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For our ramble this week,

we'll go first to
the blue hills of the Cotswolds.

The open air,

the countryside

where the sheep are
the aristocrats of their kind.

Thatched roofs
cover cottages of stone

and, incidentally,
hearts of gold.

And near the village
are the famous Rollright Stones,

which they say are earlier
than Stonehenge.

The story goes
that a lord of the province

aspired to become
King of England,

but that wasn't okay
by the local witch.

So she turned him and
his knights into lumps of stone.

And let that be a lesson to you,
Mr. Brownsmith.

Cotswold hospitality is a byword
among those who travel.

I came to visit my parents
here in the Cotswolds.

And my father and I one evening
went down to his local pub.

Where I started chatting
with a local.

And he said, "Have you heard of
the murder of Charles Walton?"

In 1945,
on the slopes of Meon Hill...

...a particularly gruesome
murder was committed.

Who's there?

Who is it? Who is it?

Who are you?

He was battered to death
with a stick.

Keep away, keep away!

He was pinned to the ground
with his own pitchfork.

I say keep away!

A sign of the cross
was cut on his chest

with his own billhook.

His name was Charles Wharton.

We challenge death

out of the village.

Challenge death
out of the village.

We challenge death
out of the village.

Charles Walton,
by all accounts,

was a harmless old man.

He was warm. He was friendly.

He offered greeting to people
he passed in the street.

So why did someone
go into the field that morning

and kill him in such
a brutal fashion?

It was the day particularly
rich in black magic Association.

The Druids were reported to have
made sacrifice to the earth.

Had the villagers
blamed him for a bad crop

that had happened that year.

Was this the last ritual
killing in modern Britain?

The murder of Charles Walton
struck a nerve with the nation.

This bizarre ritualistic killing

fueled the tabloids
for decades.

It inspired the imaginations
of rebellious youths.

I was,
as ordinary schoolgirls do,

doing séances with my friends.

And bored housewives.

And also authors,
screenwriters, and directors

of the 1960s and '70s.

There is nothing
fictitious about black magic.

It is a fact which has existed
for several thousand years.

Satanic ceremonies will
be happening in Britain tonight.

It was this moment
in cultural history

that birthed its own genre,
the folk horror movie.

Amy's at the castle
and hold debauched gatherings.

Men and women stripped naked.

It's usually
some idyllic picture box

English village

where all the villagers
seem to be acting

a little bit strangely.

Someone in this village
is practicing witchcraft.

The horror lies in the fact

that it comes out of
the beliefs of the folk,

like in "Midsommar".

No!

Custom? It's fucked!

To do with fertility
represented in men,

to do with giving
a sacrifice of blood

back to the land,
like "Kill List".

So the Charles Walton
murder case directly influenced

a whole host
of folk horror offerings,

but specifically
"The Wicker Man".

It's an enormously bizarre
thriller,

almost an occult musical.

A policeman goes
to an island, Summerisle,

where a girl has
allegedly gone missing.

The island is run
by a pagan cult.

I think what I relate to most
with "Wicker Man"

is the idea of sort of
being contained within a society

that's kind of mad.

British people put
a huge amount of importance

in structures and rituals.

To the outside, they seem
completely pointless,

but have a dark underbelly.

And it all goes back
to this murder in 1945.

A very English murder
in a very English village.

If you cut through
the headlines

and the horror movies...

...then you'll find
a real mystery...

...a mutilated dead body

that even the soberest minds
have failed to explain.

My motive in coming here
was to find the truth.

It poses a terrifying question.

Who are we?

What is really going on
in England's green

and pleasant land?

What are we hiding?

Who killed Charles Walton?

And most intriguingly...

...why?

So on the morning
of February 14th, 1945...

...Charles Walton,
he's a 74-year-old farm laborer

in the Lower Quinton...

he goes downstairs
for his morning breakfast

with his niece, Edith.

And she prepares for him
the snack

he always takes out into
the fields each day to work.

He leaves his house at 8:30.

