The Witch, The Monk, And The IT Guy

For Neil Fellows, former soldier who lurks in the doldrums of IT Support, being told he has an old soul by an attractive girl is just the start of his troubles. In a Norfolk hamlet that time forgot, Martha introduces him to a coven of witches and the notion that there are two people from his soul’s previous life, who need his help.
Neither can die, two sides of the same hex. One that didn’t go according to plan.
Grace Haddock, a part witch (on her mother’s side), looks fantastic for a quadricentennial. Perhaps a little too good, even if she does have a good moisturising regime.
The other, Barnaby Leech, her witch hunting nemesis, exists in a mobile bubble and resembles King Tut’s grandad. Long suffering and unafraid of dying, his fear is what happens when his body crumbles and he doesn’t find eternal rest.
The old witch hunter demands Grace stands trial at the Gates of Hell to remove the hex. He believes his disturbing video evidence of how Grace maintains her vitality will persuade Neil to assist.
The hunt is on, and though the elderly coven still protects her, Grace accepts that after 400 years, it might be time to remove the hex. All she has to do is find the missing Grimoires of the original three Lynn witches. Books so powerful no one witch should hold all three. Grace wants Neil’s help because his soul was in the body of her fiancé at the time. Unfortunately, that was in King’s Lynn in 1590 and, well, a soul isn’t supposed to remember past lives. But a part witch and her coven play by different rules.
A cryptic warning message from a monk offers a clue, taking Grace and Neil to Florence, and the shocking discovery that Leech’s fear is all too real. So are theirs, with the witch hunter’s people on their tail, and one of them has her own agenda.
From the back of beyond in Norfolk, to going above and beyond in Tuscany. Neil has to manoeuvre some unwilling bedfellows toward one final ritual to remove the hex, unaware that something nasty from the depths of Hell is on the guest list too.

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The Game Of Crones

Double, Double, Toil And Trouble*
With these words, three witches foretold of troubled times for a king. Now, trouble brews for another king—the Norfolk town of King’s Lynn. Former soldier and ex-IT guy Neil Fellows finds himself in the middle of it, wishing he’d stayed on holiday in Portugal.
As the summer festival season approaches, the town’s council is alarmed to discover their prestigious car park and festival venue not only boasts an enormous hole, it contains a disturbing secret—a portal to Hell.
Dubbed the “Demon’s Door,” this portal has unleashed an evil entity with scores to settle. It stalks the eccentric Coven and the aged witches named in the “Book Of The Blessed.”
With crones to the left, crones to the right, and something nasty ploughing through the middle, no one with an old soul is safe—least of all Neil Fellows.
*Macbeth, by William Shakespeare

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A Free Novelette (Currently under revision - Old PDF version still available)

The Shrieking Pit

Neil Fellows returns to Norfolk looking for answers. The unexpected arrival of an old friend only raises more questions.

Thanks for joining me!

    Historical Note & The witches of Lynn

    I am by no means an expert, and certainly do not claim to be a historian. I just write stories, but some research is usually necessary. To establish facts, timelines, settings and all the stuff that go into giving a story a background. After establishing facts, story tellers will decide which ones to use, disregard, or perhaps tweak a bit to hopefully provide something others will enjoy reading or listening to.

    Story tellers of Lynn, past and present tell of the Witches executed on the Tuesday Market Place. All being burnt at the stake for being in solemn league with the devil. This includes Margaret Read, aka Shady Meg who met her fate, as in the story, during the heatwave of 1590, on 20th July. While it makes for good folklore, did she really suffer an excruciating death by fire as her punishment?

    The burning of people found guilty of witchcraft in England was very rare. English law prescribed hanging as the maximum punishment, treating those found guilty of being a witch in line with common criminals. Most records that have a note of the punishment meted out during the period list death by hanging.

    Burning at the stake was a far more common occurrence in mainland Europe, and Scotland, than it ever was in England. Presumably they had more wood going spare. However, in England, burning could be the punishment for the crimes of treason and heresy. During Queen ‘Bloody’ Mary’s reign, some two to three hundred Protestant heretics suffered this end. Something that continued, though the religion may change, right through to the last burning of a heretic in 1612. This dubious honour fell to the Puritan, Edward Wightman, in Lichfield on Easter Saturday 11th April, at the second attempt. During the first attempt in March he cried out in pain, as you do, and thinking Wightman wanted to recant, spectators rushed to retrieve him from the flames. All to no avail, and having received burn injuries themselves, one must wonder what they thought when discovering Wightman didn’t recant at all.

    Treason is a very serious crime, but not one you would think to involve the average character accused of Witchcraft. This being, but not exclusively, older women. Probably living alone, inflicted in some way, or were considered ugly, or rude or scary. Perhaps they were in dispute with someone, or simply another person coveted their patch of dirt. The bad news for a witch was that treason was not just a crime against the state. Treason was a charge to be levelled against them if they had killed their husband.

