BURN THE WOMEN, BURN THE WITCHES

A Story. Or, is it?

Jun 12, 2025

The Dagenhart Record, Volume 7, Year 1679

The Great Uprising of the Northern Quarter and the Purification of the Crimson Women

This document was discovered within the sealed archives of the now-defunct Clerical Order of Dagenhart, preserved under the Ministry of Historical Records. It is believed to have circulated in pamphlet form across multiple rural towns and city parishes at the time of the Great Northern Uprising.

The author remains unnamed, as was custom in clerical-state publications of that period.

In the latter months of the year 1678, the townships bordering the River Elvyn, most notably Millcroft, Brethren Hollow, and Eastmor, reported a growing number of civil disturbances within their communities.

At first, these incidents were dismissed as mere rural mischief and the whims of idle children, but as the months passed, more and more cases with similar undertones continued to be reported.

And with winter drawing nearer and the days growing colder and shorter, the unrest could no longer be ignored.

Children, particularly girls between the ages of eight and twelve, were reported to have begun speaking in riddles, asking unusual questions, and refusing to heed the direct instructions given to them by their male tutors or clergy.

Many mothers also disturbingly whispered of the sudden unwillingness of their daughters to assist them with the household chores, instead preferring to stay awake late into the night to read old newspapers and skip through the pages of old books found in their fathers' libraries.

At church assemblies, children were said to have adopted the unseemly habit of disrupting prayers and sermons with questions that were generally agreed to be improper and rebellious.

Some of the attendees of these services reported that some of such questions included: “Why must the girls be silent during gatherings?” “Why can't we visit the library?” “Why do the adults never listen to what we say?”

At first, these public incidents were isolated, and they occurred only in a few separate places to warrant any form of greater concern. However, then came the drawings; crudely etched and yet disturbingly coherent.

Little girls started to draw strange symbols with circles and eyes, interlocking branches, and diagrams unfamiliar to even their mothers, and they drew them everywhere, on every surface.

Even more alarming to the parents and guardians were the full manuscripts that were found hidden in the young girls’ satchels and in their rooms: texts on anatomy, nature, arithmetic, and language.

These texts were not given to them by their elementary schools, and the topics scribbled in their notes were ones they were never taught in their classes.

According to the strict ruling of the leading council, girls in schools are only taught basic English language and Behavioural/Conduct lessons, and yet, many of these children could solve difficult sums and discuss rather complex topics for their ages.

Nobody understood what was happening.

At the request of the Unified Council of Order and Grace, a quiet investigation was launched by the Clerical Watch, and what they found was no coincidence.

A cluster of women, numbering about eighteen at the time of the Watch's report, had been gathering weekly at what had once been a midwife’s cabin on the edge of Brethren Hollow.

Though they innocently claimed to be teaching "healing" and "lettering", their influence on their students had begun to stretch beyond the confines of their permitted educational boundaries.

The young girls who returned from these gatherings were said to be growing more inquisitive and less obedient, with many of them becoming more independent and less fearful of the constituted authorities placed over them.

Fearing the spread of sedition and heresy and the continued influence of these young girls into further rebellion, the Council called upon the Order of Saint Halwyn to take over the inquiry.

The women who hosted and taught at these gatherings were summoned to the Council Chambers, but many of them were said to have ignored the request, refusing to make an appearance before the court.

The few women who did appear before the council were said to have been completely silent, unrepentant and unyielding, deliberately choosing to utter no words.

One woman, who was described by eyewitnesses as "possessed of terrifying calm and an unflinching gaze", ignored all the questions asked her by the court and only said a single line before she was led away: "You can't silence her forever."

It was in that period that the term "Crimson Women" was first recorded.

A name given to these women in respect of the red thread they wore tied around their wrists.

Many villagers claimed it was a sign of a secret covenant of silence; many others claimed it was a representation of their allegiance to the occult.

The continued refusal of these women to testify, their knowledge of sacred and restricted texts, and the continued disobedience among the young girls who had heard them teach and speak were taken by the council as confirmation of their corruption and disturbing influence.

The next week, it was publicly announced by town criers across the district that these women were responsible for polluting the minds of the little children of the neighbouring towns, and if left unchecked, they could potentially and permanently erode the complete humanity of the little kids, turning them into rebellious monsters.

This led to great fear in the hearts of the parents and all the townspeople.

At first, imprisonment was the prescribed punishment by the council for these women, and a few of them were rounded up and thrown into jail.

However, a group of the Crimson Women who were imprisoned at the time were reported by unknown individuals to have spoken to the children who crouched at their prison window not with words, but with song.

Anonymous eyewitness accounts claimed their haunting voices caused the "lanterns to flicker", "guards to collapse in sleep", and "children to laugh while weeping".

These rumoured reports spread rapidly among the towns, despite nobody knowing their originating source, and these led to further unrest in the district.

The townspeople cried out that the devils had come to live with them, and they stormed the city council to demand a solution be made.

Whether it was a trick of the mind or a manifestation of their unclean powers, the uprising of the townspeople led the council to immediately decide that it was no longer safe to contain these strange, rebellious women by conventional means.

