The Witches of Wizards Alton
Like most English counties, Stiltshire has had its fair share of witches, wise women, warlocks and various persons of pagan interests. Stiltshire folk over the centuries have been generally tolerant of such people, believing them to be at best purveyors of an ancient craft of healing and miracle working, and at worst harmless eccentrics. In the days of the witch hunts the county came under scrutiny and at first roused the interest of the witchfinders. In many a tavern could be found people who, on being plied with a few quarts or slipped the odd shilling, could be relied upon to recount lurid tales of child sacrifice, of flying broomsticks, or of elderly women indulging in unnatural practices with black cats or, more usually (this being Stiltshire), black pigs. However, on closer examination, the alleged perpetrators of these acts invariably proved to be strangers whom no-one could identify, victims’ names were curiously absent from parish registers and the secret glade in the middle of the forest always turned out to be one of a dozen such clearings, each with a blasted elm or a prominent ring of mushrooms. In the end the inquisitors, faced with this lack of hard evidence even by their standards, and increasingly out of pocket, turned their attention to other regions where the locals were more willing to betray their neighbours for the price of a pint or two.