And Edith watches him leave.

He crosses the lane
from his house.

She returns from her job
that evening at 6:00,

and she enters the cottage,

fully expecting to find
her Uncle Charles at home.

But he isn't.

This is very odd,
because Charles Walton

usually gets home at about 4:00.

He has terrible arthritis,
he feels the cold,

and he doesn't like
to be out in the cold weather.

So she's alarmed.

She knocks on the door
of a neighbor,

tells him that, you know,
Uncle Charles hasn't come home.

The neighbor's concerned.

They go across the lane,
through the churchyard,

out into the fields.

And they search
for about 20 minutes

and they enlist the help
of Alfred Potter...

...the farmer who's employed
Charles Walton

to trim the hedges.

And they come across
in the field

where Charles
had been working that day,

where two hedges intersect...

...they find Charles lying
in that corner.

His pitchfork has been impaled

through his face
and part of his throat.

And the trouncing hook,

the tool he uses to trim the
hedges is buried in his neck.

- Morning, sergeant.
- Morning, sir.

- Had any luck?
- No, sir.

That's obviously
where it happened, sir.

Over there.

When Charles Walton's murder
occurred in Lower Quinton,

it was in 1945,
on Valentine's Day.

Lovers walk,
they call it, sir.

Not there was much love here
last night.

Nobody really knew
what had happened.

A famous policeman called Fabian
got involved.

This is Fabian
of Scotland Yard.

He later had his own TV show.

He was a very well-known
household name.

Let us meet the real
Bob Fabian,

the man called England's
greatest detective.

He himself became involved
in investigating this murder.

We can see that parallel
directly with "The Wicker Man",

with Sergeant Howie.

An outsider policeman arrives
at this strange village.

Good day to you, sir.
I'm the harbormaster.

Sergeant, Howie,
West Highland Police.

It's kind of hard
to imagine today

a police officer being
a household name.

But Robert Fabian was the most
famous detective in Britain.

He's worked undercover
in the underworld.

He's taken down cat burglars.

He has solved every case
he's ever worked.

And so when the local police
in Warwickshire

turn up at the Lower Quinton
crime scene...

...and they see the severity
of the crime,

the brutality of it...

...they realize they need
a greater level of expertise

to handle the case.

Fabian gets this request
to travel out to Lower Quinton.

This quiet hamlet
of less than 500 people...

...where everyone
knows everything...

and suspicious behavior
is easily noticeable.

So he heads out there believing
he's going to catch his man.

Do you know her?

When Fabian arrives,
he has a game plan.

He starts off by having a
Spitfire fly over Lower Quinton

and take a reconnaissance
photograph.

He has it blown up to wall size

and he pins it up
in his operations room

in the police station.

And his plan is to interview
all 493 inhabitants

of Lower Quinton,

and use colored pins
to denote each person,

stick them in the map,

and then he can see who
was near the murder scene

at the time of the killing,

and thereby identify
who the killer was.

Alfred Potter is a local farmer,

and he's the farmer that
Charles Walton is working for.

Fabian suspects Potter
of the murder pretty quickly.

If you don't cooperate
with me here and now,

you may well find yourself
inside a police cell tonight.

Have I made myself quite clear?

Alfred Potter
is 40 years old.

He's a big guy.
He's physically imposing.

Broad shoulder, big chest,
thick neck.

He comes across as sort of
a dunce and not too smart.

But Fabian thinks
that behind the facade

is someone of extreme cunning.

So Potter helps look
for Charles Walton

the night he doesn't come home.

He actually touched
the handle of the trouncing hook

that was buried
in Walton's throat.

Fabian confronts Potter on this,
and Potter says,

"Well, when we found the body,

I wanted to make sure
Walton was dead."

If you stumble across someone

and they've got a pitchfork
through their face

and a trouncing hook
buried in their throat,

chances are they're dead.

You probably
don't need to check.

And while they're standing
over this body...

...Potter turns to the police
officer and says...

"I'm really famished."

