In the febrile religious & political climate of late sixteenth-century England when the grip of the Reformation was as yet fragile & insecure & underground papism still perceived to be rife Lancashire was felt by the Protestant authorities to be a sinister corner of superstition lawlessness & popery. & it was around Pendle Hill a sombre ridge that looms over the intersecting pastures meadows & moorland of the Ribble Valley that their suspicions took infamous shape. The arraignment of the Lancashire witches in the assizes of Lancaster during 1612 is Englands most notorious witch-trial. The women who lived in the vicinity of Pendle who were accused convicted & hanged alongside the so-called Salmesbury Witches were more than just wicked sorcerers whose malign incantations caused others harm. They were reputed to be part of a dense network of devilry & mischief that revealed itself as much in hidden celebration of the Mass as in malevolent magic. They had to be eliminated to set an example to others. In this remarkable & authoritative treatment published to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the case of the Lancashire witches Philip C Almond evokes all the fear drama & paranoia of those volatile times: the bleak story of the storm over Pendle.