between a realm of fact and fiction, with the reality of accusations and executions contrasted with the trope character of the witch in fairy tales and mythology. The history of these witches in Pendle begins with the accusation that a curse from Alizon Device caused the sudden sickness of roadside pedlar John Law, setting into motion a chain of events where members of local families were accused and eventually tried of witchcraft. The often-cited figure is that twelve were tried and ten executed; however, the reality is more complex, with a number of connected cases and individuals either executed, acquitted or found guilty of lesser witchcraft-related crimes (Sharpe 2003).

Concerning ourselves here though with the overriding narrative of the witches recounted in contemporary Pendle settings, Old Demdike (Elizabeth Southerns, Alizon’s mother) and James (her son) were next accused following Alizon Device, alongside Anne Chattox (Anne Whittle), and her daughter Anne Redfern. The two rival Pendle families (led by the matriarchs Old Demdike and Anne Chattox) are cast as the core players of the history with some members allegedly owning up to practising witchcraft, and young children testifying against their older relatives. Others were drawn into accusations from the periphery, notably Alice Nutter who, due to her higher social status, has seen contemporary accounts keen to dismiss her involvement as loyalty: she would not admit to being a practicing Catholic and risk the prosecution of her fellow outlawed congregants. This mixing of family rivalry, unverified admissions, religious persecution, and class based bias forms a backdrop where we can begin to observe how and why many potential versions of the history would emerge depending on the stance of the author.

Most accounts rely upon the pamphlet The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches (first published in late 1612), produced by court clerk Thomas Potts for a first-hand recollection of the trials, and where the most often repeated ‘twelve tried and ten executed’ figure is derived (Bevan 2020). Marita Gibson’s 2003 analysis of the text points to the facsimile nature of the legal documentation reproduced as part of its claim to evidence, whilst noting the nature of Pott’s account as inherently one of individual authorship. As observed by Gibson, ‘The printer displays the documents with flair, wasting pages of space, apparently for the visual effect of authority and recorded truth’ (2003: 45). Although later accounts basing themselves on Potts may not always use this same visual language, it is important to note the claims to authenticity and encoded meanings present here are at the centre of how the story is told by future generations.

The next significant version of the Pendle Witches story is the 1849 historic novel The Lancashire Witches by William Harrison Ainsworth, a popular early Victorian novelist who built his career on reinterpreting English folklore histories, earning him a ‘legacy of mythmaker’ (Richards 2003: 166). The work was serialised in The Sunday Times, reaching a large audience and the collated parts which followed published as an entire book. Jeffrey Richards’ 2003 reading of the novel points to the nostalgic qualities which highlight past folk customs and celebrations, in an era where there was a separation between the belief systems of the city elites and rural communities as to the existence of witches and other supernatural forces. This attitude can be further observed in Lancashire Folklore (1882) where authors Harland and Wilkinson state that witchcraft was still believed in by the ‘peasant’ class, but without the same fear or paranoia of earlier centuries. The way in which Victorian society responded to the witch as a figure is one which is marked by location, class, and nostalgia. The illustrations from Ainsworth text do much to demonstrate this and can also be seen as echoes for how we visually depict the figure of the witch today, with pointed hats and the hag-like crooked appearance of the female accused, such as Old Demdike. As Richards (2003) observes, Ainsworth’s text placed the Pendle Witches in the tradition of the Gothic Romantic genre, with an accompanying strong focus on the rural setting and traditions of East Lancashire as setting for the increasingly mythologised history.

Moving into the 20^th century, this sense of mythology and distance from the history can be felt more deeply with novels further fictionalising and reworking the narrative. Mist Over Pendle (Neill 1951) is the best known. The covers of these books offer up further knowledge around how the narrative has been depicted; the landscape of the Pendle region is central, with the moors or the distinctive outline of the hill alongside romanticised witch figures.

