h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

But if East Anglia didn't actually exist in the 17th C, which BH suggests, it's a bit misleading to have it in the title.

East England perhaps?

I was certainly under the impression that East Anglia was never a county name, but always the traditional and well-known name for the region. Someone must have a definitive answer!

Azara

My question about East Anglia is not specifically about the title, although I agree with whoever said that it shouldn't be there because it made them think this was a geographical entry. I'm asking Mina about the quote "Witch County" in my first post in this thread.

<<"His methods were mainly bloodless, as torture was illegal"
That suggests to me that he didn't use torture - at least, not physical torture, but later on you say
"evidence she gave under torture"
I think some clarification is needed.>>

As I understand it, the law then was that it was illegal to draw blood - actually, this may have just been for priests, but I think it did apply to everyone - and so some interesting ways to get around that law were invented. For example, the rack, which doesn't draw blood but which exerts excruciating pain upon the victim, and other types of torture devices which crush the bones or horribly maim people in other ways without drawing blood.

But it should still be clear - is it torture that was illegal, or just the drawing of blood during torture?

And I agree about East Anglia in the title - I thought this was a geographical entry until I looked at it.

East Anglia isn't a county, but that's what they called the area according to my research - it doesn't have to be accurate when you're hysterical at the thought of witches. I understand it to refer to Norfolk and Suffolk these days. My Dad insists East Anglia includes Essex, but there is a ruddy great sign on the M25 on the Essex border with an arrow pointing up the A12 which kind of implies that it's not part of it. Some sites I've looked at say that East Anglia consists of Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Lincolnshire, while most just add Essex. I don't believe everything see on the web though! I've checked on some Government sites as well, and they often include Essex as part of East Anglia, and I did seem Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire mentioned on one. It's not a new name - it's been around for centuries - the 'Angles' came from Germany? I saw something that mentioned 'three kingdoms of the Angles'.

Nearly everything I've read about Hopkins does refer to 'East Anglia' and Azara's list does seem to cover more than one county.

I've already mentioned there's a lot of stuff here for me to look at which I'll do at the weekend, but I have tweaked the title.

I misread my source, it was 'Witch Country', not county. I've also put it into inverted commas.

<>

Yeah, but that doesn't really mean anything when you consider that the Isle of Skye has road signs pointing to The North.

I've done some additions, and added some links.


Post 3 - some links added.

I had seen those websites, but I do prefer not to rely on websites for information for my Edited Guide entries. Any old person can get a website, and although some of those might well be spot on, I won't be able to tell what is true and what isn't.

I'm not sure I want to turn this into an entry on witches and their persecution in general - that's such a big subject and so little is reliably known about Hopkins that it would turn into a small section in an entry about something else, and I don't want that to happen. I want the entry to be about *him*, and leave the rest for someone with more of an interest who will be able to write without having to rely solely on the knowledge of other people. I'd really only be re-writing other people's words if I did that.

Post 5 - "What's the source/s of the two quotes in the intro?" They are from Matthew's pamplet - should I make that clear? If so, will crediting the first one be ok, or should I credit them all?


Post 7 - I'm worried that if I also add information about the period as well, it's again going to become me re-writing other people's words, as I don't know a great deal about that. This entry would also start to look too similar to the wikipedia article for my liking, which is all over the internet in different sites. My article has extra info that that one doesn't, by adding more info it's going to look as if I did most of my research from their article, and I don't want that.

I have taken the poem out though - I didn't really like it much anyway!

Post 8 - something added about James 1, and Scotland.

Post 9 - link to Pendle witches added. First time I've heard of them!

Post 13 - I've added that link. It's a shame they don't have anchor tags so I can link directly to the Matthew section!

Post 14 - ""His methods were mainly bloodless, as torture was illegal"
That suggests to me that he didn't use torture - at least, not physical torture, but later on you say
"evidence she gave under torture"
I think some clarification is needed. "

I've hopefully made it a bit cleared now.

I think that's everything - I've sort of 'ignored' Mr Dreadful's suggestions as he's agreed to write something along those lines. Mr D, if you change your mind, please let me know and I'll do the changes.

I've just noticed that the 'Witch' entry is a Mostly Harmless entry - I can't see why Frenchbean's suggestions in Post 3 couldn't be used to update that, instead of add them to this one. That seems a much better place.

for the changes!

I think you've got a typo in the sentence "The last woman to be convicted and hanged for witchcraft in England was a woman named Alice Holland in Exeter in 1644." since that date is within the timescale of Hopkins' trials.


Azara

I'll work on the stuff this evening.

I'll dig my book out again and have another look at the date of Alice's execution. I remember working out it was over 40 years, so that'd definitely a typo, thanks!

Okay, I told a lie. I have friends round tonight so I'll do it tomorrow morning.

Hello Mina

Post 3 and 28... The reason I listed those links was because they provide info about the persecution of witches in 17th C and about Matthew Hopkins himself with which to flesh out the entry It wasn't my intention that the entry should be a whopper all about witches, but I do think that MH deserves some more detail, given that it's available on those sites - and elsewhere I'm sure

As I've said, I don't like relying on websites. It's too easy for people to post things up that are wrong.

I have added some external links to the entry, I just don't want to get more information from them than I have to.

Here are my contributions... some of them have been done to fit into a
specific part of the text (and where I have used parts of the orginal text I've corrected them to save time) but the others can just be shoe-horned in where ever you think appropiate.

The numbers may not seem much today, but in those days, that was a huge amount. Local magistrates would pay Hopkins up to 20 shillings for each 'witch' he uncovered who was then found guilty of witchcraft - the daily wage at the time was around 2 1/2p. He often boasted that he held the 'Devil's list of all English witches'.
Contrary to popular belief, Matthew Hopkins was never in the direct employ of Parliament. He had appointed himself Witchfinder General and used the turmoil of the English Civil War to his advantage, allowing him to run roughshod over East Anglia without any challenge from any lawful authority.


Some now believe that these ‘witches marks’ were tumours or other similar growths, as boils (which are often assumed to be the most likely candidates) would have been quite common at the time.

Prisoners would often be kept in cold, windowless cells and made to sit on uncomfortable wooden stoolsPresuambly with plenty of splinters on the seat.. If the prisoner was seen to doze off they would be Walked, literally force marched around the cell, until they had woken up again. Although never confirmed one of the rumoured methods used to cause confusion was greeting prisoners with a 'good morning' or 'good afternoon' at random times of day, especially if they had just awoken.

In order to aid buoyancy the ‘witches’ would often be dressed in loose fitting shifts, which would form air pockets around the prisoner’s body when she was thrown in the water.

Matthew Hopkins was accused of being in league with the Devil which was why he was able to spot witches, his pamphlet The Discovery of Witches was written as a reaction to this.

The most popular version of events states that Hopkins was eventually put to his own methods by an angry mob, but many historians think he retired with his ill-gotten gains and eventually died of ‘consumption’Tuberculosis.

known in the US as Edgar Allan Poe's Conqueror Worm.The film actually has nothing to do with the poem, the American distributors changed the title because Vincent Price was doing a series of Poe-inspired films at the time and they wanted to release it as part of the series. (Guess who recently got Witchfinder General on DVD?)

Great! I've made the changes and credited you.

I've also credited Azara for the great link she found. It's worth a credit I think, it's a really good link and I didn't come across it when I was searching online.

It's gone a bit quiet! I was surprised how busy this was, and thought I'd have more to do after people had checked the changes.

Mr Dreadful, are you happy with where I've inserted your bits?

Looks good to me!