One of the questions that I am most frequently asked is how I came up with the name Sacke & Sugar? Well, short story is, I didn’t. It is from the history of the English witch trials.
In 1643, an 80 year old woman named Elizabeth Clarke was accused by a neighbor in her village of placing a curse upon them. Enter Matthew Hopkins, the self appointed “Witch Finder General” who terrorized the English countryside for four years during the English Civil War. He and his entourage traveled East Anglia investigating, trying and executing those accused of witchcraft. They were very well paid for their services.
The impoverished, one legged octogenarian was deprived of sleep and questioned for days before Hopkins claimed to have witnessed her summoning a host of familiar spirits, imps in animal forms, which included a black rabbit named Sacke & Sugar among various other strange creatures.
As a lover of dark and unusual stories, I was intrigued by the imagery of these odd spirits parading about, and the name and rabbit mascot seemed to fit the “magic and macabre” theme of my new business. There is a little more to it though.
The plague of murders committed in the convictions of hundreds of people, 90 percent of them women, were the result of politics, superstition, prejudice and outright greed. These people were often poor, elderly, or seen as outsiders. The stories of these legally committed crimes are a grim reminder of the evil that is wrought upon the powerless and misunderstood, and their victims deserve to be remembered. It could have been a great many of us if born in the wrong time. It can always happen again if we don’t resist those who would gladly return us to such dark days.
Be good to each other, ok?
Love, Angie
You have explained it very well. Thanks!