PENDLERECIPES

A recipe from the same source, made from dripping, onions, eggs and the leaves of young nettles. This pudding was traditionally eaten at "Nick o' Thungs' Charity", an annual pilgrimage of working men from Burnley, Nelson and Colne to Pendle Hill on the first fine Sunday in May.

The precise origin of the "Charity" is in doubt, but one story is, that a Nicholas Driscoll, who dwelt on the slopes of Pendle, was one day set upon when journeying to Whalley and left for dead by a band of footpads. Some village folk from Downham cared for him and restored him to health, Driscoll took an oath that he would provide, thereafter, for those who might traverse Pendle Hill and find themselves in need.

For some reason or other figs seems to be prominent in a good many recipes from this part of Lancashire, and the lady who vouchsafed this one said,with a twinkle in her eye, that when she was a young girl at home Burnley Pie was called "Quick Step Pudding" on account of its laxative properties.

8 oz figs 2 eggs

4 oz suet 4 oz brown sugar

6 oz breadcrumbs 1 large tablespoon syrup

Beat the eggs and chop the figs. Combine all and mix thoroughly. Put in a well buttered basin, cover with three layers of greased proof paper and steam for three hours. It is usual to serve with a white sauce, but this is a family dish and children often prefer a thick, nourishing custard.

Sausage meat Pre-cooked jacket potatoes, medium large

Dry sage and onion stuffing

(three to four ozs of sausage meat per potato, according to size).

Cook the sausage meat in a pan over a low heat for about twenty minutes, add and mix in the stuffing mixture in the order of one teaspoonful per three to four ozs of meat, then remove from heat. Cut the potatoes in half lengthways, scoop out insides, leaving a good "pith", then place the potato pulp in pan and mix into the cooled sausage meat. Spoon back into potato shells and put to the oven to heat and brown, say twenty minutes. This is primarily a children's treat, especially on winter nights, and a speciality in some homes at Hallowe'en.

Hallowe'en is the best known of the four main witches' sabbats, and is perpetuated in and around Pendleside by gatherings of "witches", some garbed in the likeness of Demdike and Chattox vainly trying to emulate the legendary night-flying on their reluctant broomsticks.

First grow your celery! Failing that, ensure that it is purchased young and crisp, with its share of heart and flower. Then take :

A couple of good sticks 8 oz pork sausage meat

4 eggs Seasoning

1/2 large onion 2 oz breadcrumbs

2 firm tomatoes A little dried sage

1lb boiled bacon, lean or fat A gill (1/4 pint) of water

Hard boil three eggs and discard the shells. Mince bacon and onion and mix with with sausage meat and well chopped tomatoes. Dice and chop celery, flower and all, and simmer for ten minutes in seasoned water. Add celery and an eggcupful of water residue to the bacon, also breadcrumbs, sage and the remaining egg, well whisked.

Put half this mixture in a butter-greased loaf tin, disperse whole hard boiled eggs, then smother with the last of the bacon mix. Jacket in a larger tin containing water and bake for upwards of an hour at 350F Serve hot or cold.

This is a fine stamina food which probably owes its origin to the exacting climate and steep climbs for which Colne is noted. Some folk like the loaf made with rather more onion, but this is a matter of taste.

The Colne of 1612 was a town of some stature, forming the eastern link in the chain of such towns - Clitheroe, Whalley, Padiham and Burnley - that ringed Pendle Hill. In the early spring of that year, Alizon Device, Old Mother Demdike's grandchild, while tramping beyond Colne on her way to beg in Trawden, met John Law, a pedlar from Halifax. There was a dispute over some pins Alizon wanted, as a result of which the pedlar had some kind of fit or stroke.

Alizon was accused of bewitching him, and indeed confessed to it, and at the month end she was called to account in front of Roger Nowell, the magistrate, at Read Hall.

Trawden, where Alizon Device was bound when she met John Law, lies on the fringe of Witch Country, in the vicinity of Wycoller. On one occasion two boys there are said to have trussed a black cat up and tossed it into the air. When the furry ball was about to hit the ground, it vanished. Later an old crone living in the village was found to have a broken limb and declared to be a witch.

