One of the things I like about the darker months is waking up and spending a bit of time just enjoying the cosiness of lying in bed in the dark and quiet, especially when the heating starts to come on. I recently replaced some threadbare bedlinen with a 'brushed cotton' set, which is very cosy. It's 5:30am and I've not been able to get back to sleep since waking up two hours ago.
Samhain was yesterday. Halloween, All Hallows Eve, or - as I recently saw it named - just Hallows. I didn't feel well in the afternoon and got an early night after watching The Great British Bake Off so I'll watch Practical Magic (and have a sausage, apple, and potato bake for dinner followed by pumpkin pie) tonight instead. Traditional Irish Samhain celebrations would last over a few days anyway. And I did thoroughly enjoy a drag queen musical parody of Hocus Pocus last week, in a room full of LGBTQ+ folks and witchy types.
Samhain is partly about the ancestors and those who have gone before, so something I wanted to do this year was light a candle for and think about the people accused of witchcraft over the centuries.
I recently went to Colchester to visit my friend and, on a tour of the Castle Museum, found out that it was the base used by Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins to imprison and interrogate people accused of witchcraft between 1644 and 1647. The museum still has a couple of ancient gaol (jail) cells, tucked away in a corner of the ground floor at the end of a corridor. There are thick wooden doors with iron bars and ancient carvings made by the prisoners. There are no windows, no fresh air, and it's utterly dark until the motion sensors pick up your entrance and suddenly a light blooms slowly in one of the cells, starting a narrated story of some of the things that happened there. One of the hundreds accused of witchcraft and imprisoned there was a girl of just 15. It's a creepy place even with the lights on.
I've heard the term Witchfinder General before but knew nothing more until recently; I didn't realise it was a job title, albeit self-proclaimed, of a real person. Hopkins was a witch-hunter, and treated witch-hunting as a military campaign, hence the title he gave himself. He wasn't employed by Parliament but took it upon himself, and charged the towns for his services, making it a lucrative business. He even wrote a book on his methods, which were then used in the American colonies. You could say that East Anglia in the mid-1640s is the English Salem when it comes to witch trials, in terms of the high numbers of accusations and executions (over 100 hangings) in such a short time. Hopkins was also young, doing all of this before dying aged 27.
I've recently read the two prequels to the novel Practical Magic, on which my favourite spooky-season film is based, so have learned a little bit more about the Salem Witch Trials too. I read a history book on them several years ago but have forgotten most of it. I do remember thinking it was all just utterly bonkers. But in the medieval and early modern period people fully believed in the reality and evil of witchcraft and the Devil. Essex and East Anglia was a hotbed of witchcraft accusations in the 1640s; nearly 50 years later another Essex County on the other side of the Atlantic was the location of the most famous witch hunt in the world. The Salem trials of 1692-3, in which over 200 people were accused and 20 hanged or tortured to death, was a mass hysteria with a range of possible causes including collective fear over attacks from indigenous tribes, eating bread made from rye infected with a certain fungus from which LSD is derived, bird-borne sleeping sickness, sleep paralysis, as well as jealousy, spite, and attention-seeking. One of the leading prosecutors, now infamous for not repenting of his actions when the trials were later scrutinised, was called John Hathorne. Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, deliberately added a 'w' to his surname to distance himself from his great-great-grandfather.
In England alone hundreds of people were hanged for witchcraft between the 15th and 18th centuries. Scotland was even worse, with nearly 4000 people being accused over 200 years; 84% of those were women, and two-thirds of the accused were convicted and killed. In Europe and British America, the numbers were in the tens of thousands. Even today in some parts of the world people are still accused of witchcraft in a serious way. The vast majority of those accused were women. Many were poor and vulnerable. All of them were innocent. While many today happily and proudly call themselves a witch, not one of those tens of thousands accused was a witch. The deeds of which they were accused were and are impossible. They were ordinary people. Some governments, including Scotland, Catalonia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, have issued apologies and pardons to those historically accused or convicted of witchcraft. So yeah, I want to remember them.
...Apologies if all that was a little dark! On a lighter note, Colchester Castle Museum is really interesting. It's the largest Norman castle anywhere in Europe. This is because it was built on the foundations of the Roman Temple of Claudius, the emperor who decided to invade Britain. On the guided tour - I highly recommend paying a few extra pounds to do it - they take you down to the foundations... it's so cool to see something made 2000 years ago so closely (and touch it!), and to learn how they did it. They also show you a model of the temple so you can see how huge it was in relation to a person, and take you up to the roof via the widest stone spiral staircase in Europe. And of course East Anglia is where Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, led over 200,000 troops in her revolt against the Romans, destroying Camulodunum (now Colchester) and laying siege to the temple.
On an entirely unrelated note, I went with my family went to see the ABBA Voyage concert on Sunday, which was amazing. The holograms are very realistic, it's incredible what technology can do now. While of course I enjoyed the music it was more about the experience, I spent most of the time marvelling at the visuals. Recommend.
Happy Samhain from me and my funny little black cat. Lastly, if you're not already bored, here are some things I wrote last year and just didn't publish...
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8th September 2022 - It's definitely a week for staying indoors. Save for the odd sunny spell, grey clouds loom almost constantly, heavy with droplets of water that could turn into a downpour at any moment. Which they have, frequently.
Much of my time has been spent working on job applications, but - inspired by some 'cottagecore' / slow living vlogs on YouTube that I've recently started watching, namely The Cottage Fairy - I've made it more pleasant and cosy by putting Classic FM on in the background, wearing long skirts with leggings underneath rather than my unsightly baggy old trackies, and lighting candles :) And blankets of course, but those are my constant companion on all but the hottest days anyway.
Moods fluctuate, and perhaps I would just be feeling more positive this week anyway - but the extra cosiness and comfort is nice.
Note to self: Making oneself a bowl of porridge at 11:30 because you're hungry is much better than snacking on a couple of shortbread biscuits because you feel it's too close to lunchtime to have something more substantial. Nothing wrong with having something more lunch-like at 3pm when you're hungry again. Do this more often.
5th October 2022 - Super windy today with heavy grey clouds. I've postponed my walking to the shop till tomorrow, when it's meant to be calmer and sunnier. On Monday I finally thought of a use for a glass box that has been stored away in a cardboard box since moving here two years ago - I've put my 'natural curios' in it, things like conkers and acorns and small cones. I've put it next to the vase of dried grasses I picked on a walk a few weeks ago. I still need to find something to store my fossils from Charmouth in, though, I'd rather not fill up my entire windowsill with rocks.
As Anne Shirely said, "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers!"