Two peasant families were involved in the affair, both of which were led by charismatic old women – Demdike and Chattox – who, it appears, played on their reputation as witches, an enterprising response to extreme poverty.

However, while Demdike’s granddaughter, Alizon Device, was begging one day, a pedlar refused to give her some pins. Screaming curses at him, one can only imagine her shock when he did indeed fall to the ground, paralysed.

It now seems likely that the pedlar had a stroke, but for Alizon Device and those around her, it was the beginning of their demise. Hauled up before Justice Roger Nowell, Alizon broke down and confessed to being a witch, also naming Demdike and Chattox, accusing them of killing people by way of making clay effigies.

For her part, 80-year-old Demdike admitted to meeting the devil, in the form of a little boy called Tibbs, and letting him suck her blood. Alizon and Demdike were the only ones of those hung who ‘confessed’ to their crimes.

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