It's said that you can choose your friends. Family? You not only don't get a choice, it's pretty much potluck. Especially when it comes to the generations past aunts, uncles and cousins. In the late 1690's Salem Massachusetts was the site of a notorious set of witch trials. Much of the sting is gone, and the town capitalizes on the notoriety with month long street theater, crafts, pagan celebrations. More about that later.
The unfortunate subject tonight is a certain Reverend Nicholas Noyes. Apparently my great uncle. Several times removed. During the trials he acted as one of the official ministers. When he called upon Sarah Goode to confess and avoid the rope she cursed him. "I am no more a witch than you are a wizard and if you take my life God will give you blood to drink." It took a few years and he publicly repented of his actions during the trials, but he died in 1717 of a hemorrhage. I think I would rather have known the witches, not the ministers. I'm afraid I would have made a very poor Puritan.
1 comment:
I remember posting a comment on a story about white supremacists to the effect that they probably shouldn't go looking to far back in the family tree even if they were mostly English what with the Middle Eastern tin and pearl traders, the Roman soldiers who came to conquer and stayed to raised families. The Moors in Spain etc. etc. Got an LOL comment back to the effect that if you shook most family trees you might be really surprised at the "nuts" that fell out.
Post a Comment