If you're standing
over the body of someone

who's been horribly mutilated,

usually your appetite
isn't going to be

the first thing you think about.

This guy wanted to get away
from the crime scene

as quickly as possible.

And why?

Eventually, Potter has
a moment of stunning honesty...

...and admits
that he's been skimming wages

from his family's business.

And to Fabian's mind,

there's some sort of
money problem going on here.

Could he have
done the murders?

I mean, could he be one of those
people with a split mind --

sane one moment,
but mad the next?

Walton, in the village,
is rumored to walk around

with large sums of cash.

You have Walton working
in a field...

...away from the village
on Potter's property.

He's a perfect target.
It's a crime of opportunity.

Couldn't Potter have killed
Walton to steal his money?

It is a thin motive.

There is no evidence, obviously,
that a robbery occurred.

Walton's niece, Edith,

said she wasn't aware
of him carrying around money.

Then the question is, if this
was a murder for robbery,

why was the crime so brutal?

Fabian never charged Potter
with a crime

because he just couldn't find
that one piece of evidence

to basically seal the deal.

Something that Fabian found
particularly irritating

and suspicious
about the villagers...

...was that a brutal murder had
been committed in their midst,

but nobody seemed
terribly bothered.

Nobody seemed
in the least bit nervous

that there might be a demented
killer harbored in their midst.

They seem more intent
on stonewalling him

than showing any interest in
the apprehension of the killer.

I suspect murder
and conspiracy to murder.

Your lordship
seems strangely unconcerned.

He had a constant feeling

that instead of coming
forward to help him,

the village was covering
something up.

Sergeant, if I were you,
I would go back to the mainland.

Stop interfering in things
that are no concern of yours.

The natives of Upper
and Lower Quinton

and the surrounding district
are of a secretive disposition,

and they do not take
easily to strangers.

Therefore, I have borne in mind
the possibility

of there being some local
history attached

to the murdered man
or his neighbors,

which we have not yet touched
upon,

and which may have a direct
bearing upon the murder.

Fabian's failure
created a vacuum

into which, one by one,

other investigators who were
not official began to seep.

And the first to get there
was a very respected academic,

a leading Egyptologist
called Margaret Murray.

...Dr. Margaret Murray,

who is probably the leading
authority on witchcraft

in the world today.

Dr. Murray, have you ever met
a witch yourself?

I've seen a witch.
I didn't meet her.

She was a farmer's wife,
and I saw her on the road,

and I passed close by her
and had a good look,

and I thought she was one
of the most disagreeable people

I'd ever seen.

Now, what sort of powers
did she have?

Well, she claimed to be able --
She was credited...

I don't know whether she claimed
that she was credited

with being able to kill
the animals,

the farm animals,

and the other farmers' wives
were terrified of her.

Kathy.

Kathy. Kathy.

Margaret Murray's take was that
pagan witches were practitioners

of an ancient religion.

Hail
spirit of the dark,

take thou my blood,
my flesh, my skin, and walk.

Rise now from the forest,
from the furrows...

They were surviving pagans.

Hail
spirit of the dark.

These were disgusting people

practicing a religion
of sexual orgies...

...and sacrificial
bloodletting...

...left over from the darkness
of prehistory,

and therefore
the witch trials were justified,

which resulted in a slaughter
of tens of thousands of people.

Elizabeth!

Murray made a few additions
to the tradition of witchcraft

as a surviving pagan religion,

which became standard
and popular culture

like horror and thriller novels
of Dennis Wheatley.

You fool!

I'd rather see you dead
than meddling with black magic.

One was that witches,

traditionally gathered
in covens,

had ideally 13 members.

Now that our coven of 13
has been restored,

we can begin the setup.

Margaret Murray emphasized
not only

that some witches had been
guilty of hideous crimes...

...but that that sort of witch

was still around
in modern England...

and still secretly practicing
human sacrifice,

as seen in
"The Devil Rides Out".

Father of darkness,
King of death,

I pledge this knife.