This recipe was passed on by a lady hailing from Clitheroe, but it is also made, with minor variations, in other parts of the country. One alternative is to use two duck eggs, but these only suit those who prefer a stronger, slightly earthy flavour.

2 or 3 eggs 1 onion, small, and chopped smaller

1/4 lb corned beef 1/2 pint of milk, including the top

3 tomatoes, well ripe but not bruised 1/4 lb plain flour

Mixed herbs to taste Pinch of salt

Coarse grated Lancashire cheese

Make a batter from the eggs, flour, salt and milk, then fry and keep warm four pancakes. Crumble the corned beef into a saucepan, adding tomatoes, skinned and mashed, chopped onion and a pinch of herbs. Cook until soft, then load each pancake. Fold and crown with grated cheese. Grill until the cheese melts and gently browns. If tinned tomatoes are used, take about half a small tin, forked from the top.

Clitheroe featured little in the Lancashire Witches story, keeping out of harm's way as it were, beyond the northern slopes of Pendle Hill. When the witches were escorted to Lancaster Castle to stand trial they would go by way of Whalley and, even in passing, it seems that Clitheroe saw them not.

Perhaps the nearest connection was Demdike's confession to the murder by witchcraft of Richard Assheton, of Downham. An interesting commentary on the habits of the gentry of the day is given in the diary of Richard's younger brother, Nicholas. According to him life was one of hunting - fox, stag, otter, hare, buck and badger - and drinking. The writings chronicle drunken bouts ranging from "merrie" to being "sicke with drinke".

Ale, then, was consumed at all times of the day, even breakfast. In his book "Mist over Pendle" Robert Neill tells of a special making called November Ale, a potent brew tippled by Esquire and Yeoman alike.

First snare your hare ! Poached or purchased legitimately in the not too distant past in the market towns of Pendle, the recipe remains much as it always was - rich and rewarding.

1 hare 1 lemon

1 and a 1/2lb gravy beef 6 cloves

1/2lb salty butter pepper, cayenne and salt to taste

1 onion 1/2 pint of port

Force meat balls made from : Ham, suet, rind of bacon, pinches of minced herbs, salt, cayenne and pounded mace, 8ozs breadcrumbs and two eggs.

Skin and paunch the hare, wash it, cut it into hunks and dredge with flour. Fry in boiling water. Make the gravy with some flour, not too much, which deposit in a great earthenware jar or jug. Add the hunks of fried hare, an onion spiked with six cloves, a lemon peeled and cut in two, leave no pith, and a goodly seasoning of the condiments. Cover tightly and sink up to the neck in a deep pan of boiling water, and let stew until the hare be tender.

Now add the wine and some of the force meat balls, first fried or baked. Serve hot with red currant jelly. Excellent in moderation, but not to be eschewed by those inclined to gout or capricious blood pressure.

This recipe was passed on by friends living near Fence, who remember it being prepared like this in some of the big country houses.

Fence at the time of the Pendle Witches, was the meeting place of the folk of Pendle Forest, and it was here that magistrate Roger Nowell came on the 2nd of April 1612, to examine Demdike, Chattox and Anne Redfearn. Fence was so named from an enclosure erected there in the fifteenth Century to confine stags, while the term Pendle Forest indicates open land set aside for hunting purposes.

This recipe originated from a much loved family doctor who had a practise in Burnley in the mid 1800's. It was the good doctor's oft repeated exhortation that if people would eat a piece of parkin each day they would rarely be poorly.

12 oz plain flour 12 oz warm syrup

4 oz oatmeal 1 oz sugar

2 oz lard 1/2 teaspoon salt

2 oz butter 1/2 teaspoon bi-carb

1 teaspoon ginger 1 egg dropped in whole

Mix together the dry ingredients. Rub in fat, add syrup and last of all the egg. Mix well with wooden spoon, then spread into a large well greased dripping tin. Bake for an hour in all - at Regulo 4 for ten minutes and then at Regulo 3.

