The White Witch: Week 1

An Herbalist, a Painter, a Tinker and a Madona

One of the best views in England. Over the hill is Turville. Photo by Chilternhills_Treasures

“Froniga was a noted gardener and herbalist, skilled in all healing arts, with fingers that were not only green but enchanted, and her small domain always seemed to him almost intolerably prolific. (Yoben) was, he supposed, a little jealous of her passionate love of plants. He came out from the shadows of the orchard into the herb garden and the smell of wet lavender and rosemary, germander and mint geranium nearly knocked him over. But the rectangular beds were all in good order, he noted with relief, and on the rim of the well sat a large white cat.”

🍂 Elizabeth Goudge, The White Witch

Welcome to the week 1 discussion for The White Witch!

Two years after Goudge published The Rosemary Tree (1956), she was finally ready to moved on from Devon, where she had set four of her books. In 1958, Goudge publish a new historical fiction based on the rich history of the Oxfordian countryside. She dedicated The White Witch to Jessie, her live-in housekeeper:

“The White Witch is Jessie’s book, commemorating the spells she wove over the garden…” ¹

A few years later in 1963, she would publish another novel, The Scent of Water, also set this region southeast of Oxford town, at the edge of the Chiltern Hills.

(See the maps in our Intro to The White Witch for details.)

This week we will take a look at the first eight chapters of our story this week, looking at four main characters and what we have learned about them so far. We will also take a look at herbalism in the 17th century:

Five Children of King Charles I, after Sir Anthony van Dyck, oil on canvas, 17th century, based on a work of 1637

Four Cardinal Characters