Occult Deception in 17th-century Devon
‘The Cleft Owl’ – a tender discomfort and a gory crown.
Witness the work of a practitioner of the occult arts, a willing deceiver and interpreter of dreams, schooled in awe by a house of God rendered a charnel house by a fiery, dancing orb of light. Self-tutored in greed, and self-assured in his deceptions, ‘Dr’ Robert Tooley would have many think him able to command the dead and have them do his bidding, but as his demands grow greater, so the villagers’ doubts grow deeper; there will be an end to it all, and not a pretty one.
Based upon a little-known and strange case that unfolded in Widecombe-in-the-Moor during the late 17th century, a number of the characters here portrayed – Tooley, the Reverend Tickle and the Worshipful Sir William Bastard – all played a role in the life of this tightly-knit community. Lost in obscurity, this episode is here resurrected, with a little flesh being restored to the bare bones of the tale, and the dead pressed to speak.
This novella is a standalone work in the ‘West Country Tales’ series, and is also available in paperback, or Kindle ebook format, alongside four other tales in ‘Anthology: Wry Out West’.