The lady who gave us Dr. Burns' recipe also sent a menu printed in 1913 to celebrate the silver wedding of Sir John and Lady Thursby, at the Bull Hotel, Burnley.

The menu is interesting in that it contains the names of two intriguing puddings - Snipe Pudding and Ormerod Pudding, the recipes for which unfortunately elude us.

Put a piece of brisket into a large pan of water. Cut up swede, carrots, cabbage, onions, potatoes and peas - the more or less of this and that according to taste, but all the tastier for some of each. Boil slowly until the meat is cooked, then skim off the fat.

Make dumplings from :

1/2 lb SR flour, 1/4 lb butchers' suet, grated; salt and pepper. Form into balls, boil in broth for twenty minutes. Wonderfully warm and sustaining.

Blacko, lying to the east of Pendle Hill, means Black Hill, and it was here in 1890 that Jonathan Stansfield, a wealthy grocer built Blacko Tower. His ambition was to be able to see from its top into Ribblesdale, but the tower was never high enough and became his folly.

Blacko Tower is sometimes confused with Malkin Tower, where old Mother Demdike supposedly lived.

Most writers dealing with the history of the Lancashire Witches, brought to trial in 1612 at Lancaster Castle, make mention of Malkin Tower. So far, however, no one has succeeded in pin-pointing the location of the dwelling; although there are two main theories as to where it might have been.

But this mystery is compounded by another... the origin and meaning of the name itself. It does not appear on present day maps of the area, nor is it marked on the Ordnance Survey Map of 1858. Indeed, Malkin Tower's one-time whereabouts and the provenance of its strange name, are so blurred by time and conjecture that many people now feel that no new light now remains to be thrown on the subject.

First, however, let us examine where it is that Malkin Tower might have stood. The more widely held view is that it was somewhere in or near Saddler's Field, in the vicinity of Newchurch-in-Pendle, and those who think so rely on the logistical evidence provided in the writings of Thomas Potts, Clerk to the Court at Lancaster Assizes, whose painstaking record of the events concerning the trial of the Lancashire Witches does so much for our understanding of the geography involved.

In his notes, Potts tells us how Demdike and others of her brood...her daughter Elizabeth, and her grandchildren Alizon, James and young Jennet...were seen regularly in such villages as Barley, Newchurch and Higham, or along the banks of Pendle Water, and it was to Ashlar House, at Fence, that Demdike and some others were brought for questioning by the magistrates.

Now all this rather points to the fact that Malkin Tower was in the neighbourhood of these places, and a study of the map does put Saddler's Field in this category. In fact, Saddler's Field is seen to lie along the hypotenuse of a (nearly) right-angle triangle formed by the four villages, and to be within two miles distance of each of them. There is evidence too, of Demdike and hers being at odds with the Chattoxes, and in particular with Old Mother Chattox, another so-called witch, who lived at Greenhead, on Christopher Nutter's land, with the liklihood that the two families existed sufficiently close to cross one another's path quite frequently.

While adding substance to tha Saddler's Field theory, the foregoing supposition does not prove it, and there is another school of thought which picks out a different location for Malkin Tower. Mr. Edgar Peel and Miss Pat Southern, in their definitive book The Trials of the Lancashire Witches describe a farm in the region of Blacko, just off the old road between Gisburn and Colne, called Malkin Tower Farm. There is evidence here of the remains of a stone building of some sort, and many local people believe it to be what is left of Demdike's home, and the debate continues.

It is noon on Good Friday, six days after the four witches had departed for Lancaster on the fourth day of April, in the year sixteen hundred and twelve, and there are comings and goings at Malkin Tower. A great many witches converge on that place - there Elizabeth, James and young Jennet ; Demdike's son, Christopher Howgate, is there with his wife ; included in their vast number are Alice Nutter of Roughlee and Jennet Preston of Gisburn.

