Witch-bottles and Windlestraws - Joy Stonehouse

It’s November 1703 and The Great Storm is set to hit Filey Bay on the Yorkshire coast.

The people of Reighton have a wedding to celebrate, and sit in church unaware of the impending storm that will affect their lives.

Inspired by parish records, Witch-bottles and Windlestraws is the story of the Jordan family and their farming community. Courtships, betrayal, unrequited love and an inexplicable death are woven into a tapestry of 18th Century life and customs and the ever-challenging weather.

Characters can turn to the Church for help, or resort to superstition and ancient remedies.

Through the heat of August’s long harvest days or the hours spent making butter and cheese in the cool of the milkhouse, or through the seemingly never-ending dark winters when the village is cut off by deep snow and ice, life and death are played out in the stark realities of an unforgiving era.