Witch's Blood

by William Blain, W. Mark Ormrod

The first of the English family was Adam - born to a red-haired witch and one of Cromwell's conquering soldiers. The soldier vanished, and the witch was burned, but her last prophecy was that her bloodline would survive...

And as the years unfolded, changing Dundee from superstitious village to a town of thriving jute mills, the generations of red-haired sons and daughters rose from obscurity to notoriety. All of them were talented, gifted, ambitious - and in all of them ran the blood of Elspet, the witch.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Witches

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

William Blain, editor of comics and story papers for DC Thomson, was born in Gourock, Scotland. He won a scholarship to Glasgow University, while working as a part-time football reporter on local newspapers. On leaving university, he went to work for the Glasgow Evening Herald. In 1923 he applied for an editorial position at D. C. Thomson in Dundee, and was offered a position as a sub-editor on the boys' story paper The Rover. By 1927 he was editor of The Wizard, and launched The Skipper in 1930 and The Hotspur in 1933. He came to have editorial responsibility for all of Thomson's story papers. In 1937 he prepared dummies for Thomson's first comic, The Dandy, the success of which led to the launch of The Beano in 1938 and The Magic Comic in 1939. He went on to launch Thomson's line of girls' comics, Bunty (1958), Judy (1960), Jackie (1964) and Mandy (1967), as well as the boys' adventure comic The Victor (1961). By the time he retired in 1970 he was Managing Editor of all Thomson's comics and annuals. He also wrote two novels, Home is the Sailor (1939) and Witch's Blood (1946).

Reviews

[Luke Ellery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not at all what I expected. I got this at a second hand bookstore in Edinburgh and lived out a cottage core reading fantasy. I expected this to be more witchy-woo but it ended up being a really fascinating look into the life of 13th century Scotland (that’s a guess at the era). It had some interesting “eat the rich” themes and also some fun arcs around becoming that which you hate the most. Overall good read, and surprisingly easy to read, especially for a book written in 1946

[Ilma · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're interested in Dundee history this is a good read, it's fiction based on historical facts (I believe) and follows the fictional family through the generations during a period of Dundee/Scottish history (1600's thru to 1800's).