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SycoraxJ.B. Aspinall'Sukie’s a witch an’ a sluttock. Daft too, scroochin’ up trees an’ mumblin’. Best thoo takes her off an’ locks her up, for she’s loony.' In
the credulous squalor of medieval Yorkshire a peasant
girl is accused of being sorceress.The suffering
inflicted upon her by male superstition sparks a spectacular
and terrifying retort which initiates the legend
of the witch Sycorax. Many years later, the story is recounted
for us by Edmund, a flawed monk at Byland Abbey, who undertakes
to write a
history of the witch as a penance for lascivious fantasies.
In the process, Edmund uncovers a brutal and eerie tale
in which he becomes fatally involved. Not just a trip into
another epoch, more than a just another supernatural thriller,
this absorbing novel of medieval times reveals that the
compulsions and delusions examined are endemic in us all
today. Reviews of Sycorax: JOHN
BRIAN ASPINALL read History at Balliol
College, Oxford. He taught literature in city comprehensive
before becoming a full-time writer in 1990. He has had numerous
poems published in magazines and has published two novels:
Gringo Soup (2001) and Sparrow Hall (2003). He currently
lives in France. |