女巫审判

　　Simon Armitage presents the story of the most disturbing witch trial in British history and the key role played in it by one nine-year-old girl. Jennet Device, a beggar-girl from Pendle in Lancashire, was the star witness in the trial in 1612 of her own mother, her brother, her sister and many of her neighbours, who were all hanged thanks to Jennet's testimony. Armitage explores the power and influence of one child's words - a story of fear, magic and demonic pacts retold partly using animation. He discovers how Jennet's appearance cast its shadow way beyond Lancashire, impressing lawyers, politicians, clerics and even King James I himself, and setting a dark precedent for child testimony other witch trials. Historians Malcolm Gaskill, Diane Purkiss and Ronald Hutton help Armitage to understand how the illegitimate and illiterate youngest child of a family of beggars could become both pawn and player in a much bigger story of 17th century religion, power, law, science and the monarchy.