Thus came the First Fire.

On the 9th of December, under the binding decree of Archbishop Renald Stephens, a woman named Thea Marwick was bound and burnt to death before the congregation at Hollow Square.

She was a healer, and she had, according to the official record, refused to denounce her teachings and agree to stop spreading her heresies.

She had also refused to deny the allegations of the association of her group with the occult and refused to comment on whether or not she indeed possessed supernatural powers.

So she was bound, hand and foot, and tied to the stake that had been prepared in the town square the dusk before.

Almost everyone in town had gathered to watch the "spectacle", and right before the fire was lit under her, Thea was said to have proclaimed loudly to the night sky, "I will gladly burn to death for her freedom!"

Once the fire was lit, all she did was scream and scream and burn and burn.

That singular action sparked the largest series of riots and protests the area had ever seen.

These demonstrations were spearheaded by other members of the Crimson Women, those who had not been imprisoned and the ones that had been in hiding.

To the surprise of everyone, even the little boys and girls disobeyed stern grounding instructions from their parents and joined in the disgraceful acts of public disturbance, leading more and more townspeople to cry out for help, claiming their children had been "possessed".

This sudden escalation of events prompted the ruling council to take even more drastic measures to reduce the influence and number of these "witches", as they were now popularly called by the villagers.

More and more of these women were rounded up and given what was being called the "cleansing punishment". By the end of that month, twenty-seven more women had been tried privately and burnt publicly in the town square under the Fire Cleansing Act.

The final group of these women captured were three unnamed teenagers who were caught as they attempted to escape the town through the Elvyn crossing.

They were immediately burnt on the spot and were said to have knelt and kissed the earth before the flames consumed them, burying their screams and faces in the muddy ground as their bodies twisted in agony.

What followed after the death of the last of the Crimson Women was not chaos, but calm.

The girls in Brethren Hollow ceased their midnight readings, and they no longer asked unseemly questions.

No new symbols were found written anywhere, and they returned to assisting their mothers with the domestic chores.

It seemed, at last, that the rebellion had been stamped out and whatever negative influence that was brewing on the little girls had been permanently aborted.

By the first snowfall of January, peace had returned to the townships.

Children resumed their elementary lessons, the mothers complained less, and the churches were filled once again with obedient prayer.

The Council officially declared the closing of the Great Northern Uprising in the spring of 1679, thanking the Clerical Order and the loyal townsfolk for their courage and vigilance.

They also sternly reminded the townspeople that every form of rebellion and witchcraft was a great sacrilege against God, and all cases of such reports will be dealt with decisively.

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," the Archbishop had quoted loudly to the villagers in the town square.

No further incidents have been recorded since then.

Addendum: A Note from the Editor (1913)

This article was reprinted as part of the “Restorative Memory” exhibition held in Eastmor Cathedral in 1913.

However, while many modern historians still debate the total accuracy of the events depicted herein, the cultural significance of the Crimson Women remains a cautionary tale for many to this very date.

Peace is not always born of comfort, but it is always born of order.

Misplaced Journal Entry.

December 24, 1678.

Author: Unknown.

Tomorrow, I will burn.

I've heard it three times now.

First in the council room, where the Archbishop stood with the fervour of a man who believed every match he struck was done for the sake of salvation.

Then in the cell, whispered to me by the guard who had more pity in his eyes than I expected.

And again, just now, as the bell tolled in the tower, thirteen slow, resonating chimes to mark the midnight of my final day on this Earth.

Today, I will burn.

I suppose this might be the reason my hands now shake.

I don't think my fingers tremble from fear, though I do not pretend that dread has not crept and settled beneath my skin.

However, what sends ugly shivers down my spine is the mere thought that our sacrifice will not be enough.

The thought and reality of knowing that there are still many more things I must say and teach before my voice is smothered forever in smoke and ash.

That is the thought that brings me great fear.

Today, I will burn.

I don't know why I'm writing this.

I don't know if anybody will ever read these words.

I don't know why the guard obliged my request for a quill and paper.

Perhaps he felt the Good Lord would not forgive him for denying a condemned woman her final request.

Or perhaps this is all some part of a cruel plan by the council to trick me into writing what they would later deem a "confession".

Either way, I do not care.

They stripped us of everything. They took our dignity and our pride, and they even took our names.

They berated us, hit us, and mocked us before the eyes of everyone who cared enough to watch.

They jailed us, stripped us naked, and spat on us in front of the very girls we once sang sweet melodies to.

They did all this in a bid to break us.

My voice – our voices – are the one thing they could never take from us, so tonight, I will write.

On behalf of my sisters: the ones burnt, the ones to be burnt and the ones still in hiding. I will write.

They called us witches.

We were not witches.

They called us witches because they could not call us equals.

They hated us because we refused to accept our "status" as unequals.

We were teachers. Writers. Healers. Mathematicians. Poets. Singers. Scientists.

We were the women who refused to slave in kitchens and gossip in market corners.

We were the women who refused to be forced by society into such limiting boxes.

