At age nine, Jennet Device testified against her whole family, thereby setting a precedent that allowed the admission of child testimony in later trials in Salem, Massachusetts. My magical realist approach to the Pendle witchcraft trials was influenced by Emma Wilby’s Cunning-Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic (2006), Owen Davies’ Popular Magic: Cunning Folk in English History (2007), and Thomas Potts’ 1613 account of The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, which can currently be accessed via The Public Domain Review.
Short Stories
“Afflicted by Spirits” in Elsewhere Lit: A Journey of Art and Literature
“Alisoun Device and the Black Dog” in Papercuts Magazine
“Hag Stone” in Anthropoid
Poems
“Jennet Device, Age 9, Afflickted by Wrothful Familiars After Giving Evidence in the Trialls of Her Mother, Her Brother, and Her Sister,” “In Which the Cunning Woman Says a Charme Against Morning” in Menacing Hedge ( 2015)
“Witch Bottle,” “Annie Whittle’s Recipe for Taming Fancie,” “In Which the Cards Revealed the Nine of Swords and Knave of Wands, Reversed,” and “Old Chattox’s Rules for Wooing and Keeping Your Own Damned Familiar”; in Menacing Hedge (2017)
Brenda Mann Hammack 