The Trials Of The Pendle Witches (Witchcraft Documentary) | Timeline

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This is an extraordinary 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 1612 in the trial of her own mother, her brother, her sister and many of her neighbours; thanks to her chilling testimony, they were all hanged.

Although the events in this film may date back four hundred years, its issues resonate today as much as ever – when to believe our children, and how, in times of crisis, fear of evil can easily lead us to behave in ways which may corrode the very values that we most wish to protect.

Presented by Simon Armitage – poet, playwright and novelist – this film is peppered with his revealing insights into the characters’ emotional turmoil and cutting-edge use of animation, bringing this courtroom drama to life. Four hundred years on, the trial’s issues resonate as much as ever – when should we believe our children, and just how powerful can the fear of evil be?

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Content licensed from TVF.

From the original documentary, The Pendle Witch Child

Any queries, please contact us at: owned-enquiries@littledotstudios.com

1,760 comments

    5. Lady_Of_The_Roses
      As much as you may have confidence in some witches I think you would agree that it’s uncomfortable be around someone walking around with a knife able to stab you at any moment. Even if it’s a friend you would want him to just put down the knife. That’s how Christians usually feel about witches, and rightfully so I would say.

  3. I will tell you that the girl is a manipulative, lying brat who ought to have received a good whipping and taught the fear of God.

    1. Kayleigh Brown I’ve seen this happen where prosecutors turn their children against their parents. This was my initial thoughts on this as well

    2. This is very likely a case a child being manipulated by prosecutors and being made to believe that her mother is in fact evil, rather than a case of a child willingly manipulating a whole court system. She’s 9 years old. Most 9 years olds don’t hold a super villain style agenda to take out their whole family. Even if she did…why? What was he motive? The fear of god is what started this whole thing. The LAST thing she needs is more of it.

    3. Emmë Cross when her mother stood in court pleading with the girl not to do what she was doing, lying on someone to get them in trouble because she liked getting her way AND then she does the same thing to her mom.

      Oh I know that she had not been taught right. Clearly she had learned how to manipulate and get away with things but that does not mean someone abused her. That’s speculation, which is not permitted in the court of law. So if it is not permitted in court, why would you believe it to be true?

    4. Rosanna Miller No, some sort of abuse had to have been going on towards her or the fear of death. I think she did it out of fear or out of hate from abuse

  6. The volume began to get lower as the video played….other than that I enjoyed this bit of history telling…

    2. E Landon men also get into witchcraft. They are warlocks or sorcerers. And yes many do get into it and sometimes, they go too far…example the skinwalkers.

    3. I do think that wherever there is a place where witchcraft is believed to have a power of some kind there will be people giving it a go. I have seen a few people, always females lol, getting into that kind of thing and believing that there is some kind of power to it. I would not be surprised if there actually were practitioners of witchcraft even if their “magic” had no real effect on others. Merely believing that something could kill you would put a lot of fear into you and effect your health. It is easy to say the kid made it up but maybe she didn’t.

    4. It still goes on within immigrant African and some Asian communities that have not long immigrated to the Western world.

  11. I fell asleep watching this. Not that it was boring… But that his accent was weirdly soothing for me.

    2. @C1audius imo hes a very good poet. He doesnt have a lot of the pretentiousness of many poets and hes often very humourous as well.

    3. He’s a British poet called Simon Armitage. I had the pleasure of meeting him at a theatre Q and A session. It ain’t what you do, It’s what it does to you, is my favourite poem of his.

    1. I also love how they describe Margaret Johnson’s taint – “betwixt her seat and her secrets”😁

    1. Yeah, very eerie animations that blend in with the environment. My favorite animation bit was Allison and the sack of bones and a wax doll. It ended with an actual wax doll being picked up by the host which, for me, was poetic and spooky.

  14. Interesting how at 54:50 Simon points out all the equivalent of witches in the modern age. Now it’s terrorists, drug dealers, paedophiles etc. Hysteria and the words of a child can end badly for the person getting the finger of suspicion pointed at them even today.

    1. If you don’t think there’s something incredibly fishy about Comet Ping Pong, I don’t know what’s wrong with you.

    2. Crab you have to have been born on U.S. soil to be president not have a parent be a citizen to become president.

    3. No kidding a kid goes to school with bruise from rough housing and social services is called screaming child abuse; its as though people want there to be an enemy so they can be a hero.