 

(Dark) Tourism, heritage and retail

The way the Pendle Witches’ story is interpreted as part of local heritage and tourism branding is one of the incongruities which first drew my attention to the layered and complex nature of the region’s relationship to this particular history. Some of the reason for why the history is highlighted and made so visually present within the region becomes clearer when presented with Pendle Borough Council’s estimate that in 2012 the Pendle Witches’ 400^th anniversary heritage programming contributed £85 million to the local economy in additional tourist revenue (BBC online 2012a). Yet, as explored in much of the debate around Dark Tourism, this linking of traumatic events and lucrative tourism income is often contentious; in this case, repackaging the history results in an ‘uneasy relationship’ (Light 2017) between real events, local folk mythology, and commerce.

One of the first stops for many tourists accessing the region is the Pendle Heritage Centre, located in the small town of Barrowford. The museum’s focus is not the Pendle Witches alone, though there is a small exhibition space dedicated to the history on permanent display. Located in the region’s tourist centre and museum, this exhibit begins to draw out some of the complexities and contradictions inherent in the creation of a legend around this historically distant yet factual event of past trauma. Presented as an entrance to visiting the region and an introduction to its history, audiences are encouraged to consider with some degree of levity the persecution of witches through the 17^th century whilst also hearing of animal familiars and the reported curses and strangeness of those accused. The situation of the exhibition within the Pendle Heritage Centre has an effect on how the narrative is contextualised and, as such, the way this contemporary retelling of the legend is understood by a tourist audience. The figures of the witches are treated with a degree of sensitivity and they are acknowledged as real people and potentially innocent victims of state execution, whilst still threading through myth and legend in references to witchcraft. In this way, the exhibit corresponds to lighter or ‘grey’ tourism principles (Stone 2006); although discussing a site of death, the presentation of the history does not necessarily provide a purely ‘dark’ or harrowing experience for the audience, whilst the deaths are still ‘shared and narrated for the contemporary visitor economy’ (Roberts and Stone 2014: 15).

 

Figure 1: Entrance to the Pendle Witch exhibition at Pendle Heritage Centre.

 

There are no elements of material culture available from the time of the executions to display in the present; no traces or remains existing beyond court transcripts and the work of Potts. These elements make up the majority of the Heritage Centre’s displays, placing the historical context of the times alongside woodcut imagery from the 17^th century weaving through the details of the accusations and events in the lead up to the hangings at Lancaster. A short film with narration interprets some of these elements for the visitor in a more artistic manner. Images come from artist interpretations working with acknowledged tropes of the witch or the peasant, and a somewhat melodramatic account of the squalid living conditions of the witches contrasted with the ‘innocent’ but wealthy accused Alice Nutter’s domestic comforts. A still can be seen in figure three, alongside dolls representing these historic figures, calling to mind the ‘poppets’ of witchcraft practice in themselves (Candlin 2015).

 

Figure 2: Pendle Witch exhibition at Pendle Heritage Centre.

 

The tone of the exhibition is one which acknowledges the violence of the executions and scant evidence produced at the trial, and connects the historical events with folk mythology whilst not losing sight of the original trauma. The parallel narratives of history and folklore that mingle here are replicated throughout the region. Authenticity and history are claimed whilst also fictionalising, questioning, and complicating the history in a way which intrigues visitors and has led to the unique identity as a centre for witchcraft tourism. As explained by Avital Biran and Yaniv Poria, ‘whilst some types of death and violence are considered appropriate for the tourist’s gaze’ these are usually instances from the distant past and ‘unique’ in nature (2012: 64). The case of the Pendle Witches meets these criteria, sitting at the intersection of heritage and Dark Tourism. However, the authors also argue that the way in which we delineate sites of Dark Tourism is not necessarily based on the historic events themselves, but the way visitors engage with and perceive them (Biran and Poria 2012: 67). In Pendle, the narrative adheres more to the standards of heritage tourism, with the possibility that some visitors would view the history as ‘dark’ or on the edges of social acceptability due to the connection with witchcraft.

 

Figure 3: Pendle Witch exhibition at Pendle Heritage Centre.

