STUNNED archaeologists believe they have found the ancient former home of the notorious writer and sorceress Lizzie Jones.
The remains of the immensely eerie cottage, complete with mummified cats, a cauldron containing human male bones and a large collection of expensive shoes, were unearthed during a dig in Lancashire.
Archaeologist Emma Bradford said: Lizzie Jones was perhaps the most notorious of the Pendle witch-columnists.
By day, she would sit at her rough-hewn desk, cauldron bubbling softly in the background, and use a rook’s wing-bone dipped in dog blood to pen articles for popular gazettes. Her topics would include men, recent murders and fashion, as viewed through the dark prism of her witchy neuroses.
At night, local villagers believed she flew around the village, using weird fleshy membranes under her armpits as wings, entering any hovel that contained a virile male and doing unspeakable things to drain him of his vital fluids.
Then it was off home to cast a spell to make crops fail and cattle turn barren, and to suckle her feline familiars Charmion, Barbaris and Nebulon.
She added: The sad thing is that all Lizzie really wanted was to be loved. But she went about it the wrong way, and was burned at the stake.
Local legend has it that the Pendle witch-columnists were in thrall to the powerful warlock Dacre, a terrifying wild-haired hermit who believed himself the devil’s stepson.
Emma Bradford said: Witches could use fearful, dark things to manipulate the bovine ignorance of the masses.
We are fortunate to live in a more enlightened age.
