We watched a film based on the last ritual witch-killing in England.
A group of Bristol Feminists watched a film based on a gruesome unsolved murder, on St.Valentine's Day, 80 years ago.
The above clip is from footage of a Suffragette march from the Kinolibrary Film Collection, on YouTube.
Yesterday the Bristol branch of Let Women Speak held our first “Feminist Film Night”. We are trying to recreate women's get togethers, in real life, to talk about our rights and issues.
These were once very common, but died out sometime after the 1980s.
Movies (“Moving Pictures") are a perfect medium to use as a catalyst for discussions on the issues they raise. And of course, to have drinkies, snacks, and a good rant together afterwards!
Our “Theatrical Short" was from the British Film Institute, about the Suffragettes, and how they used the popular medium of cinema to further their cause.
Today we use the internet. Instead of Pathe Newsreel cameramen, we have youtubers!
This documentary by Wesley Winter has had 119K views, and brought our campaign to a new audience. I am pleased to say it was me that invited Wesley to come to Reformers Tree, and I think he did a bloody good job!
What's striking is how similar the Suffragettes publicity campaigning was to ours today (by “ours” I mean Terfs).
“Make More Noise”, “Be The Billboard ”; these slogans are not new, just as the struggle for Women's Rights is not new. Here's the film:
Our Film Night was held one day after St Valentine's Day. This day celebrating Romance has degenerated into a tacky corporate event, designed to make you part with your money on cards and fancy meals out!
But in some rural areas, 14th February is still thought of as Imbolc, on the old Roman Calendar.
The end of Winter. One of the liminal times, to the ancient Celts, when the veil between worlds was thin. A time when evil things might walk amongst us, and have to be guarded against.
Our “main feature” was also from the British Film Institute: Robin Redbreast, a folk-horror film from the BBC Play For Today series.
Broadcast in 1970. It was heavily influenced by the still unsolved ritual murder, on 14th February 80 years ago this year, of Charles Walton, an elderly rural labourer.
It took place in the village of Lower Quinton, 40 miles south of Birmingham, 12 miles west of Evesham.
Evesham is mentioned in Robin Redbreast as the nearest town, where the “learned man” Mr Fisher (Bernard Hepton in his best ever role in my opinion) works for the council.
The film is available on dvd, and you can find clips on YouTube.
Here's an account of the real life murder. Walton was suspected of being a witch, (or perhaps we should say, a Warlock, a male witch).
https://cvltnation.com/ritual-murder-rural-england-strange-case-charles-walton/
Most people think of witches as female, but anyone could be accused. Older, solitary, disabled, the mentally ill: all the “usual suspects".
In Robin Redbreast the main character, Norah, is a single woman who is a TV scriptwriter, a very modern city girl. She inherits a country cottage after a relationship break up and goes to live there to recover. In, she supposes, the peace and quiet of the countryside.
The film was broadcast only 3 years after the 1967 Abortion Act. The various characters reflect different attitudes of the time to abortion and sex outside marriage.
60 years on, it's hard for we Brits to understand how divisive politically abortion still is in the USA. We feel that we left these arguments for and against it behind, long ago.
When Norah “falls pregnant” from a one-night-stand, (through trickery by the Pagan villagers) and is debating her choices - abortion, adoption, single Motherhood - she memorably tells the father: “Seed is just seed, it doesn't give you any rights”!
This modern storyline is set in a backward Midlands village, inhabited by the most sinister bunch of rural nutjobs who have ever been imagined in a movie!
It has many comical moments to offset the building sense of fear and entrapment. Central to the story is the “learned man", Mr Fisher. For example, when Fisher menacingly asks Norah if she knows “the old tongue”, she says, feistily, “If you mean Anglo-Saxon, not since Oxford"!
“Fisher" is an important name in the early days of Christianity. Jesus told his Apostles to be “Fishers of Men". (Matthew 4:19).