    None of the stories of Shady Meg I’ve read say she bumped off her hubby, though some suggest her husband’s demise was suspicious. If true, surely it would crop up in most stories about her, as the death of Nick Kirk does.

    Kirk was rumoured to have gotten a pretty young woman named Marion Harvey pregnant out of wedlock, then dumped her in favour of another. Marion sought revenge through Shady Meg. When Kirk heard of her visit to Margaret Read, he shrugged it off as nonsense. A week later, he suffered severe chest and stomach pains, and was dead within days.

    The family called in the authorities, whose search of Margaret’s home allegedly found an effigy with pins in its chest and stomach. Shady Meg was arrested, and subjected to the swimming test (not ducking, ducking stools were for scolds rather than witches). The swimming test meant the witch had her hands tied to the opposite foot, then pulled into the water. If she floated, she was a witch and guilty. If she drowned, she could go to meet her maker, safe in the knowledge of her innocence. Meg did a bit of both, but floated just long enough for it to count.

    Despite the folklore, Margaret was probably hanged. Why would the burning method have been chosen? Other than someone happened to have a pile of spare timber on their hands. The year 1590 was part of a period that saw deep freezing winters and hot summers. This would be followed by three or four extremely wet years that would cause crops and harvests to fail. The summer of 1590 saw a heatwave that reduced the mighty River Trent in Nottinghamshire to a trickle. Whilst Lynn had managed to build many properties in brick by this time, there were still older houses around. Most of which would have been tinder dry. Would they really have wanted to set a ton of wood aflame to burn a witch when water might have been in short supply? A hanging was easier, cheaper, less resource hungry and slightly more environmentally friendly.

    In Henry J. Hillen’s ‘History of the Borough of King’s Lynn’ published in 1907, a section on ‘Crime And Punishment’ covers witches and witchcraft. It mentions the names of Margaret Read, executed 20th of July 1590, and Mary Smith executed on the 12th of January 1616. Mr Hillen states that these two ladies were burnt at the stake for their crimes. He adds a third execution. That of Elizabeth Housegoe, who died in 1598. Mr Hillen is unsure whether her execution was at the stake or the gallows.

    However, Mr Hillen is not one for naming his sources, as such there is nothing to back this information up as gospel. Unfortunately, as the town records covering these events before 1620 no longer exist, Mr Hillen’s text may simply be the written version of the verbal stories and legends of Lynn.

    Many stories also claim Mary Smith was burnt at the stake in 1616. It is said that when she died in the flames, her heart burst from her chest and hit the wall of a house in the Tuesday Market (some also attribute this to Shady Meg too. There is still a heart sign above the door where it is supposed to have happened. However, the frontage of the house is, I think Georgian, so take it all with a pinch of salt). It is also claimed her heart then bounced out of the Market Place and down the lane towards the river to plunge into the murky waters.

    Why would the heart burst out from the victim’s chest, then leg it? Not sure about the trotting off toward the river part but, apparently, in some places where burning was more commonplace, the witch was either strangled, or given gunpowder to swallow prior to burning. Obviously given a bit of time of being warmed by the flames, the gunpowder would go bang, and possibly shooting the heart out of the body. Both methods were designed to ease the suffering of the executed though not, I suspect, of those clearing up afterwards.

    Anyhoo, I digress. Mary Smith was pursued as a witch for years by a clergy man, who was clearly obsessed. He even wrote a (very) lengthy document on the subject in the aftermath, called ‘A Treatise of Witchcraft, by Alexander Roberts B.D and Preacher of Gods words at Kings-Linne in Norffolke.’

    Most of the Treatise is made up of evidence against her, with the name of victims, also a lot of religious justification of his pursuit of Mary. Interestingly, at her execution, Mary was given the option to sing a psalm, that:
    “she answered willingly that she desired the same, and appointed it herself, 'The Lamentation of a sinner', whose beginning is 'Lorde turne not away thy face'. And at the ending thereof thus finished her life.”

    Unfortunately, it does not clarify the method of execution, but was there a fire of some sort? For it continues:
    “For Gods mercy is greater than mans misery can ever be and even for the like unto this very fact, we have a bookcase, already adjudged, and over ruled in those Ephesians, who brought their conjuring books, sacrificed them on the fire, estimated at nine hundred pounds of our money, repented of their sinnes, and obtained mercy. Acts 19 Verse 19.”

    Roberts is quoting the Bible where the burning of conjuring books is concerned. Probably not meaning a great queue of Lynn people lining up to burn their copies of 'The Big Boy's Book Of Magic'. I wonder if this is where the idea Mary Smith was burnt at the stake comes from?

    It’s also a shame that the Quarter session minutes record for the trials of seven witches in September 1646, who fell foul of the “witch discoverer” Matthew Hopkin, do not mention the punishment. Only that one was guilty, five were found not guilty and one was not of sound mind and could not be given a proper trial. All of which, says more about the methods employed by Hopkin than anything else. You pays a man to find witches and find witches he shall.

