The Witch of Blackbird Pond

I read this last weekend after feeling like I needed a break.  I read a quarter of the way through Radcliffe’s The Italian early last week but just wasn’t feeling it, so I’ve set that aside for later.  During discussions surrounding Banned Books Week Amanda of Simpler Pastimes had mentioned The Witch of Blackbird Pond as a book that is easily misunderstood because of one little word in the title.  Indeed, this book is not about a witch but about an old woman and a young woman who are falsely accused of being witches during a time of unrest in early Puritan America.

Elizabeth George Speare won a Newberry Medal for this book in 1959, and I can understand why.  This is an excellent story!  It’s engaging, contains well developed and identifiable characters and a plot that’s packed with history and ethics – like what it means to be a true friend and have values that are based on humanity and kindness rather than dogma.

The novel’s heroine, Kit, is a young woman from Barbados who moves to New England to be with the only family that she has left after the death of her grandfather.  She tries to adapt to her new surroundings, but Kit doesn’t easily blend in with her new community and she is in no hurry to conform.  She balks at her new family’s Puritan lifestyle and refuses to shun those who are marked as “evil” (i.e. not Puritans).  She is also not accustomed to hours of endless chores and often falters when carrying out everyday labors and housework.

Kit is warned to stay away from an old woman named Hannah who lives next to Blackbird Pond because at worst she might be a witch; at best, she doesn’t attend “Meeting,” and that alone is enough to make her an unworthy associate.  But Kit doesn’t wish to judge a person by their beliefs; she wants to find out what kind of person this lonely old woman is.  After discovering the warmth that Hannah and her cozy cottage have to offer, Kit starts visiting Hannah in secret, which is fine until an epidemic hits the community and questions start flying.   People start to wonder if the witch of Blackbird Pond might be casting a spell on them all.  The panic that ensues demonstrates how people sometimes jump to extremes in an effort to explain things that seem harsh and unjust.   As Kit herself says, “People are afraid of things they don’t understand.”  And this sometimes causes people to brand and exclude rather than to understand and tolerate.

Kit is a courageous and independent character, but she isn’t flawless.  There are aspects of her character that become conflicted.  She has to learn the value of hard work, pitching in, negotiation, and thinking about more than just herself.

I love books like this that really bring history to life in a way that feels authentic.   In addition to the human, value-based themes, there are many great historical points for discussion in this little novel – the realities of life in early 17th century America, the roles of men / women / children, education, courtship, witch trials, and the sense of political and religious unrest in a pre-Revolution era.

I had to laugh at one scene in which Kit bemoans the repetitive task of carding wool, a step in the cleaning process in which the wool is combed with two wooden hand tools called cards.  Earlier this year, I visited the Frontier Culture Museum (a living history museum) in Staunton, Va and on the day of my visit the staff were in the process of cleaning wool to refill two mattresses.  With a look of exasperation, our guide reported a feeling of overwhelming relief when she arrived that morning and discovered that they were moving on to the next phase, as she thought she was going to go crazy from the mind-numbing redundancy of carding wool the day before.

Pots of ammonia for cleaning the wool - Our guide explained that traditionally wool would be cleaned with the resulting ammonia from the chamber pots!

I tend to romanticize this way of life, and I’m sure I’m not alone.  In our busy society with so much that complicates and befuddles, the simplicity of working for sustenance seems somehow alluring.  Wrapped up in that romanticism, it’s easy to forget that the work never ceased and the tasks were often repetitive.

Even though I will probably continue to idealize what seems to be a simpler life, in reality I know that I’d react to hours of labor intensive chores just as Kit did, with grumbling dread.

It’s safe to say that I’ll probably never have to find out for sure.  But I’ll continue to savor learning about past times and perspectives and to imagine what it would be like.

 

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