Lowly’s Book Blog

The Witch’s Trinity is a very unusual and interesting book. Deceptively simple to read, it very clearly portrays the life of an average family in the early 1500s.

Setting: a small village in Germany, 1507. The village has suffered several years of famine, and a friar arrives determined to identify the source of the wickedness causing God’s wrath. He is armed with a new book The Malleus Malleficarum. This book will help him find the witch who is leading the whole village to the devil. Gude is an old woman. Her husband died many years ago, and although her son loves her, her daughter-in-law considers that she is a waste of food for the starving family. Gude’s mind is no longer as sharp as it once was, and she is easily confused by her constantly changing circumstances.

Soon after the friar arrives, the men of the village decide to go on an extended hunting trip, trying to find food for their families. The friar soon identifies the village herbalist, a close friend of Gude, as the witch, and after applying the tests indicated in his book, she is burnt at the stake. But the famine continues, and the friar begins to look elsewhere…

What gives this book so much power is that the story is told from the point of view of Gude, and Gude doubts herself. She has dreamed of eating her fill, was it reality? She is horrified that her daughter-in-law gathered the wood for the fire, but is she upset because her closest friend was killed, or because she is evil herself? In a society where spirits and devils were considered to be part of an unseen reality, the lines between good and evil become grey, and this book portrays that shadowland very effectively.

If you have an interest in medieval society, or if you have read heaps about the Salem witch trials, or even if you read the The Last Witchfinder a book I recommended highly about 18 months ago, I would strongly recommend that you get your hands on this.