    Online References (copy & paste links into your browser)
    https://www.britannica.com/topic/burning-at-the-stake
    https://norfolkrecordofficeblog.org/2018/10/31/the-witches-of-lynn/
    https://www.icysedgwick.com/shady-meg-kings-lynn/
    https://www.history.com/news/7-bizarre-witch-trial-tests
    https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/edward-wightman-executed-heresy

    Books of Interest
    The History of King’s Lynn, Volumes 1 & 2 – Henry James Hillen.
    Witch Hunt, The Persecution of Witches in England – David & Andrew Pickering
    Religion and the Decline of Magic – Keith Thomas
    Witchcraft, A very Short Introduction – Malcom Gaskill
    Witchcraft – Suzannah Lipscomb (Very short but interesting, er, the book I mean obviously)
    Witchfinders, A seventeenth Century English Tragedy – Malcom Gaskill
    Witches, James I and the English Witch Hunts – Tracy Borman
    England’s Witchcraft Trials – Willow Winsham

    Visit King's Lynn

    Street Name Changes in Lynn

    Lynn is an old town with a mention as ‘Lena’ in the Domesday book of 1085 for its saltings, but probably goes back a lot further to either Anglo Saxon or Celtic origins. ‘Lin’ being a Celtic word for lake, ‘Llyn’ in Welsh, and other watery Celt settlements, such as Dublin and Berlin.

    Obviously the town has changed tremendously over time, but large parts of the Medieval street plan still exist. Unfortunately, the Medieval names largely don’t.

    This was a result of the swelling of national pride at the end of the Napoleonic wars. The Borough chose to celebrate by changing established street names (those giving a clue to the sort of trades that occupied them) with new patriotic labels.

    The subject is covered in an important book that is tremendously hard to get these days. You have to rely on reference libraries or museums. Thankfully, Trues Yard museum in King’s Lynn, has copies available to browse on site.
    It is also available online at the Internet Archive website:

    ‘The making of Kings Lynn: secular buildings from the 11th to the 17th century’. By Vanessa Parker.

    Current name / Old name – circa 1537

    Baker Lane / (Old) Wyngate
    Bridge Street / Coldhirne Street
    Common Staithe / Common Staithe
    Common Staithe Lane / Common Staithe Lane
    Ferry Lane / Thimble lane
    High Street (from Saturday Market to Purfleet) / Briggate
    High Street (from Purfleet to current Norfolk Street) / Mercer Row
    High Street (from Norfolk Street to Tuesday Market) / Cook Row
    King Street / Checker Street (or The checker)
    King Staithe / King Staithe
    King Staithe lane / King Staithe lane
    Market Street / Pillory lane
    Nelson Street / Lath Street
    New Conduit Street / Fincham Street
    Norfolk Street (West) / Grassmarket (or Gressmarket)
    Norfolk Street (East) / Damgate
    Page Stair lane / Page Staithe lane
    Priory Lane / Priory lane
    Purfleet Street / Purfleet Street
    Queen Street / Wyngate
    St James Street / Skinner Row
    St Margaret Place / Bull Stake
    St Margaret Lane / St Margaret Muckhill Lane *
    St Nicholas Street / Woolmarket
    Saturday Market Place / Saturday Market
    South Clough Lane / Fuller Row
    Surry Street / Jews Lane
    Tower Place / Codling Lane
    Tower Street / Basingley Baxters Row **
    Tuesday Market Place / Tuesday Market
    Union Street / Mad Lane
    Water Lane / Pudding Lane

    * You can see why they might want to change this name!
    ** Interesting point, a Baxter is, or rather was, a female baker.
    The above isn’t the full list, but concentrates in and around the area covered by TW,TM&TITG

    Visit Trues Yard Fisherfolk Museum, Lynn

    Meet the Author

    David was born and brought up in Edmonton, North London. A lack of academic prowess meant he left education without the weight of expectation that comes with too many qualifications.

    However books of all types were a passion. David enjoyed writing stories, radio scripts, song lyrics and even created two thirds of a musical libretto (although without the music, so technically it was two thirds of half a musical). Since finding a musical collaborator proved fruitless, the libretto was never finished and was eventually consigned to the wastepaper bin. In doing so, David did his bit for musical theatre.

    He served in the British Army, passing the Airborne Force’s famed P Company in the Reserves, before joining the Regular Army. David still has a tank driving licence, should that ever come in handy. Public service followed, where he gained a variety of qualifications in property inspections, IT stuff and training.

    David wrote his first full novel way back in the nineties, called ‘The Sons Of Ra’. In common with first novels everywhere, it gained rejections like badges of honour. Quite honestly, it now reads very much like a rough first draft. However, it’s unlikely to ever see the light of day as stories involving Egyptian myths and mummies is a saturated market.

    He now lives in Norfolk, England with his partner, Nicola. There he spends time at his computer with a mug of coffee, wondering why the characters in his head won’t do what they’re told.

    Looking to Self-Publish?