In Children of Men (the 2006 movie based on the book by P.D.James, the revolutionary group who try to control the first pregnant woman, after years of mysterious worldwide sterility, call themselves the “Fishers”.
The fact that the Apostles made their living as fishermen, at the liminal boundary between land and sea, perhaps made them and their message more acceptable to the Celts, who were forced to accept the new religion.
Although, as Mr Fisher and his gang imply, the Christianity never really took over in THEIR village. They only put up with the rare visits of the country parson at their own festival times, Harvest and Easter! Fisher refers to him witheringly as “a merest Brummie"! (Meaning from Birmingham)!
Many novels have been written about the clash between Christianity and Paganism in rural England. My favourite is “The Blessing of Pan” by Lord Dunsany. You might be able to find a copy on ebay or through your Library.
Other folk-horror movies have covered the same ground. A good example is the very funny The Lair of The White Worm, by Ken Russell (1988), with pagan and sexual imagery from the opening scene!
Another is Dancing at Lughnasa. Both these movies are on my “Pagan-y Feminist" list!
In Robin Redbreast, Fisher behaves at first like the other country bumpkins, but he is clearly the guiding force behind their plot to trap Norah, and trick her into giving them her child. Who they intend to raise as another sacrifice, when he comes of age - a system they allege has been going on in their village forever.
Here is the denouement of the film, when Fisher explains their motivation to the bemused Norah. Watch the bit where he runs his fingers over the Horseshoe!
Iron Horseshoes were hung in chimney breasts as protection against evil - which we already know at this point, had entered via the chimney, - so the iron, in this case, singularly failed to do it's job!
Good and bad Elementals were supposed to enter via chimneys, squeezing down the dark tunnel into the warm heart of the home, (pagan sexual imagery again) after all the doors and windows had been latched against the stormy night. Father Christmas, for example, who has to be placated, like all the “good folk" with a gift of food and drink.
So not only is Fisher very blatantly referring to femininity with his gesture, he is also showing his mastery over the cottage’s defences - and Norah's supposed defences of the modern world, which we have seen let her down at every stage. (The telephone, the post office, her car, the local bus service).
There is another play which was based on the murder of poor Charles Walton, who was accused of typical low-level Witch “crimes” such as turning milk sour, and being good with farm animals.
Like Robin Redbreast it's obscure. Most people will not have heard of it or seen it performed.
Afore Night Come, by David Rudkin (who also wrote the classic cult film Penda's Fen) was performed in 1962 by the Royal Shakespeare Company, but very rarely after that.
I was lucky enough to have been taken to see it, by my school's English department, on a theatre trip in (probably) 1972-3. If you think this gruesome stuff wasn't really appropriate for 12-year-olds, you're quite right!
Here's the plot summary, from wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afore_Night_Come
But this was the permissive 1970s, my school also took kids to see Roman Polanski's notorious 1971 movie MacBeth, (which gave me nightmares) and the play Equus, both very gory/sexual! My parents did remember to put their brains in gear and refused to let me go to see Equus!
These films and plays remind us of our Pagan past, when any outsider; especially women, if they were single, outspoken, or had property; could be scapegoated for anything that went wrong. It is only lightly buried.
Opposing powerful men is another witch-crime, as we still see today, at protests where women stand up to protect their rights. This was outside the Scottish Parliament building!
Fortunately, our campaigners are made or sterner stuff than poor hapless Norah, in Robin Redbreast. They take the “witch” accusation as a badge of honour.
They take it and run with it, with creativity and humour, just like the Suffragettes, using our modern “Moving Pictures”, YouTube!
That sounds like a very full evening with laughs and thrills. To add to the gore I'd like to mention a newly-published book called 'Thou Savage Woman' by Blessin Adams, a former police officer turned academic, in which she explores why female murderers get so much attention. Anyway, lots here for me to look up for myself!
Thanks Radical, a really fascinating piece.