The Curewife

Claire-Marie Watson

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The Curewife is the story of Grissel Jaffray, the last woman to be burnt as a witch in Dundee. Her story is brought to light by the chance discovery of an ancient diary in modern day Connecticut. Through the transcription of this diary, a powerful narrative unfolds. Grissel Jaffray has inherited a legacy of 'uncommon sagacity': the accumulated knowledge of her forebears who have the gift of healing and practiced withcraft for more than three centuries. Grissel is a woman of keen intelligence whose fictional journal graphically depicts life in seventeenth-century Dundee: a land of war, plague, political turmoil, and fanatical witch-hunts. The struggle for survival echoes down the years to trouble the last of her tormented line. Now the place is New England, a place of peace prosperity and endless possibility. Her descendants' stories, told in parallel with main narrative, bring ancient fears to today's business world.Winner of the Dundee Book Prize 2002