What’s the difference between an ancient woodland god and the devil?
When not-so-honest, God-fearing pilgrims in 15th-century New England encounter a mythical creature that is more or less shaped like a man, except for the horns on its head and hooves at the end of its legs, they assume it must be none other than Satan himself, a.k.a. “Old Slewfoot,” which is a name for the devil I hadn’t heard before.
This book by Brom switches perspective between a few different characters, but mostly it focuses on Abitha, a young woman from England whose mother died of the plague, sending her father into a chasm of grief, alcoholism, and an obsession with the devil.
He convinced himself his wife died because she “let the devil in” and so he “had her name in his book,” which allegedly enabled him to take her soul when she got sick. Nevermind the fact that the plague was an incredibly deadly disease that killed thousands of people. He just needed someone — or something — to blame.
When his alcoholism got the best of him and he was drowning in debt, he basically sold his daughter into slavery to pay off his debts. He put out an advertisement for what was basically a mail-order bride, and when someone from the colonies took him up on the offer, he shipped her off.
Fortunately, she lucked out by getting a husband, Edward, who is kind and treats her well. I don’t know if I would say they really fell in love, but there is definitely affection (and lust) between them, if not love.
Unfortunately, Edward is being taken advantage of by his older brother, Wallace, who is the absolute worst!
When their father died, Wallace inherited everything. He now lives in the house they grew up in with his poor wife and daughter.
Wallace “let” Edward have a section of the farm that was neglected and overrun with wildlife. Edward cleared it, built himself a house, and has been farming it and using proceeds from his crops to pay Wallace for the farm. They have one payment left to make when Wallace informs them he has sold the farm and Edward now owes a completely different debt to another wealthy landlord.
This makes Edward sad and Abitha furious. After Wallace leaves, she convinces Edward to make his case to the sheriff, who agrees Edward has at least a partial claim to the land he has been working for several years now. They agree that, if the last payment can be made by the deadline, which just happens to be October 31st, then the farm will belong to Edward, and Wallace will have to find another way to pay off his debts.
But Edward dies soon afterwards in a mysterious accident in the woods. All they manage to recover of his body is a tooth.
Wallace assumes Abitha will live with him from now on, but she recognizes that as the slavery it is and again appeals to the sheriff to let her take on Edward’s debt. If she can farm the land and make the last payment by the deadline, she should be able to continue to live in what has finally become her home. The sheriff agrees, infuriating Wallace, who is not about to take this lying down.
It’s around this same time that Abitha meets a mysterious “man” with hooves for feet and horns on his head. At first, she assumes he is devil, and he has had an unfortunate tendency to drain animals and people (including poor Edward) of their blood to restore his strength. He has been asleep for a long time and is, not only building his strength back up, but struggling to remember who he is. People call him “Slewfoot” and “the devil” and “Satan,” but none of those names sound familiar to him.
Once he proves he does not want to hurt her — can and will even help her — she grudgingly warms up to him. When he tells her he doesn’t have a name, she decides to call him Samson.
Samson, as it turns out, is an ancient spirit who was both worshipped and feared by the indigenous population until he got on the wrong side of a shaman, who used a mask to trap Samson’s soul and put him into a kind of mystical coma.
Samson has woodland sprites who call him “Father” though they don’t appear to be his children, at least not in the biological sense. They are trying to help him build up his strength and Abitha is not helping. When Samson helps Abitha by teaching her how to use magic, she is really using his magic, which drains him, though he is either unaware of this fact, or doesn’t care.
The woodland sprites do care.
Things eventually come to a head when Samson finally confronts the shaman at the same time Abitha is about to be hanged for witchcraft.
I won’t spoil the ending, but it’s amazing and I loved it.
I also loved the way Brom worked the legends of witches in with the history of women being accused of witchcraft.
Abitha did learn from her mother how to use roots and herbs as medicine, but she’s no witch. She does make the occasional love charm for women in the village to lure men who are already clearly smitten with them.
And, of course, there’s the fact that she’s a widow living independently. Patriarchal societies have always been threatened by self-sufficient women, and they were the ones who were most often targeted in witch hunts. As soon as Abitha was widowed, I could see where Brom was going with it, and it’s so good!