 

The small shop contained within the Pendle Heritage Centre reflects the range of histories represented in the various exhibitions alongside subjects of local interest. The Pendle Witches are featured mainly through books, mirroring the overall framing of the centre as one dedicated to heritage and history, presenting to visitors the space as educational. Brown (2013) examines the strategies employed by museum shops which are connected to sites of death and Dark Tourism, concluding that retail operations physically close to sites of traumatic events tend towards stocking publications relating to the history of the space, and that this approach was viewed as appropriate by visitors and an acceptable level of commercialisation by a wider public. Pendle Heritage Centre aligns with this approach, although perhaps less due to noting the ‘dark’ elements of the exhibits and instead the positioning of itself as a heritage centre dealing with authentic, local histories. Alongside these books however, the shop also features displays which feature more playful objects aimed at tourists, such as the broomsticks and pointed hats we might associate with the stereotype of witches in popular culture. This juxtaposition highlights the different interactions with this narrative that are possible for visitors even on one site.

A counter point to the Heritage Centre is Witches Galore, a shop situated amongst the hills and moorland associated with the historic events of the narrative. The shop offers up many of the same publications as the Heritage Centre does, with even more variety and academic focus, expanding into a range of books covering witchcraft practices and the occult more generally.

 

Figure 4: Shop display at Pendle Heritage Centre

 

However, the displays are more focused on objects such as souvenir mugs and tea towels, clothing, ornaments, fridge magnets, coasters. Witches Galore is a featured stop on both ghost hunting and heritage bus tours of Pendle; it is mentioned as a ‘must visit’ on witchcraft Facebook groups (for example The Pendle Hill Witches), attracts international visitors (BBC 2012b: online), walkers call in attracted by the eccentricity of the space (as observed by the author on multiple site visits). The shop represents much of the complexity and contradictions in the parallel versions of the Pendle Witch legend: is it local folklore exaggerated for and consumed by tourists; historic trauma targeting the poorest members of society; or a ‘spooky’ experience still haunting the region?

 

Figure 5: Tea towel purchased from Witches Galore

 

Although not a museum shop, Witches Galore does claim a proximity to the dark history of the Pendle area. Signage outside the shop in old Lancashire dialect, maps featured on tea towels and posters, images of Pendle Hill both photographic and illustrative are featured throughout. The visual identity of the business speaks to its ‘located-ness’ in the region and the essential nature of this in validating the claim to knowledge of the legend of the witches. The statues of hag witches outside the shop, prevalent tropes of cauldrons and black cats, and broomstick riding witch dolls hanging through the shop all speak to a light-hearted view of the witch as a caricature figure. The witch used as a symbol here represents the region rather than the history of the witches. However, as we see in the tea towel in figure five, these elements of location, caricature and historic fact are frequently combined in the souvenirs available.

A number of the items available from the Witches Galore shop fit into the category of souvenir. Susan Stewart (1993) writes about souvenirs as holding an evidentiary quality: a tangible material object which proves the authenticity of the owner’s personal history of travel and experiences. Similarly, Sturken defines tourism’s relationship to material culture as taking ‘things away from the places we have visited, not only photographs but also commodities such as curios, souvenirs, and artefacts. These objects convey in turn a connection or attachment to a place’ (2008: 12). In Pendle, this connection engages with the story of the witches, but in a manner where the narrative has morphed into a mythology or local legend – something for tourist amusement.

Discussing the kitsch souvenir products available in the Imperial War Museum shop, Brown states that they ‘allow visitors to purchase something of an imagined past in which there was innocence and humour, as well as destruction’ (2013: 277). The Pendle tea towels and dolls offer the same kind of proximity to a ‘dark’ history without engaging with the traumatic elements of this narrative. As described by Hallam and Hockey, ‘material culture mediates our relationship with death and the dead’ (2001: 2). Yet the memorial qualities of the objects sold in Pendle are far from momento mori; instead the relationship being mediated through these objects speaks to a light-hearted, even kitsch aesthetic.

These souvenirs offer up further potential when they are considered as carriers of the legend, or narrative aid for their owners, as they will be taken to another place following the visit to the region. As the story of their acquisition is told, the Pendle Witch history will have yet another iteration. As Stewart described, the ‘souvenir cannot function without the supplementary narrative discourse that both attaches it to its origins and creates a myth’, so we can also predict the way these souvenir objects will function as tied to both the place and mythology, adding to the spread of the Pendle Witches’ history as a specifically local legend (1993: 136). There is a thread to be traced between the construction of this kitsch, folk narrative and the intertwining actions of both local businesses and tourists in relation to the objects purchased and distributed globally. The local history moves beyond its geographic boundaries through tourists retelling the legend in their home locations with the aid of these souvenirs as narrative objects, yet the version of the story they are adding to is one which has been packaged for replication as regional symbol.

