The Witching Tree

Alison Prince wrote The Witching Tree nearly twenty years ago, but even now receives enthusiastic letters and e-mails from readers who have managed to get hold of a rare copy. This new edition, available both online and as a printed volume, has the author's original jacket artwork.
The book came from a strong sense that some people are born with the knowledge that they are 'different' from most others, with perceptions that can cause alarm if they are revealed too recklessly. The story is a double one, mingling the almost present-day story of a woman called Mary with dark things that happened three hundred earlier, yet seem to her like memories. Mari, her earlier self, is - or was - the child of a woman accused of witchcraft, though her only crime was to heal the bodies and minds of people who came to her for help. Mari, spitefully called 'the witch's daughter', cannot escape the same danger., and it reaches out in turn to touch Mary, who in the twentieth century replicates the same pattern. When, like her ancestors, she has a child out of wedlock, she too suffers bigotry and prejudice.
Inevitably, The Witching Tree deals with dark happenings, but essentially it is a tale of love and faith, and about the quite often humorous tenacity that women throughout history have needed. The linked stories see coincidence as a very real mechanism, seeming inevitable to those who trust in it. They also lay bare the deep connections of blood and memory that keep us in touch with people of earlier generations.
The Witching Tree has as much relevance to our lives and experience now as when it was written, and this new edition will be welcomed by the many people who have asked for it for so long.