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demonik
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Robert Neill - Witch Bane
« Thread started on: Jul 25th, 2007, 07:35am » |
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Robert Neill - Witch Bane (Arrow 1968, 1970: originally Hutchinson, 1967)
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.
on Jun 4th, 2007, 09:23am, Killercrab wrote:WITCHBANE by Robert Neill ( Witchcraft in Cromwell's England) published by Arrow 1973. First publication in 1968 , which I believe is when WITCHFINDER GENERAL came out - the book sounds very similar and has a naked girl being *pricked* on the cover. Sorry can't supply a scan right now - but am having trouble with Imageshack since they reconfigured the system.
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Managed to pick up a copy last Thursday along with Eric Maple's non-fiction The Dark World Of Witches (Pan, 1965). There is something of the Witchfinder General about this one, ade, the Ronald Bassett novel though more than the film. As you'd expect from the blurb, it starts 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 it's 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 the Maple and sure enough, many of the dreadful scenes might have been lifted from two chapters in his book. The basis for the barbaric swimming of Jennet in the novel is clearly based on 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.
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The inn sign ... was in the nature of a coffin supported by six headless bearers goose-stepping towards a white headstone, and underneath this somewhat forbidding daub with grim irony, the legend 'Ye Journey's End' - Guy Preston, The Inn.
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Killercrab
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Re: Robert Neill - Witch Bane
« Reply #1 on: Jul 25th, 2007, 08:04am » |
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There is something of the Witchfinder General about this one, ade, the Ronald Bassett novel though more than the film. >.
That's the one Dem ! Thanks for writing it up - I'm glad I picked it up - sometimes you buy books for the cover and they end up duds y'know? I might read this next ( we'll see) - I'm finishing up RALPH COMER's MIRROR OF DYONYSIS right now - the sequel ( of sorts) to his THE WITCHFINDERS - that I raved about awhile back - remember my raving days ?! LOL
raver ade
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Calenture
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Re: Robert Neill - Witch Bane
« Reply #2 on: Jul 25th, 2007, 10:33am » |
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I've read a couple of Robert Neill's novels, Moon in Scorpio (1953) and Witchfire at Lammas (1977).
I think Neill is well-regarded by people who appreciate accurate details. His chief aim is said to be "to show the reader of today something of how it must have looked to the men and women who lived in it.
"He cherishes most a comment that 'the book is distinguished by its urbanity and concealed scholarship.' 'So it was,' he retorts, 'but I didn't think anyone else had noticed it.'"
I don't usually pick up historical fiction. I think I first tried Moon in Scorpio because I was married to an atrologer at the time. Then I kept reading because the characters had the same sense of reality and urgency about them as any from a contemporary setting.
Is this the most boring and off-putting thing I've ever posted here? 
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| « Last Edit: Jul 25th, 2007, 12:37pm by Calenture » |
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