In the credulous squalor of medieval Yorkshire a peasant girl is accused of being sorceress. The suffering inflicted upon her by male superstition sparks a spectacular and terrifying retort which initiates the legend of the witch Sycorax. Many years later, the story is recounted for us by Edmund, a flawed monk at Byland Abbey, who undertakes to write a history of the witch as a penance for lascivious fantasies. In the process, Edmund uncovers a brutal and eerie tale in which he becomes fatally involved. Not just a trip into another epoch, more than a just another supernatural thriller, this absorbing novel of medieval times reveals that the compulsions and delusions examined are endemic in us all today.