Margaret Murray went
to the Lower Quinton area.

She disguised herself
as an artist

and thought that way
to ingratiate herself

with the local people
and uncover some more facts

about the murder
of Charles Walton.

She later gave an interview
to the Birmingham Post

and suggested that Walton
had been a human sacrifice...

...a propitiatory right
to make the crops grow...

...of a surviving group of
black magic practicing witches.

No!

So the second theory is
that he was killed by witches

as part of some sort of
blood sacrifice to the land.

When you think of witchcraft,
you think of hysteria,

as something that just exists
in people's mind.

But in the 1960s,
there were real witches.

There was an explosion
of interest in the supernatural

and in ritualism.

The revival
of public interest in witchcraft

is one of those curious features
of life today.

But it's very difficult
to get to the truth

of what it's all about.

On one estimate,

there are 30,000 people
practicing in witchcraft

in this country alone.

But even so,
it's enough to make you think,

are there really dangers
involved?

And now to meet the witch,
Dr. Gerald Gardner.

Dr. Gardner, how many witches
are there today?

Well, about 400,
I should think.

And do these people worship
the devil?

No. Good Lord, no.
They've got their own gods.

Their own god's a very nice god.
They're the old gods of Britain.

And you asked me to believe
that you are a witch yourself?

Yes. I can be initiated into --

brought into a circle
in the proper way.

Away from the circle,

the initiate, blindfolded,

is prepared for the ordeals

which he must undergo
before becoming a witch.

The first is water.

Michael?

Michael!

As well as the elements,

the initiate is made
acutely aware of himself.

- Naked, blind...
- Michael!

...alone.

He is confronted with some
of man's basic fears --

of nakedness,

drowning,

falling,

pain.

If he cannot master them
and himself,

he will be considered
incapable of wisdom

and will not be initiated.

"Legend of the Witches"
is very much representative

of witchcraft at the time.

This idea of witches
out in the woods naked,

what's referred to as skyclad
in Wicca.

It's something I've done myself
when I was younger.

It comes into Wicca because
of Dr. Gerald Gardner.

Gardner and my dad
were great friends.

Dad always famously used to say,
King of the witches.

His hair goes this way
and his beard goes that way.

He made the witchcraft
revival happen

by being a retired civil servant
with nothing to lose.

He liked taking his clothes off,
basically.

And he discovered the witches.

The witches liked him.

He recreated witchcraft
as a living,

breathing religion in the UK.

Be frank, one reason
for the secrecy today

is because covens are
an excuse for sexual orgies.

Oh. That's nonsense.

Well, what do you dress in
when you dance?

The traditional witches costume.

Which is what?

The skin.

- In the nude?
- The nude. Yes, exactly.

Symbolic whipping
lets him understand

that from now, he is subject
to the discipline of the cult.

In spite of this,
he is told

in other religions,
you would kneel

while I would tower above you.

But in ours,
we are taught to be humble.

You can honestly say
that witchcraft does no harm?

No, I think it's absolutely
no harm at all.

On the night of Friday,
September the 13th, 1963,

something strange
happened in this place.

A workman unlocking the door
of the 800-year-old keep

found this...

...two human effigies.

The top one male,
the bottom one female.

Between them -- a soot
blackened sheep's heart

pierced
by 13 hawthorn twigs.

The work of a practical joker,

a crank, or someone
dabbling in black magic.

Gerald Gardner
was accused by the press

of whitewashing Wicca
and witchcraft.

The tabloids reported on this
huge explosion of black masses

all over Britain.

Animal sacrifices,
seances with the dead,

summoning demons,
and casting curses.

If you've got power
to do good,

then presumably
you can do harm as well.

Yes, we could if we wanted to.

We only know
that they do practice witchcraft

by what people say.

But we never see anything.

I'm uneasy about it.

You know, when I hear about it.

What makes you uneasy about
having witches living here?

Lack of knowledge,
I should think.

You know, I mean, if you don't
know anything about anything

on the subject, what do you do?

