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"When shall we three meet again; In thunder, lightning or in rain?"
Macbeth: Act 1 Scene 1

We've just reached the summit of Pendle Hill in Lancashire when the image of the three wizened witches from Macbeth skips across my mind's eye.

From up here, even though it's slightly overcast, we can see for miles. To the east lie the steeply terraced streets of the former cotton industry towns of Colne and Nelson. Beyond that, on the Yorkshire/Lancashire border are the beginnings of Bronte country. To the north, Lancashire rolls into the Lake District that so inspired the Romantic poets. It's even possible on a clear day to see the coastal resort town of Blackpool which was once the playground to this area's mill workers. Closer by, below us, caught in a fishing net of fields are the hamlets of Newchurch and Roughlee and a few wriggling country lanes.

But for now all I can see are the "weird sisters". I'll always remember when I first encountered them. I was a bored schoolboy sitting in an English class. I opened Macbeth and Shakespeare's lurid creatures burst into my imagination. It's now nearly twenty years later and I am perched high above the Lancashire countryside, wind-blown and breathy, with only a few slow sheep for company. And the witches are coming straight for us.

Thankfully, at that moment, my companion offers me a bite of her chocolate bar and the three of them evaporate into the ether once more. There's no doubt about it, however, Pendle Hill has that kind of atmosphere. It's hard to drive anywhere in Lancashire without feeling its presence. Like the famous First World War army recruitment poster ("Your Country Needs You") its gaze seems to follow you wherever you go. Brooding and dark in any weather, Pendle Hill dominates the Lancashire landscape in a way that far outweighs its relatively small size. And in its shadow lie mysterious tales which encourage exactly the sort of fantasy which I've just snapped out of:

It is 1603 and James 6 of Scotland ascends to the throne of England, bringing with him a ruthless desire to rid the country of witchcraft. He passes an act creating a capital crime: "for making a covenant with an evil spirit, using a corpse for magic, hurting life or limb, procuring love or injuring cattle by means of charms." Soon Shakespeare, pandering to the new King's paranoia, pens Macbeth and England is gripped by the fear of witches.

Locally, Roger Nowell is appointed Lancashire magistrate, with direct orders from James I to purge the county of its witches. Nowell's attention is soon drawn to two feuding peasant families living in the villages surrounding Pendle Hill- they have long been feared by locals as witches. One of the women, Alizon Device, is out begging one day in a country lane when a passing tradesman refuses her some money. When she curses him, he collapses, paralysed down his left side.

Device is immediately hauled before Nowell and accused of witchcraft. Forced to confess she points the finger at the rival family, four of whom are also sent for trial at Lancaster castle. Meanwhile, on Good Friday 1612, 20 women gather to plan the release of their friends by blowing up the jail. When the magistrate gets wind of the plot, they too are arrested.

A show trial opens at Lancaster castle on August 17th 1612. A nine year old girl is the chief witness. Bullied and bewildered she implicates her own mother and brother. In all, as a result of her testimony, ten people, including a ten year old boy and an eleven year old girl, are found guilty of witchcraft. On August 20th, they are hung at the castle in front of huge crowds.

Whether or not you believe in witchcraft this true story provides a fascinating backdrop to an area that even many English people bypass in favour of the Lake District or the Yorkshire Moors. But Lancashire's loss, is, in a way, also its gain. We've just hiked for two hours, following signposts depicting broom-borne witches, to the top of Pendle Hill, and seen only three other walkers. The tranquility up here is eerie and the views so inspiring that George Fox is believed to have had the vision here in 1652 which moved him to found Quakerism.

Pursuing the story of the Pendle witches further leads you first to the nearby hamlets of Roughleee and Newchurch, unchanged since the seventeenth century, where the women once lived. In Newchurch, the Eye of God in the church tower is thought to have protected parishioners from the evil emanating from Pendle Hill while the shop Witches Galore provides all the paraphernalia a modern-day witch enthusiast could hope for. At the Pendle Heritage centre, a few kilometres down the road in Barrowford, an exhibition slots the witches' tale into the historical context of the area's development from prehistoric times through the medieval Wars of the Roses to the industrial revolution which gave this part of Lancashire such a distinctive flavour.

Leaving behind the bleak beauty of this slate-grey town and retracing the footsteps of the witches as they were led to trial in Lancaster, rugged russet moors dip down softer, greener slopes as you begin to head to the coast through the Trough of Bowland. The area is dotted with classic English villages like Slaidburn where tea shops and uncluttered pubs offer refreshment no doubt denied to the witches. A short detour from here takes you to the official geographical centre of the United Kingdom at Dunsop Bridge. Back on the winding road to Lancaster, the way is lined with purple heather and bracken, rowan trees and bushes full of blueberries. The odd pheasant springs hazardously from behind a dry stone wall and the occasional chapel marks this out as Methodist country. Then, from the top of a hill you glimpse the city of Lancaster just short of the sea. There posted above the city like a sentinel, the sight which must have struck fear into the hearts of the women accused of witchcraft 384 years ago: Lancaster Castle.

A tour of the Castle not only brings the tale of the Pendle witches to its conclusion but reveals a grimly gripping thousand year history of torture, trials, imprisonment and execution. This was where, pre seventeenth century, gossips were silenced with gruesome face masks; where George Fox, shortly after his Quaker vision on Pendle Hill, was jailed for refusing to swear his allegiance to the King; where more recently many petty criminals were sentenced to the dire fate of transportation to Australia. It remains a working jail to this day, encompassing the tallest prison wall in Europe, and retains two fully-functioning courts. Indeed, one of these courts was the venue of the most famous miscarriage of British justice in modern history: the conviction, in 1975, of the Birmingham 6.

Is it possible that the Pendle witches were the innocent victims of a similarly vengeful miscarriage of justice, scapegoats of a time obssessed with witchcraft? Modern thought suggests so. Experts now believe that the incident that sparked the trial- the supposed striking down of a peddlar by Alizon Device- was nothing more than the man experiencing a stroke, and much of the other evidence against the women would probably be laughed out of court nowadays. Personally, after a few days following in the footsteps of the Lancashire witches, I am convinced of their innocence.

Or am I? As we descend Pendle Hill it seems to grow suddenly cold and misty and the wind carries a whisper into my ear:

"Fair is foul and foul is fair, Hover through the fog and filthy air."

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