Imagine a bloody civil war is raging, and many men from your community have left to fight, perhaps never to return. Horses have been requisitioned, food prices are high, and taxation is crushing. Rumours abound. Apocalyptic visions have been seen in the sky, and speculation is rife about which enemy will arrive first: the Royalist army or the plague. Your parish is blighted by sickness and misfortune, not helped by local conflicts over religion, politics and poor relief. Suspicions are festering that some of your neighbours have made pacts with the Devil, and are to blame for the village’s ills.