    5. @Maryanne Slater: The joke’s on them: Even if Obama was born elsewhere, it doesn’t matter: his mother is a bona fide US Citizen. Having 1 parent be a US Citizen (no matter the age) is enough to qualify as presidential candidate. It boggles my mind that randumb idiots can think *the tried-and-tested US election system can be fooled by a single non-qualifying candidate.* Just another kind of tinfoil hat-wearing duncemen who think they alone happen to know some insidious secrets of supposedly evil masterminds who are so intelligent they let a random person find out about their secrets.

    2. @BathingInNostalgicWine yes you are pieces of what’s left of the Egyptian queen scotia who Scotland was named after. But obviously the whole of .uk was heavily watered down.

    4. Lol yeah it’s the witchcraft that’s bad not the witches , just like guns are the bad thing not the shooter 🤣🤣🤣🤣

    4. @Andrew Lemango It was a joke. I’m more annoyed with these comments now tbh. Plus every little helps for the creators. I don’t really mind as they get paid for ads. Please stop treating people like they’re idiots, you don’t sound cool.

    5. UBlock Origin. It’s free, and mine has blocked 553 ads, today. Over a half million since I installed it a year ago. Very easy installation.

    3. @Bailey
      Could well be,there was a margaret and mary bullcock married into my family late 1700’s and early 1800 at st leonards in downham(cant see there being that many with that name wandering around pendle).the records are a little vague before 1750 though,but st leonards has good records online

    4. @drewtatt Are we related?? My family lived in Lancashire, local to where the Bullcocks lived, up until about 30 years ago when my father moved south to study.

  20. Many of the so called “witches” that were burned at the stake were actually Bible believing Christians. His-story has been re written to suit the fallen ones agenda.

    1. “Christians were killed by um… Who?? Who exactly, when the church was the authority, going around murdering women and atheists??” *Christians were killed by Christians. Look up Sectarian violence.* Huguenots? Protestantism? Lutherans? Etc. etc. Even in community of a homogenous sect, religion was a bare minimum requirement to live, not a “never-get-executed privilege.”

    4. lolo930 I believe the definition of a “Christian” is someone who believes in Christ. That would mean Catholics are Christians.

  22. I didn’t realize quite how much one of my favourite book series, The Last Apprentice, was based on the realities of Pendle hill O.o

    1. Omg i know i love the spooks serise im reading them all now im gonna be so sad when its finished. I wanna go to pendel to see it its not far from me

    2. The last apprentice? Never heard of that I have heard of the spooks Apprentice or the wardstone chronicles. These other works produced by Joseph Delaney? Because I follow every book he has ever written but never heard of the last apprentice, must follow after Tom has been the spooks, oh no wait that the starblade chronicles. It doesn’t exist then.

  23. Read the book by Pratchett and Gaimon, “Good Omens”, and you’ll find the Nutters. And the Devices. And witchfinders.

    2. The book The Familiars by Stacey Halls is about these witch trails. She adds to the story of course. However, it was well done.

    3. The names of the families involved are very well known, especially here in Lancashire. We get told this stuff when we are children because it is part of our local history – for good or ill .

  25. Get over yourself, it’s Britain- there’s witches….and ghosts…and probably lake monsters

    Update: and fairies…I now learn

    4. @KaeVlogs UK, but not England. Two different countries, one kingdom. Apologies for getting out the hair guillotine. 🙂

  28. You do know that no actual witches were taken to Pendle hill and burnt at the stake. It didnt happen. No witches for real. Go pendle hill and find out the actual history. Most haunted went there and it turned out to be BS.

    5. Feeble Minded McQuim curses and witches and ghosts aren’t real but people were actually hanged and burned for being witches. That isn’t a lie.

    1. Andrew Kerr And religion is for cowards who severely fear death. See how stupid that sounds? Believe whatever you want to believe, but I don’t believe in anything without evidence. I’m not denying there could be a god, but the burden of proof is on the one making a claim.

    2. atheism is for people with big egoz and insecurity issues at the heart of it all.

    3. Well that’s a bit rude. It’s not a bunch of superstitions, it’s a way to help people deal with the afterlife and have hope, and help people have better morals. It’s not just a bunch of ignorance, the only ignorant person here is you.

    4. edwardschlosser1 yea they are a joke for sure big money business making people believe in an imaginary friend high in the sky and doing war on earth

    5. @Cindy Lewis, one evidence is that if you asked all the parents in the world whether they put their children’s gifts out on Christmas or Santa brought they would tell you that they brought them out. You could also do an experiment albeit a slightly cruel one to see if children would receive gifts on Christmas Day if no parents put gifts out for their children. I’m pretty sure nothing would magically appear.