You get nervous.
You get frightened, don't you?

There's one particular lady
in the village

who's convinced that I gave
her a great dose of diarrhea,

which is absolutely ridiculous,

but, um, she's convinced
that I was the cause of it.

The bishops regularly denounce
the alleged witch cult

as an attack
on the Christian family.

Ken Malin is 23.

He's done many jobs

and is convinced his failure
to make money out of any of them

was due to the malign influences
of the devil,

rather than his own
shortcomings.

Have you ever seen the devil?

I think I've seen him once,
yes.

I said, you know, I'm going
to sell my soul to the devil.

And I used to sit
in front of the mirror

or something like that,
and I'd pray.

I'd pray to the devil.

I'd pray to the devil
and say, "Take my soul.

Give me all the things
that I want.

Give me a white Rolls-Royce
with black windows

and a TV aerial on top.

Give me all the wealth.

Give me all the girls
I want to go to bed with."

But I woke up one night

and I saw this
incredibly handsome man

standing in the room.

I mean, really handsome.

I mean, you know,
it was a real attraction.

I just almost wanted
to sort of touch him.

But I became frightened.

And when I closed my eyes to
sort of try and get rid of it,

it was still there.

I mean, the moment
I closed my eyes,

it was still there in my mind.

I command in the name
of the father,

and of the son,
and of the Holy Ghost

that all evil forces,
all evil spirits,

all forms of witchcraft, black
magic, or sorcery may depart.

Beat down Satan under our feet

and call these evil forces
to depart.

I feel a definite kind of
violent force attacking me.

Sort of thing
that almost knocks me out.

And, I mean,
there have been occasions

when I have been knocked out.

The force coming out
from him was so great

that I was flung about five feet
across the altar.

Charles Walton lies buried

in Lower Quinton's
peaceful churchyard.

A murder victim whose killer
I failed to bring to justice.

I've never said this before,
but I think I know who did it.

Who, though, will come
forward with the evidence?

After the efforts of Fabian,

Scotland Yard's best detective,
is unable to solve the murder...

...Margaret Murray came from
London to do her investigation,

who believed witches did this.

Then in 1956,
this woman steps forward...

...and claims to know
who did it.

And she claims
to have been a witch.

She won't give her name,

but she provides
all the details,

details that the police
haven't been able to suss out.

And she tells a story.

And it's the story of outsiders
coming into the village...

...gathering in a field
around Charles Walton

while he's out there,
trimming the hedge.

And they stab him
with his pitchfork.

And they pour his blood
into goblets.

And they dip their robes
into the blood...

and they dance around his body.

This is the popular conception
of what witches do.

We asked Europe's
leading witchcraft authority

what he thought
of this widespread image.

That has a lot of rubbish.

Alexander Saunders,
Europe's king of the witches.

When people meet me
in the street,

they're so terrified of me,

after seeing a scene like that.

Alex Saunders is the person

who emerges as the most famous
witch in the world

in the 1960s.

He is a working class man
from the Birkenhead,

Liverpool region.

He reinvents himself
as a pagan witch,

inspired by
Gerald Gardner's witch religion.

They come from all over
the world,

and some of them
asking for help.

The majority of them are
people asking for initiation.

And from 1964, he's got the
perfect partner called Maxine.

He was especially protective
of vulnerable young women

because being gay,

he really had no vested interest
at all in exploiting them.

He must have initiated more
people into pagan witchcraft

than anybody else in history.

We followed up
one of these inquiries

and found a young lady,

far from the image
of the cranky spinster

one might associate
with witches and broomsticks.

Penny's leaving her work
earlier than usual today

because she has
a most important date.

I'd always had
this interest in the occult

ever since I can remember,

but I didn't know how
to go about contacting anyone

until I read a book
about Alex Saunders.

A friend of mine
phoned up one day and she said,

"Janet, I've just read
a fascinating book

about a man called
Alex Saunders.

He says he's the king
of the witches,

and I'm going to meet him."

