Guest Talk: Dr Katie Liddane - Wonderful Newes from the North: The Witches in the Castle

As part of our The National Lottery Heritage Fund project exploring North East witchcraft, Broadside Creatives is inviting participants to a guest talk with historian Dr Katie Liddane, focusing on the striking seventeenth century pamphlet Wonderful Newes from the North: The Witches in the Castle.

Presented in its original spelling and language, this pamphlet offers a vivid and often unsettling account of witchcraft accusations in the North East. The spelling, while unfamiliar, reflects the text as it first appeared, giving us a direct connection to how these stories were originally communicated and understood.

The talk will explore what this pamphlet can reveal about belief, fear and storytelling in the seventeenth century, and how accounts like this were shaped by those in positions of power rather than the voices of the accused themselves.

Crucially, the pamphlet also connects us to place. Two of the individuals named were held in the castle gaol,…