Beyond the Burning Time

This is another book dealing with the witch trials in the colonies and it takes the position that the trouble originated from a feud between two leading families of the area. One thing to keep in mind is that once someone was accused of witchcraft the government, or what passed for it locally, could confiscate the person's wealth and property. This could be a very useful tool if you wanted to carry out a feud against another family and gradually drive them into poverty.

One major problem, of course, was that the entire affair did not end at driving someone into poverty; it led to the deaths of people, almost always by hanging. Since there was no justice system as we are used to it, once a person was accused it was assumed they were guilty, and the "evidence" presented was usually given by children who claimed they were being "attacked" by the "witch."

Mary is a fictional girl in the story (although most of the people are actually based on real historical figures). She is intrigued by the early events in the village, with the girls going into "fits" and claiming they are seeing and feeling things. Things get worse as various religious "leaders" are called in to handle the investigation and the trials. Matters worsen when her own mother is accused, jailed and tried, then scheduled to be hung.

Mary and her older brother must carry out a desperate attempt to free her mother before she can be hung.

This is a really good story, showing how the situation could have arisen because of the feuding of two powerful families. Various other books have proposed other explanations for what led to the entire witchcraft hysteria, of course, and this one does a very good job with its own explanation.

The book also gives a person a good idea of just how easily panic could overtake a group of people and cause them to do things that they might not otherwise actually consider doing, especially in a time when literacy was very low and there was no such thing as the "mass media" of today.

Main Index

Yadult Index