Alarm bells.

I grew up
in a Christian household.

My grandfather was a deacon
of the church

and became
a Sunday school teacher.

I had no interest in the occult
at all

because to me
it was all satanic.

I've thought about
what I'm doing quite a lot

and talked it over with my
parents and friends and people.

Almost all of them
think I'm crazy.

So I said, "Well, if you're
going, I'm going, too,"

because my attitude was,

you're not getting involved
in this, darling.

So the two of us
set off to meet Alex Saunders,

who lived in a very dingy little
flat in Notting Hill Gate.

Well, in the book it shows
us dancing around fires.

I found him fascinating.

And something about witchcraft
made sense.

I decided I'd go along
and join the coven as well.

I had no idea
what I was walking into,

because I thought
I'd put on a lovely robe,

and that would be it.

And Alex said, well, actually,
we're filming an initiation

and we need an initiate.

And you, Janet,
are the initiate.

On the floor is a circle
nine feet in diameter,

with a candle burning at each
of the four cardinal points.

I bring before you Janet.

"Take her clothes off."
What?

"Well, you're the initiate.
You have to be naked."

I've never seen a naked man
in my life.

So here am I, being told
to take my clothes off

and be naked
in a room full of strangers.

Outside the circle
stands the initiate,

who is waiting to be admitted.

She is naked and blindfold.

Well, in for a penny,
in for a pound, as they say.

So I took all my clothes off and
stood there shaking in my boots,

which, of course,
I wasn't wearing.

When one of the women came in

and she proceeded to tie me up
like a chicken and blindfold me.

Well, I was led into a room
where the incense was burning.

I'm on my knees,
trussed up like a chicken,

and they take the blindfold off.

Right in front of me
and fully erect

was the first male naked penis
I'd ever seen.

And it was not a pretty sight.

But on the other hand,
if you're going to be a witch,

you put up
with all sorts of things.

There was an efflorescence
of British horror film

starting in the late '50s,

but there was a kind
of concentration of them

in the early '70s.

Increasingly weird and wonderful
British horror films.

Look.

What do you see?

It's very easy
to look back at them now

and view them purely
as fantasies.

But there was a very strange
interbreeding

between film stories and the
bizarre stuff that was going on.

The horror movies
look like the products

of deranged imaginations
of the directors,

but they actually look
like they're lifted

from documentary footage of
real witches made at the time.

"Secret Rites",

what you see in that documentary
is very, very slightly hyped,

but otherwise it is actually
pretty accurate portrayal.

I do summonst her
and call her up

to witness my rights
and to guard the circle.

In late 1960s Britain,

there was a major societal shift
culturally, socially.

People exploring drugs,
psychedelia,

new ways of thinking, new ways
of being, alternative religions.

There were witches
on chat shows.

Being a witch
is bloody hard work.

We've had everybody
in our coven

from building site laborers
down to grandmas.

In fact,
you probably all know a pagan

or a witch somewhere
who lives quite close to you

and you would never
even guess what they are.

I'm a secretary.

I do spray painting
most of the time.

I work in a boutique.

Witchcraft was everywhere,
it was all pervasive.

Witchcraft is growing
in this country

and there are so many
black covens.

I am issuing a challenge
to the others.

Come out
and fight me for my throne.

There was an awareness
that Britain was going nuts.

It was almost as if the country
were sort of entering

into a nervous breakdown, a kind
of collective nervous breakdown.

Britain goes through
an identity crisis.

Its empire has ended.

It's not as rich
as it used to be.

There's class war.

There's sexual revolution.

There's satire,

and the institution's respect
for them is crumbling.

And all the assumptions
about how to behave

were blown to smithereens.

Has it helped you,
being a witch?

The entire advertising industry
is witchcraft, darling.

The poor old public
is permanently spellbound.

Witchcraft is the only religion

that the UK has given
to the world.

Because it involved
a certain amount of nudity,

it was a salacious,
it was exciting,

it was titillating.

