When one of the minister's daughters falls pregnant, she deflects punishment by claiming to be bewitched. Two historical figures make their appearance alongside supernatural beings: Matthew Hopkins, the witchfinder general, with his shiny black boots and wicked spurs, is a terrific embodiment of villainy and it would be a shame to divulge the identity of the second, which was not only a surprise in itself but also leads to a most delightful shock towards the end of the book.įairies, especially piskies, are a part of life in the village, and their universe is described alongside the human one. The baby's caul is given to Nell to thank her and becomes one of several significant props in the working-out of the story. The plot is dramatic and eventful and takes in Nell's visit to the land of the fairies to deliver a child.

We learn what happens to Nell, her grandmother, and the minister's two daughters. The text is peppered with actual spells, printed in a beautiful font. The life of the village, its customs, inhabitants and especially the conflict between the old religion of paganism and a puritan Christianity is wonderfully evoked. We then move to 1645, and a story written in the present tense mainly from Nell's point of view.

It begins with a confession, written in 1692, by the simple-minded younger daughter of the man who was minister in Nell's village more than 30 years before. The book begins and ends with a birth, and between the two many parallels and contrasts are built up, layer by layer, so that you're never aware of clunking connections but can appreciate the ways all the plot strands come together at last. Nell is the granddaughter of the local cunning woman, and learning from her grandmother all the skills of herbal medicine and midwifery that she will need to carry on the tradition. 'A Merrybegot', says a shoutline on the cover of this novel, 'is a child conceived on May morning believed to have powers of witchcraft.' Julie Hearn has written an absorbing story in which several plot strands wind over and under one another like ribbons on a maypole to create an intricately braided narrative.

The Minister's Daughter by Julie Hearn