Witsh is the new spell-binding book based on Welsh witchcraft history, out this Hallowe’en.

Written by Aberystwyth author Mari Ellis Dunning and published by Honno Press, Witsh promises to bewitch readers with its tale inspired by largely unknown Welsh witch history.

Dunning used Welsh archives to gain an understanding of both what is and isn’t documented of Welsh witch trials, lore and history, and has woven a magical fiction story rooted in tradition and realism.

The tale is steeped in suspicion and fear, told through the eyes of one young woman - ‘set in sixteenth-century Wales amid rain and failing crops, a woman is accused of Witchcraft’.

Described as ‘rich with bold feminism’, Dunning, who teaches at Aberystwyth University, said about her novel: “The stories of the women involved in early modern witch trials feel more relevant than ever at the moment, given the state of female reproductive rights and bodily autonomy across the globe.”

The book will be published on 16 October.

It follows Dunning’s two hit poetry collections - Salacia, 2019, was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year, whilst Pearl and Bone, 2022, was chosen as Wales Art Review’s Number 1 Poetry Choice that year.

Novelist and poet Katherine Stansfield reviewed the book: “This taut novel expertly conjures the Elizabethan world of rural Wales caught between the old religion and the new, between the prognostication of physicians and the deep wisdom of wise women, where a charm can all too easily become a curse in the eyes of a fearful community, and a woman a Witsh.

“Dunning shows the past is knocking at the door of the present with this timely fable about women's bodies, male power and the things that must be done for protection.

“Deeply engrossing and wonderfully unsettling, Witsh will keep you awake at night in the best possible way."