James Device is prominent at the meeting, having stolen a sheep from near the village of Barley the night before and added its carcass to the beef and bacon the witches feed on while they plan the release of the four women from Lancaster Castle, the blowing up of the castle itself and the murder of its gaoler, Thomas Covell. Another purpose of the meeting is to agree upon a name for Alizon Device's familiar and to lend support to Jennet Preston of Gisburn, who has been released from the rigours of prison at York, acquitted of a charge of witchcraft brought by Thomas Lister, also of Gisburn.

The assembly and feast is the greatest expression of malice, in fact and intent, ever concentrated in one place, and the dire threats and terrible undertakings issuing therefrom strike at the well-being of all Christian men and women. They are present, these witches, to plot naught but evil. The power they wield is daunting. Nothing, it seems, can prevail against them.

1 lb cold roast beef 1 good teaspoonful gravy powder

1/4 lb onions pepper and salt

1 small tin each of tomatoes and baked beans 1 and a half lbs potatoes

1 good teasponful flour 1/4 lb Lancashire cheese

Mince the beef and onions and mix in the tomatoes, beans, flour, gravy powder and condiments. Turn into a suitable dish and cover with slices of potato. Bake at about 375F (Gas Mark 5) for three quarters of an hour, capping with shredded cheese about fifteen minutes before baking finishes.

Filling and nourishing, this recipe serves four hearty appetites or six moderate ones. But never on Tuesday, because in days gone by, before refrigerators, it was deemed wise to see off the remainder of the Sunday joint no later than the following Monday.

The witch Margaret Pearson lived in Padiham, which in 1612 was a market town equal to Burnley. She was tried at Lancaster Castle for the crime of killing by witchcraft a mare owned by a Padiham man.

While in custody, Margaret Pearson's house was visited by one Jennet Booth, and when she was given a pan of milk to heat for her child it seems a toad appeared in the liquid. This manifestation was held to have a bearing on Mistress Pearson's reputation as a witch, and weighed so heavily to her disfavour that she was found guilty.

She heard the verdict, along with John and Jane Bulcock, Alizon Device and Isobel Roby, during the afternoon of August the 19th., 1612, and with Alizon and Isobel was taken hence and hanged the next day. The Bulcocks were acquitted.

Recipes for Syllabub vary in detail from place to place, and many include the whites of eggs in the ingredients. This one does not and is said to be all the lighter for it.

1/2 pint fresh double cream 2 level teaspoons very finely grated rind of lemon

1/4 pint white wine juice of a small lemon

3 oz castor sugar

Put all but the cream into a bowl and set aside for not less than three hours. Better still, leave overnight. Then add the cream and whip and beat and whip until the mixture stands unaided in soft, seductive peaks. It will keep like this for several days, but never lasts that long! Looks its best when piled high into wine or sundae glasses.

Obtain a good-sized dairy bowl and weight it with half a pound of sugar, the strained juice of a large lemon, a pint of dry sherry, half a gill of brandy and a half pint of cream beaten together with the white of an egg. Stir the one into the other until well mixed, then transport the bowl to the dairy at milking time, pulling the teats of the cow into it until the froth approaches the top. Set aside for the next day, when with a sprinkling of fine nutmeg on top it will be ready to serve.

Cows seem to loom larger than life size in the chronicles of the Pendle Witches, but it must be remembered that in those impoverished days a single cow was of great value to its owner; so imagine the consternation, nay horror, when it was whispered that old Demdike or Chattox had bewitched a beast. Once when John Nutter's son upset a can of milk over which Chattox was muttering her customary mumbo-jumbo, one of their cows sickened and died.

While Syllabub cannot be said to originate exclusively from Pendleside, or indeed from Lancashire, yet there is an intimate connection with the district. Syllabub features in Mist over Pendle as an invalid dish prepared for Anthony Nutter by his sister-in-law, Alice. Into this delicate preparation she introduced Belladonna, or Deadly Nightshade. This poison, which was considered to beautify the eyes when introduced as drops - hence the name belladonna (La bella Donna) - was deadly if taken by mouth. In Mist over Pendle the plants were discovered growing in a cultivated parcel of land on the slopes of Pendle Hill.

