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Showing posts from April, 2022

The Last Witches of England: the Bideford Witches

For Bideford, it was said, was a place of witche s. 7.45 Tuesday 3 May 2022 £5 / £2 Concessions Advance Booking The Miller , 96 Snowsfields, London Bridge, London SE1 3SS Tube and Rail: London Bridge Facebook Page   London Fortean Email List Covid precautions: Please take a lateral flow before attending. This event may be cancelled and moved to online. We shall keep you posted. On the morning of Thursday 29 June 1682, a magpie came rasping, rapping and tapping at the window of a prosperous Devon merchant. Frightened by its appearance, his servants and members of his family had, within a matter of hours, convinced themselves that the bird was an emissary of the devil sent by witches to destroy the fabric of their lives. As the result of these allegations, three women of Bideford came to be forever defined as witches. A Secretary of State brushed aside their case and condemned them to the gallows; to hang as the last group of women to be executed in England for the crime. Yet, the hatred