The Merrybegot

To be a Merrybegot is to be special, a child conceived early one May morning following a night of bacchanalian revelry. Nell, the granddaughter of a cunning woman, is one such, and so is the baby of a Puritan minister’s daughter, Grace. The story hinges on these two, who are awarded special protection and regard in their community.

Hearn captures brilliantly the atmosphere of a village in the west of England during the 1640s. The village has its own rituals and folk-ways, relying on Nell’s grandmother for healing and for help in childbirth. But the Civil War and the advent of a joyless and strict minister forces change, stirring suspicion and bitterness. When Grace becomes pregnant by a village boy her only means of escaping the inevitable retribution likely to be delivered by her widower father, is to pretend that she is possessed by Satan. She and her younger sister, Patience, are so successful in their portrayal of demonic possession that a witch-hunt ensues involving Nell and her grandmother who is seen as a threat to the narrow religiosity of the minister.

Hearn gives her readers a sense of the ignorance and brutality of the village, but as well as the darkness there is also light and humour. Some of it arises from Nell’s encounter with and subsequent patronage by the young Prince Charles, and through the voice of the piskies whose views on events are interspersed throughout the book. Another view of events comes through the voice of Patience, a repressed child, and subsequently a disturbed adult, who finds confessing to involvement with witchcraft a potent means of attracting attention. These are blended with the central narrative, adding extra richness to a gripping, atmospheric novel, which demands reading at one sitting.