 

Embodied landscapes

The Pendle Witches’ legend is also communicated in the contemporary through a connection to landscape, which visitors to the region and locals alike physically engage with as they move through the spaces associated with the history. There are a number of walking routes promoted by the local council relating to the Pendle Witches, with leaflets and maps available from Tourist Information Centres. Most of these walks take in sculptures and memorials created for the 2012 anniversary, alongside village centres and picturesque viewpoints. The history of the Pendle Witches cannot ground its storytelling in one key location, and as a legend there is an innate sense of movement and displacement, which is reflected in the experience of visitors to the region. We see in this Visit Pendle map of the Witches Walking Trail, placement of geographical data points, with the ‘atmospheric’ witch motif imagery, alongside the text which identifies key points along the route by name whilst providing a mixture of historic factual information alongside the accusations levelled against the alleged witches. There is a combining of storytelling and landscape, what Sébastien Caquard (2013) would identify as a hybridisation process taking place where the literal grid map is overlaid with creative narratives. This map demonstrates the means by which a multi-layered narrative is performed for the visitor: their experience of the space informed by history and storytelling as much as navigation through the landscape.

Dydia DeLyser examines the way tourist maps operate for sites with few physical remnants from the period being recalled, observing these incomplete maps as a ‘a partial view of the past, enabling it to become part of our present’ (2003: 86). In the Witches Walking Trail map, this partial view has been constructed through a variety of source material to communicate the heritage version of the Pendle Witches’ legend; acknowledging some levels of historic uncertainty whilst making a clear claim to authenticity and tie to this landscape specifically. DeLyser also points out that maps such as these ‘have lives outside of the place they were designed to describe’, with visitors taking them away as souvenirs, returning with them for future visits, or using the maps as a means to prompt their own knowledge of the subject (96). In the case of the map, it might be proposed this has been used as a starting point for new iterations of the Pendle Witch legend where visitors add on and overlay their personal experiences of the space.

 

 

Figure 6: Road signage at Roughlee village.

 

The Pendle Witch Trail is a route navigable by car or bike of 45 miles from Pendle to Lancaster (the site of the trials and executions); or an alternative 51-mile-long distance walking route between the same two locations. These routes claim to map the path taken by the accused in 1612 through the landscape, with the latter being opened in 2012 timed to coincide with the 400^th anniversary of the trials. Included along the route are ten waymarkers inscribed with poems by Carol Ann Duffy and named for the witches who were executed at Lancaster Castle. Mapping out this route accompanied by the markers in the landscape and printed maps offer an opportunity for exploring the presence of death and embodiment in relation to the Pendle Witches’ history, a kind of engagement by visitors that arguably shifts from Dark Tourism to that of Thanatourism (Light 2017). These suggested itineraries through the space offer a way to literally follow in the footsteps of the accused; for a history with no ‘voice’ or gravesite of the victims, it is an alluring way in which to feel a connection.

 

Figures 7 and 8: Tercet marker for walking route. This is the first located outside Pendle Heritage Centre.

 

Signage, such as that pictured in Figure 7, is featured throughout the Pendle region in small villages which were key locations in the history of the accused witches. The presence of these black signs with the figure of the witch are notably different from the ones used for navigation through the villages: they map a history of death onto the space and remind visitors of a journey that was made over 400 years ago. As argued by Stuart Dunn (2020) in relation to corpse paths (the traditional routes between rural places of death and consecrated graveyards), the ‘vernacular routeway’ offers up an opportunity for walkers to engage with folkloric customs whilst linking past and present landscapes through an embodied experience (2020: 246). The Witches’ Trail offers an experience of the landscape for contemporary walkers that follows in the footsteps of the soon to be condemned, whilst negotiating a way in which to communicate this narrative in the present landscape. The pathway is described as an ‘imagined’ one the accused witches might have taken, although it is based on historic research (Green Close n.d.). This does little to diminish the effect of bringing a version of the history into the present through engagement with the landscape.