  31. I grew up in Ormskirk, not far from Pendle hill in the 1950’s and I heard another story about the witches there: it goes like this. A group of women (supposedly witches) had predicted terrible storms and warned the immediate local communities to batten down the hatches.
    The warnings were taken lightly, the storms did come, terrible damage was done and they were accused of casting the spells that caused the storm. So they were burnt!
    Has anybody else heard this story?

    3. @Valerie Smith Hi Valerie, have you read the Prince by Machiavelli? Interesting especially in times like today. Cheers

  36. Just realised…
    The actress doing the voice of the 9 yr old, Jennet Device, is the same actress who plays Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones
    LOL

    5. Any evidence for that? It seems doubtful. This documentary was made in 2011 when Bella Ramsey (Lyanna) was 8 years old. Her bio says she didn’t start auditioning for jobs until she was 11, which would’ve been 2014. She also had to have a dialogue coach for her northern accent on Game of Thrones, whilst the little girl doing Jennet’s voice speaks as though it’s her natural accent.

    2. BabyLove1D not quite sure where I am in that scenario. I am neither Rep or Dem.

      If I were to identify with a political party, it is with the Constitutionalist party. I am an Pre-Obama Constitutionalist to be precise. Meaning I uphold the laws in our Constitution before Obama added to it.

    4. Rosanna Miller
      The right: call black people the n word, call Mexicans rapists, call Arabs terrorists, call Jews slurs, etc.
      The left: White people think ketchup is spicy and can’t dance.
      The right: Oh my word the left is so racist!!

    5. Rosanna Miller lmfao and you’re the one calling people snowflakes. It’s called entertainment.
      I also like his accent tho

    1. @hektik
      If you are going to end a sentence and wish to not look like an idiot do not end it with period.

      But your argument is easily destroyed, especially when there is thousands of years of religion to build from and take away from to see that, but only an American wouldn’t have a clue on that especially since they only learn history from 1779 which is not in any way a good start to history.

      So when you get a clue on the subject do come back and try to make anything make sense of what you said, because when you sit back and actually have a clue on the subject you will realise how stupid you actually are.

      Just because you don’t like your POTUS doesn’t mean you can win an argument on a subject you clearly have zero clue about. Btw the rest of the world doesn’t like him and we ain’t too keen on our leaders that much either.

      But to even put what you put down for the world to see, you really need educated or at the very least locked up for being too special to function in real society.

    2. RELIGION IS THE MOST EVIL INVENTION KNOWN TO MANKIND,, IT’S CAUSED MORE DEATH AND MISERY THAN ANYTHING,,

    3. uayfb1
      Atheists aren’t evil. They’re just people. One can have a conscience, morals, and ethics and be atheist. One can be generous. The only real difference between deists and atheists is the (non) belief in a deity or deities.
      There are also conservative atheists, liberal atheists, moderate atheists.

    5. Sorry about the other comment GotBass, deleted it now.
      I thought this was another thread.
      Your standards are obviously quite low.

    2. @AssassinWriter so do I, that’s why I’m saying that people today who don’t believe in the craft are so quick to say they were innocent

    4. @Emily Grace Cerone But so would anyone who was truly religious who ever cursed someone else.

      Besides all we know is that the grandma was a cunning woman. That would explain the potions and spells and all that.

      And even if you consider the possibility of actual intent to harm, which was never proved, never mind just intent, attempt to murder carries a far lighter sentence than murder itself. So there still wouldn’t be any justification in hanging them

    5. They are only innocent in the eyes of those who don’t believe in witchcraft. If they believed they were doing harm to other people then technically, they would have been guilty.

    2. @Stephen Lord We are an incredulous bunch. Our Credulity uses whatever vehicle available, be it religion, fascism, communism, Out Rage Culture, Cancel Culture, Cultural Marxism, SJWs, atheism, theism, racial superiority and so on. Whatever our methodology we will use it against perceived offenders.

    3. JD Barr seems like we have been here before … sometimes we learn from history but mainly it seems not

    5. You mean how the mother screamed at her? Well if I had my own family proclaim me as something I’m not and condemned me to death, I would be screaming at her too.

    1. @Wendreth Mythania witches r still round today they jst went underground their rife in power government hollyweird tht sort of thing witches satanists secret society members magic etc very real ppl need to wake up to the fact

    2. Sansy It’s reality. Witch trials are still going on just not in North America or Europe. Witchcraft is real as well but modern witchcraft is rarely this dark.

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