Last night I spoke on ‘Witches and Witchcraft in Ely’ to the Ely Society at Ely Museum. The talk was very well attended by the members of the Ely Society, but I was delighted that it was also attended by some members of the local pagan community; thanks to their extensive knowledge of the subject there was a very stimulating and wide-ranging discussion afterwards. I was also pleased to make the acquaintance of Dr Maureen James for the first time, who is an authority on Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire folklore and the author of the Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire volumes in the History Press’s series of county collections of folktales. Maureen’s research is both intriguing and ground-breaking, and reminds me of the remarkable neglect of some of the most promising collections of folklore, made in the mid-twentieth century but some still not properly analysed.
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Francis Young 