The tercet markers along the walking route are each named after one of the executed Pendle Witches, designed by Stephen Raw and featuring a poem in ten parts written by Carol Ann Duffy. These markers in the landscape act as memorials to those executed, providing gravestones in the absence of known burial sites, with the walk itself becoming what Bevan describes ‘a scattered memorial and process of remembrance’ (2020: 1059). With this comes the possibility of pilgrimage for those who feel particularly connected to the history alongside more general tourism. Chantal Laws (2016) identifies Pagan and New Age visitors to spaces in Cornwall as engaging in what might be described as a form of Dark Tourism, at the edges as what may be considered as mainstream tourism or heritage engagement. The ‘ritual landscape’ is one which might be navigated through engaging with ancient sites in order for ‘alternative place narratives’ to be constructed (Laws 2016: 104). In the case of Pendle, there are no specific historical sites for the visitors to engage with as part of a wiccan or witchcraft practice. Instead, new shrines must be constructed, or the sites marked out as ‘suspected’ locations, or new statues and sculptures visited. However, as noted by Joanne Pearson (2003), many UK-based contemporary witches and wiccans do not view the Pendle Witches as part of their spiritual heritage due to the spurious nature of the accusations. Instead, these contemporary interventions in the landscape are an opportunity for an engagement with history which is marked as a modern commemoration and tradition.

 

Figures 9 and 10: Alice Nutter statue outside Roughlee village.

 

The statue of executed accused witch Alice Nutter stands to the side of the road just outside of the village of Roughlee, where Nutter lived before her death. Nutter was allegedly a practicing Catholic at a time when this was outlawed yet rife in the region and as such has been at times cast as a religious martyr (Stopforth 2021: online). This idea can be observed in the solemn pose of the statue: bended knee and bowed head. Placing the statue on the road just outside the village gives the impression of journeying or homecoming and connects to the memorial qualities associated with roadside monuments and shrines. Visitors to the region add to this impression by leaving purchased or freshly picked flowers in the hands of Nutter’s statue. Amongst the accused witches, it is significant that just one has been humanised and memorialised in this manner with a physical presence and likeness given to the individual.

As noted by Bevan, ‘The sculpture stands behind a post which reads “Alice”, encouraging tourists to view this individual as a woman, and not a “witch”’ (2020: 1057). At the unveiling of the statue in July 2012, Pendle Council member Sarah Lee stated, ‘It’s not your stereotypical hooked nose, warts and ugly countenance, she was a dignified person and the statue reflects that’ (BBC 2012a: online). The reason for this personification may be based in Nutter’s higher social status compared to the Demdike and Chattox families. This focus on the status of those accused is significant to the history as a whole: there are contradictory reports as to whether those other than Nutter lived in squalor or held tracts of land. Silvia Federici expands on this point describing these ‘most murderous witchcraft prosecutions’ as directly connected to land enclosure and the shifting economic and social effects of this phenomena (2018: 17). Federici observes that ‘the memory of this enclosure was reflected in the name of the village where some of the witches executed were first examined’, then as now named Fence (2018: 17). Whatever the actual status of those accused, we can at least ascertain that this element of land ownership and wealth has remained a significant element of the different retellings of the legend throughout the centuries that followed.

The physical artworks can be understood alongside the performances and temporary memorials marking the 400^th anniversary of the executions organised by local arts organisation, Green Close Studios. These works of memorialisation have no permanent existence within the physical landscape, yet through their documentation provide counter-imagery to the more ubiquitous visual language employed by the tourism sector, and offer an alternative model for engaging with the legend. Pieces such as Ghost Bird (2012) by the Louise Ann Wilson Company demonstrate a potential strategy for communicating an effective narrative to challenge the dominant perspectives of this mythologised history. The main element of the piece is a guided walk where the audience are led past paused scenes consisting of ten performers crouched unmoving, naked and in foetal positions within the shooting pits carved into the moorland landscape. Although unspeaking, these characters of the accused are made present throughout the piece. Wilson uses another narrative, overlaid on this one, to tell the story: the hen harriers which once common on the same hillsides are no longer found here due to hunting. These absences (the birds, and the accused witches) are mapped onto the other, neither fully told; Wilson uses this lack to emphasise what took place and what is lost. In this work, the physical form of the executed is made present through the actors, yet performs as a reminder of that body as ‘radically vulnerable’ corpse (Hallam and Hockey 2001: 133).