Basically Champ is always composed of potatoes, freshly boiled and mashed, with margarine or butter and milk added. For Nettle Champ take :

1 and a half lb potatoes 1/4 pint of milk

1 teacup of chopped or minced young nettle tops Pepper and salt

Boil the nettles in the milk for the space of ten minutes, then add them to the mashed potatoes. Season and serve piping hot. Instead of nettles try it with chives, spring onions, cabbage or young green peas. And when experimenting, don't neglect to try young dandelion leaves.

An octogenarian from Nelson swears by Nettle Champ, saying it keeps him free of rheumatism but the nettle leaves must be exceptionally young and tender.

Young bracken shoots are said to be tasty, especially when boiled, well seasoned with pepper and salt and lubricated with generous portions of butter.

Come summer and salads are the order of the day. Try a hedgerow salad of sour docks, young nettle shoots, young briar rose shoots and the shoots taken off beans and peas that have been allowed to soak and sprout. Take advantage of the lovely green sprouting tops of onions and the fresh green tops of radishes, the tender filigree of celery leaves.

Unusual you may think, but delicious and nutritious. And now, greatly daring, sprinkle your salad with the white flower petals of wild garlic. Garlic incidentally has been used in herbal medicine for over 5,000 years. The Babylonians knew of its benificial properties 3,000 years B.C. Soldiers believed that it imparted great strength in battle, the wandering Jews deplored their lack of it : We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks and onions, and the garlick : Numbers : 11:5.

1 sheep's head 2 carrots

1/2 cup barley 2 leeks (use all the leek)

1/2 cup of peas Pepper and salt

1/2 turnip

Soak the head overnight. Clean diligently and put in a pan with sufficient water to cover, adding the barley and vegetables. Boil gently for three to four hours. The brains can be removed and served separately on hot toast or put raw into a muslin bag with a pinch of herbs and half a finely grated onion and cooked in the soup.

The tongue, too, may be served separately. When cooked, hold it under cold water and the skin will come off easily. When cold the tongue may be eaten with a green salad - a hedgerow salad, perhaps.

Much is said about witches feasting - the great gathering at Hoarstones in Wheatley Lane, in 1633, for instance, when the boy Edmund Robinson testified to seeing men and women eating and drinking, pulling on ropes descending from the ceiling and bringing down lumps of butter and smoking flesh. In fact, the witches of 1612 and 1633 lived less than frugally, and while they may well have grubbed their salads from the hedgerows, they almost certainly stole the sheep that made their thin broth and provided their infrequent mutton.

It was James Device who, on Good Friday, 1612, stole a sheep belonging to a Barley farmer in order to feed some twenty people gathered at Malkin Tower for what Thomas Potts in his diary called the Great Assembly and Feast". (already mentioned).

Take : twin humps of pinky baked ham, a round of roast beef weighing nigh on twenty-eight pounds, piles of pickled onions, beetroot, pots of mustard glowing like yellow beacons, cakes and a gleaming urn of hot, sweet tea. Add one full moon, three sittings, and a joyous crush of humanity crowding into the schoolroom. That was a real Lancashire high tea when Jean Walton was a girl

It was everyone's ambition to be in at the first sitting, getting their pick of all the good things to eat. At the second sitting came the farmers and their families, for it was their lot to come later when the milking was done, saying philosophically, "Aye, I had to do up afore I could come to t'Tay Party."

Afterwards there was a concert, the room became hotter and hotter, the participants more animated, the entertainers red and shiny with perspiration until, finally, the lusty rendering of "God Save the King" brought events to a close. And, at the end of it all, everyone agreed that this was the best Tay Party ever.

The substance of the above comes from Jean Walton's book "Pendle Forest Folk", now unhappily out of print, which among so many other things, tells the story of the annual tea party held at Kirk.

