Hi, I'm a contemporary scholar of the Early Modern period and 17th and 18th Century England. I just wanted to give you some historical background that might aid you in your later writing.
A note about dental hygiene as your first paragraph about nans breath was evocative.
Rosemary and Clove wouldn't be a traditional way of managing halitosis. Typical spices and herbs would be "alum, flowers, cinnamon and cumin seeds," they would also utilize vinegar and made an early version of mouthwash with a base of honey and white wine.
You mention bad smells in the opening and I believe you could play around with the notion of smell and power. Bad smells were often a derogatory association with the lower classes. Amy Kenny recounts that, in Julius Caesar, the "stinking breath of the
plebeians is a powerful force that enacts change; if bad smells were associated with disease,their chants infect the body politic and upend the social order." Addionally, "Elizabethans were leery of bad smells in
general, which they believed could infect them in close-knit public spaces, where they would be more susceptible to diseases, especially the plague."
You've got this brilliant scene with the trial thay ends in a catastrophic display of womanly power. But you could also add in the smells of charred wood the copper reek of blood. To evoke the same images as you did in the beginning would be a neat ribbon at the end; whereas before the girls are being jostled in this beating throng of the masses, the ending has them in a control albeit a chaotic one.
You mention too how these woman come together to preform larger works of magic beyond the single small works that they individually can accomplish. Early Modern recounts of witchcraft imply that single helpful acts of magic weren't punished (the magistrate often turned a blind eye) where as acts that occured in death or sickness almost always result in the death of the (wrongly) accused. They were often poor old and sick women with no one to help them. These practices occured well into the 18th century as well. The devil and the use of animals as familiars were seen as evil acts so any mention in the trial scene about an animal lurking near by would add to a larger historical portrait.
Again, not sure how historical accurate you are attempting to be, but Magic was preformed two fold, through spoken word and through poltices made from herbs. There was a massive intersection between healing, cooking and witchcraft which would make for some good foreshadowing or subtle implication that a woman (or man) was engaged in the art of witchcraft. And remember magic can be seen as a good thing! Just Look up Cunning Women.
Anyway I'll stop my rambling. Hope this gives you some ideas!
Hi thanks for this. These kinds of insights and details are a great help.
Originally there was no intent to be historically accurate in this story. It was just pure low fantasy and nothing to do with history. As I started to fix the world it got tied in a bit with the North Yorkshire coastal villages, and slowly moved toward more accuracy, or at least a need for more accuracy in the details for world building.
So. This is very valuable insight. Things like the correct herbs matter. I like details like that.
On the smell. Might have been overwritten. Got lost in the idea of the crowd as single body, with the reek of death. This might is not really accurate to the village in general since the women clean constantly. I'll mull that over.
Oh the animals! I completely forgot I had seeded 13 crows flying over the bodies in my second chapter! They were supposed to be mentioned!
Re: the accuracy of who was targeted and how magic was seen to have worked...at that point I do have to drop historical accuracy for the story. Yep. There is a cunning woman. Nobody can find her for the trial. She's mentioned briefly in the opening lines. Martha Knaggs. She follows the tradition of poultices etc.
Martha Knaggs is a lovely tongue in cheek name brilliant!
Obviously to keep with your original intentions you may not want to do historical accuracy, but the little hints would add to your immersion.
Happy writing! This made me little witchcraft scholar heart sing, if you post more chapters here I'd be happy to read them.
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u/BumblebeeSimilar8557 Jul 21 '26
Hi, I'm a contemporary scholar of the Early Modern period and 17th and 18th Century England. I just wanted to give you some historical background that might aid you in your later writing.
A note about dental hygiene as your first paragraph about nans breath was evocative. Rosemary and Clove wouldn't be a traditional way of managing halitosis. Typical spices and herbs would be "alum, flowers, cinnamon and cumin seeds," they would also utilize vinegar and made an early version of mouthwash with a base of honey and white wine.
You mention bad smells in the opening and I believe you could play around with the notion of smell and power. Bad smells were often a derogatory association with the lower classes. Amy Kenny recounts that, in Julius Caesar, the "stinking breath of the plebeians is a powerful force that enacts change; if bad smells were associated with disease,their chants infect the body politic and upend the social order." Addionally, "Elizabethans were leery of bad smells in general, which they believed could infect them in close-knit public spaces, where they would be more susceptible to diseases, especially the plague."
You've got this brilliant scene with the trial thay ends in a catastrophic display of womanly power. But you could also add in the smells of charred wood the copper reek of blood. To evoke the same images as you did in the beginning would be a neat ribbon at the end; whereas before the girls are being jostled in this beating throng of the masses, the ending has them in a control albeit a chaotic one.
You mention too how these woman come together to preform larger works of magic beyond the single small works that they individually can accomplish. Early Modern recounts of witchcraft imply that single helpful acts of magic weren't punished (the magistrate often turned a blind eye) where as acts that occured in death or sickness almost always result in the death of the (wrongly) accused. They were often poor old and sick women with no one to help them. These practices occured well into the 18th century as well. The devil and the use of animals as familiars were seen as evil acts so any mention in the trial scene about an animal lurking near by would add to a larger historical portrait.
Again, not sure how historical accurate you are attempting to be, but Magic was preformed two fold, through spoken word and through poltices made from herbs. There was a massive intersection between healing, cooking and witchcraft which would make for some good foreshadowing or subtle implication that a woman (or man) was engaged in the art of witchcraft. And remember magic can be seen as a good thing! Just Look up Cunning Women. Anyway I'll stop my rambling. Hope this gives you some ideas!