We cannot now follow the route the poor wretches took. and there is no consensus as to what route they - and the judges - took. The latest popular version of the Pendle Witch walk is that marked out by 10 'tercets' along a 51 mile walk erected in the 400th commemorative year 2012, Each of these are dedicated to one of the poor souls hanged, and have 3 lines of a poem written by Poet Laurate Caron Ann Duffy. We come across some of tercets on our journey, but you will have to hike into higher ground to find others.. 3 points if you find one. More about the Carol Ann Duffy's take on the trial

Tercet 1 Heritage Centre Barrowford

Where will we find this?..

and this?

Tercets

In commemoration of the Pendle Witches trail 400 years later, ten cast iron tercet waymarkers, designed by Stephen Raw, each inscribed with a verse of a poem by the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, have been installed at sites along the way.[2]

Duffy says of the story:

I was struck by the echoes of under-privilege and hostility to the poor, the outsider, the desperate, which are audible still.

The 51 mile route was designed by Ian Thornton-Bryar and John Sparshatt, following initial suggestions from Sue Flowers, the artistic director of the Lancashire-based arts organization Green Close.[3] . More

This is translated into Google map, showing position of tercet 3-6. Click map for details

Tercet 6 Croasdale

Top: Southward with Pendle in the distance

Bottom: North looking

Each of these display one of the three line peoms - tercets form ‘The Lancashire Witches’ by Carol Ann Duffy

  1. One voice for ten dragged this way once
by superstition, ignorance.Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
  1. Witch: female, cunning, manless, old,
daughter of such, of evil faith;in the murk of Pendle Hill, a crone.3 Here, heavy storm-clouds, ill-will brewed,over fields, fells, farms, blighted woods.On the wind’s breath, curse of crow and rook.4. From poverty, no poetrybut weird spells, half-prayer, half-threat;sharp pins in the little dolls of death.5 At daylight’s gate, the things we fear darken and form. That tree, that rock,a slattern’s shape with the devil’s dog.6 Something upholds us in its palm-landscape, history, place and time-and, above, the same old witness moon7. below which Demdike, Chattox, shrieked,like hags, unloved, an underclass,badly fed, unwell. Their eyes were red.8. But that was then- when differencemade ghouls of neighbours; child beggars feral, filthy, threatened in their cowls.9.Grim skies, the grey remorse of rain;sunset’s crimson shame; four seasons,centuries, turning, in Lancashire,10. away from Castle, Jury, Judge,huge crowd, rough rope, short drop, no graveonly future tourists who might grieve.