"Sinister misogynist forces are at work in this wondrously-woven story of Welsh wise-women accused of witchcraft in the 16th century."
Steeped in menacing mystery and Welsh women’s history, Mari Ellis Dunning’s Witsh is an extraordinary story — a beautifully-written, round-bellied book that tells of female fertility charms contorted into curses by men seeking to eradicate the healing work of wise-women in a Welsh border village in the 16th century.
After enduring three miscarriages, gentry woman Doli enlists the assistance of a local wise-woman who gives her a fertility charm to see her fall pregnant and bring her unborn child to term. When a servant finds the charm, Doli’s husband, a man seeking to extend his influence, takes his cue from beyond the Welsh border, where folks once esteemed as wise-women are being hanged for witchcraft. Desperate, Doli defies her husband’s orders to stay well away from a woman he claims is a “witsh” as superstitions, suspicions and rumours run rife among villagers.
Throughout this captivating work, a powerful dichotomy is established between female sisterhood and stewardship of life, and male divisiveness and judgements of death. There’s a sense of socio-political shifts, too — English infiltration of Welsh culture and language, which is deemed to be a “wild tongue” as news comes of “trouble on the marches.
Hangings over the border. Women swinging”. Villagers are pitted against each other by ruthlessly ambitious landed men who care more for reputation and personal gain than for the lives of women, and those who have yet to be born under the charge of wise women who’ve long healed and saved lives.
At once enchanting, lucid and raw, and sparked by a real-life accusation of witchcraft, Witsh rings with a rich sense of shifting tides of history as it ripples with powerful feminist currents.
Talk of witchcraft, convictions and hangings begin to cross the border from England, reaching and influencing gentry families and villagers alike. Told from the perspective of Doli Maredudd, a naive but headstrong young gentry woman living in the outskirts of the fictional Llyngwrach on the border of Wales. Having suffered her third miscarriage, Doli seeks the help of mysterious local wise-woman and healer Sara Gwen, who is able to offer her a fertility charm.
| Primary Genre | Historical Fiction |
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Talk of witchcraft, convictions and hangings begin to cross the border from England, reaching and influencing gentry families and villagers alike. Told from the perspective of Doli Maredudd, a naive but headstrong young gentry woman living in the outskirts of the fictional Llyngwrach on the border of Wales.
Witsh features in the following genres: Books of the Month, Star Books, Historical Fiction
Paperback. £10.79, down from the £11.99 cover price. In Stock.
Witsh was written by Mari Ellis Dunning and published by Honno Welsh Women's Press
Witsh has 220 pages
£10.79, reduced from £11.99. In Stock.
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