Hallam and Hockey (2001) go on to describe the tension between the relic and the monument in terms of collective memory and grief: that one is transitory and open to decay or accusations of superstition, the other more permanent yet not of the body. In Wilson’s performance there is an expression of remembrance that sits between the two; permanently marked yet transitory in nature. The piece communicates to audiences the Pendle Witch legend in a manner which shifts the tone significantly from a distant mythologised version of the history to one which demonstrates the vulnerability of the human body in its relation to the landscape. As Wilson describes of her own practice, ‘the feminine ‘material’ sublime is located in and present to the physical landscape, not as a place from which to “escape” or “disappear” but as a place in which to “reappear”’ (2019: 109). This approach is made evident in Ghost Bird and also offers a strategy for communicating some of the history of the Pendle Witch trials whilst leaving space for affect and a narrative potential linked to the landscape where the events took place.

 

Conclusion

Material culture in the form of museum displays, souvenirs and shops allow visitors to experience and participate in the legend of the Pendle Witches. These objects and experiences are then used as a means for further storytelling, now scattered across the country and internationally, where those visitors recount the history, folklore and mythology as their own version of the legend. In comparison, the elements of the history which ask the visitor to engage physically with the landscape (such as walks, maps and sculptures) offer a different possibility for an embodied experience of the history within the contemporary moment, whether based on historic research or more speculative storytelling connected to place. For most who visit Pendle, these experiences will combine at some point (taking both a mapped walk through the villages and visiting the Heritage Centre, for example).

There is an internalised and reflective experience of this history in the region, where embodied understandings of the accused witches’ lives occur through visiting the same landscape they lived in, walking in the footsteps of their arduous journey to the trials, or observing performers who stand in for these absent, executed bodies. As Bevan observes, ‘this authentic, unmediated rural landscape is temporally transformative, enabling the tourists to feel that they are truly treading the seventeenth-century ground over which the witches walked’ (2020: 1055). This is followed up by physically imprinting these memories and experiences onto the ephemera and souvenirs that are collected on such a visit. These maps, postcards, mugs, tea towels and dolls offer a means through which the story to be told, retold and personalised by the narrator at a later date (DeLyser 2003: 96). Each version of the legend told to friends and family will be different based on the individual, what they experienced and their own interests, but it is a manner through which knowledge of the Pendle Witches persists beyond historical accounts and the region itself.

Throughout this analysis, the question of ethics and ethical, or sympathetic, representation of the executed accused has emerged as a topic of some contention. Although my analysis has sought to demonstrate the range of interpretations of the history available to visitors, the shifting ways in which this story is communicated is worth considering also. It appears that a turning point for this was the fourth centenary of the executions and the associated walks, markers, temporary public artworks and performances which began to recontextualise some of the histories associated with the witches, whilst also seeking to attract further tourism to the area as a result. A shifting focus and tone can be observed in examples such as the Witchway bus (connecting the outskirts of the Pendle region with Manchester); in the last year the logo was switched from a sexualised caricature of a witch to a simple more stylised head and witch hat. As noted by Chloé Germaine Buckley (2019) in relation to horror cinema, the witch is a highly unstable figure, one that can hold power but also acts as an unstable signifier in relation to feminist critique. Federici seeks to connect how we view witches today with the task of their remembrance, directly critiquing the tourist ephemera available at the sites of executions as creating a ‘distorted history’, calling for all objects ‘sporting images of the ugly, sadistically laughing old witch, off their shelves’ (2018: 5). Despite some of the kitsch elements of caricature which do enter Pendle’s offer to tourists, it does feel that the multiple and layered versions of the history available for them to participate in and recount for others offer potential beyond the ‘sign’ of the witch alone to understand the executions in a contemporary context.

 

(All images © Hannah Singleton, 2026.)

 

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