We were the women who held questions like fragile birds in our hands, nurturing them, coaxing them into flight, and sharing them with the world.

We did not "cast spells" on the children or cry for the disruption of the social order like the council accused us of to our very faces.

We did not do the evil things the townspeople shouted at us in the courts and on the streets.

We did none of those things.

What we did was gather in small rooms and open fields, under candlelight or moonlight, and share ideas that we were told were not fit for women to discuss.

We did this alone and together for many years, growing in wisdom and unity.

Then we realised that we could not keep this wisdom alone to ourselves forever for fear of dying with it.

So we started to teach the little town girls, and that was our first sin.

That was our only sin.

We taught them how to read advanced books.

We taught them how to think for themselves and how to embrace the curiosity in their nature.

We taught them how to be different from their mothers.

We feared that they would have no choice but to conform to the only nature that they've ever been shown – a nature of servitude and subservience – and so we dared to show them a better way.

That was our only sin, and every day, they burn us for it.

Everybody in the towns hated us for what we did. The rulers, the parents, the townspeople – everybody.

They hated us because even with the little time we spent with them, the girls who learnt from us started to change.

Not into "devil spawns" or "creatures of blasphemy" like many of the council eyewitnesses falsely claimed.

No, they changed in the ways that frightened the leaders of our towns.

Our girls spoke with clarity.

They questioned instructions. They dreamed beyond dusty kitchens and marriage beds. They wondered at the world in awe and out loud.

Our dream was to show them that they could be more, and that was what we did. They loved us for it, and we became their heroes.

The ruling men that sat on the council seats could not understand why these girls loved us and held on to our every word, so they accused us of bewitching them.

They declared to the villagers that we were members of the occult and that we possessed "demonic" powers, and so they began to gather us, one after the other.

I remember the night when they came for Thea.

She was a brilliant woman with hands that healed faster than any physician’s poultice.

It was a Friday night, and as they dragged her to the stake, they burnt her home.

Her little home where she had once saved lives and tended to delicate wounds. They burnt it and reduced it to ashes. She was the oldest among us and the first of us to burn.

People claimed the fire caught quickly, a sign that God himself was in support of their "act of cleansing".

After Thea's death, we stopped being silent. We protested. We demanded justice. We cried out for help.

And then came the trials.

There were no judges. No tangible evidence was brought forward. No due legal processes.

The "council" that was meant to fairly decide our fate consisted solely of men who hated and despised us for who we were and what we represented.

We were women; women who refused to bow their heads.

Many of my sisters expected this. From the moment the council began to summon us one after the other, we knew we were doomed.

We knew we would find no justice in these guerrilla hearings and that these ruling men just couldn’t wait to rid the world of us.

However, what we weren't expecting, and perhaps what broke our hearts the most, was the actions and reactions of our fellow townspeople.

Many of them knew us. They could've stood up for us, but they didn't. They knew that the stories being spread about us were lies, and yet, they chose to believe them.

They stepped forward in the courts as "eyewitnesses", claiming things they did not see and testifying to things they could not prove.

Some of them even pushed their little children forward as witnesses, forcing our own little girls with trembling words to say that they had seen us do and say certain "diabolical" and "occultic" things.

Everybody in the towns turned against us, and we were left all alone.

Every night, I think of my sisters.

I hear their screams in my dreams, and right before I was arrested, I could see the palpable fear in their eyes as we did in an abandoned basement right beneath the town market.

Many of my sisters have been cruelly killed in this persecution.

Just last night, another one of us was burnt just outside in the courtyard. I could hear her agonising cries as I lay crumpled in this cell floor, shedding bitter tears of my own.

Her name was Nara, and she was barely twenty.

She taught music to girls who had never known their own voices could make beauty outside the hymns they sang in services.

Tonight, I sit in this cell, knowing I too will meet the same fate once the sun rises.

Apart from me, I don’t know who else is left.

I was arrested with some of my other sisters a few days ago as we tried to steal food from the youngest among us, and I have not seen them since.

They keep us separate from one another, claiming that we speak spells to each other through the stone.

Another lie.

The only language we've spoken in the past few weeks is grief.

My heart is heavy with a weight I can’t quite explain.

I'll admit, I don't want to die.

I miss my books.

I miss the laughter of the girls when they discovered something new about themselves.

I miss the arguments over tea, the messy scribbles of ink on parchment, the joy of creation, and of imagining a perfect world where we would not be seen as threats.

But alas, there is nothing perfect about this cruel world.

And so today, I will burn.

Tears fall down my eyes as I write these words, and I am wholly exhausted.

Maybe death won't be so bad, after all.

Maybe I will finally rest.

Maybe the Good Lord would look down on us with kindness and welcome me and the rest of my sisters into His Eternal Peace.

I hear footsteps approaching, so I must stop writing now.

I don't know why I write these words.

I don't know if anybody will ever read these words.

I plan to bury this paper in the very deep hole that I dug in this prison cell.

Maybe someday, the right person will find it.

It might all be for naught, but I choose to hold on to hope.