The Legend

It’s 1659. Less than a decade after Civil War had rampaged through a green and unpleasant land. Accusations of witchcraft are levelled at a number of good folk living in and around the Essex village of Ffynchingfield- and by the pricking of their skins they’re condemned to a chilling end….to be buried alive while lashed to chairs.

Never again to sleep. Never to rest in peace.

Their deaths would spark a fire that burns still….

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The Cult Of Ffynche

The passing of these tragic innocents is marked with a lament called simply ‘Witches’….that they would never be forgotten. No one knows the author of the bitter lyric, but it’s message is a clear rejection of religious dogma. Fearing allegations of sedition, minstrels and troubadours of the parish meet in secret to give voice to the mellifluous declamation and to proclaim the choosing of another way. A better way. Nature’s way. The way of The Cult.

Their way is to rejoice in life and all its wonders. Their way is to laugh, to sing, to drink, to think and to put right the evils of the world. And -- perhaps to atone for their sins, perhaps in deference to the suffering of their fellow man -- their way is through challenging ritual.

The world has changed and so the way of The Cult has changed. Songs have been sung and re-sung….changing and regenerating through the centuries. Ritual too has changed like a Chinese whisper, morphing and adapting to circumstance as it passes from generation to generation.

Little remains of the world which spawned The Cult Of Ffynche, but The Cult endures- so that the philosophy continues to the present day. Embodied in the form of troubadours still, the songs are sung, the ale is drunk, the thoughts are thunk….

…..and the rituals are applauded.