The proper name is Newchurch-in-Pendle, close by Barley, but its real name is T'Kirk. The church here dates from the 15th Century, and it is in the churchyard that witches' graves are said to be. This is not so, not even the one with the skull and crossbones engraved upon the headstone. These days the nearest witches are in the shop across the way. As an added precaution a stone let into the church tower, known as "The Eye of God", unblinkingly scrutinises all comers.

2 pints of good draught ale 1 tablespoon of brown sugar

1 small glass of dark rum Nutmeg and cloves

Heat the ale containing the sugar and cloves and pour into a warm jug, adding the rum and nutmeg. Said to be sufficient for four "in-comers" or one man o'Pendle. Cloves are said to relieve flatulence !

None of these beverages would have been likely to satisfy the hard drinking gentry of 1612, nor, it seems the army of Irish navvies who in later years built Ogden reservoir, near Barley. Beer it is said, was so plentiful then that it was easier to bathe in it than in water.

Nor indeed those who came from the surrounding towns and villages to furnish the mighty beacon on Pendle top to celebrate Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1887. Liquid refreshment was supplied by the breweries of Burnley and Barrowford, Hartley and Bell, Massey's and Grimshaws, and was kept in barrels at the foot of the hill. It isn't recorded whether the men drank both going up and coming down, but one man made the round trip seven times in one day !

CINDER TEA : A white hot cinder dropped into a cup and a little water added was a sovereign remedy for a baby with wind. One sip of this, and a burp or two later all was well again.

GOOSE GREASE : The fat rubbed into the neck and covered with a wool stocking was said to cure a sore throat.

SPIDER BANDAGE : For a cut finger a clean spider's web was wrapped round the wound. The bleeding soon stopped and the cut healed without festering.

SULPHUR AND TREACLE : Invariably given to children at the onset of springtime, this somewhat daunting mixture was reputed to cleanse the blood.

It was of course, from their knowledge of herbs and remedies that Demdike and the other witches derived much of their power and reputations, the incantations they made over their potions being little more than an instinctive flair for the dramatic. They would know of herbal aphrodisiacs, the efficacy of celandine juice to shrivel warts, the application of certain mosses to treat inflammation.

Shakespeare recognised the importance of herbs when he wrote :

"Oh mickle is the powerful grace that lies,

In herbs, plants, stones and their true qualities.

For nought so vile that on the earth doth live,

But to the earth some special grace doth give".

1 goose 2oz butter

4 large onions 1 egg

A dozen sage leaves pepper and salt

1/4 lb bread crumbs

Let your goose be clean, white, plump and have yellow feet to hang by.

First make a sage and onion stuffing, rich and with a portion of the goose's liver added, which first gently simmer then mince exceedingly fine . Stuff the goose generously, securing the flesh at either extremity to seal in the flavour. Put to a brisk fire or oven, keep well basted and roast for the space of one quarter of the hour for each pound of the body weight, apportioning one quarter to the sum. Serve flanked by tureens of gravy and apple sauce, taking heed to present the goose promptly lest the breast droop.

6 medium sized cooking apples Butter the size of a walnut

Sugar to taste, not too much water

Pare, core, quarter and otherwise prepare the apples, drowning in cold water to keep them blanched. Put into a saucepan with just enough water to moisten, and boil until soft enough to pulp. Mash them, adding sugar and butter.

In the old days when geese were driven to market they were sometimes "leathern shoon", that is,, shod for the road. Some farmers made goose shoes by driving their flock first through a pool of tar, and then over loose sand. Geese, "leathern-shoon" were being driven through Whalley and Clitheroe at the turn of the Century(20th).

The arval cake still figures amongst the refreshments for the mourners after a funeral in many parts of Lancashire - it was certainly known in the villages of Pendle Forest until comparatively recent times - but those who eat it little think that they are following a custom of the Danes. When the Danes occupied England, a solemn feast was always given after the funeral of a king or a noble by his successor. This was called the "arfwol" - from arf meaning inheritance, and wol meaning ale - a word signifying that the feast was given by the heir on succeeding to an estate through a death.

Thus the name survives as arval and, strictly speaking, applies only to cakes, although people do still speak of arval bread and arval biscuits.