It was catnip
to the Sunday papers.

Witches in popular culture
has changed over the decades.

If you think about
the notion of the witch

as a hag in "Snow White"
or "The Wizard of Oz"...

...but then the 1960s and '70s
in folk horror,

we see these kind of young,
nubile,

kind of naked women,
very sexualized.

I did some articles
on witches once.

No. Not witches, damn them.

People who thought
they were witches,

the psychology of it,

it's a sex thing, deep down,
of course.

Mostly women go in for it.

This reflects
what was going on in society.

There's a lot of
sexual liberation with the pill.

Women can be in charge
of their own sexual freedom.

Being in a circle full
of naked people was liberating.

A lot of the women were young.
They were good-looking.

They were taught
to be proud of their bodies,

to represent the goddess.

And that was fantastic.

They were exploited
to some extent, but willingly.

And it upset your mum that
you were naked in the papers.

My father was sitting
there reading a newspaper.

I said, "I think I'd better tell
you something, Daddy.

I don't quite know
how to tell you this, Dad,

so I'm going to come
straight out with it.

I'm naked on the cover."

Without batting an eyelid,
he lowered the newspaper,

peered over the top, and went,

"That's nice,"
and pulled the newspaper up

and continued reading.

And that was my father's
initiation into witchcraft.

The counterculture
was sort of spreading

into people's breakfast tables.

You know, Mr.
and Mrs. Average Briton

couldn't open their tabloid
newspapers

without reading bizarre stories.

And all this fed, really,
into horror films of the period.

A date with the devil.

A bacchanal with Beelzebub.

- Sounds wild!
- It's Sunday supplement stuff.

The details
of the Charles Walton murder --

well, they were
extremely gruesome.

And the intimations
of ritual murder

were so gruesomely glamorous.

This titillated
the tabloids enormously.

And, of course, filmmakers.

I've heard of things.
Every now and then.

There's a song and dance
about it in the Sunday papers.

Devil worship, graves dug up,
churches desecrated...

...blood.
Stories of blood.

After the Walton murder
in 1945,

there were actually
several novels on the subject

of ritual murders.

There was Robin Estridge's
novel, "Day of the Arrow,"

which became a film
called "Eye of the Devil,"

in which the marquis
of a region of Bordeaux

has had a failed crop
for three years running

is ritually sacrificed...

Alain! No!

...in order to ensure that the
wine will flow better in future.

This heathen mumbo-jumbo,
these sadists!

Sharon Tate was making a film
called "The Eye of the Devil"

and the film company obviously
had heard about Alex Sanders.

And so they decided
to get hold of real witches

to consult about the film.

He and Maxine went along
and they met the cast,

and Alex did one
of his oogie boogie bits,

as I call it,

which basically involves
Maxine lying on the floor

and he's --
I don't know what he's doing,

but anyway, he's doing
something with Maxine.

There was Norah Lofts novel
called "Devil's Own,"

which became a Hammer film
in 1966 called "The Witches."

- Afternoon, miss.
- Good afternoon.

And in that, Miss Mayfield
decides to become a teacher

in what appears to be
a beautiful, idyll village.

The occult novel
that inspired "The Wicker Man"

was "Ritual" by David Pinner.

The Charles Walton murder
case also directly influenced

a whole host of other folk
horror offerings...

Who's that?
Who is it?

...like "Robin Redbreast,"

"Penda's Fen,"
"Plague of the Zombies"...

This is a Cornish
village inhabited by

simple country people,
riddled with superstitions.

They all represent
the theme of the outsider

coming into a local village
where the villagers are unwelcoming,

unfriendly, uncooperative.

Is there anything we can do,
vicar?

Yeah.
You can keep away from us.

Please, it was not our fault.

Leave us alone!

- But surely, you --
- I said leave us alone!

Which certainly happened
in the Charles Walton case.

The villagers were not only
misleading people,

but they were blatantly lying --

making up stories,

giving fabricated evidence,

leading the police
down all sorts of rabbit holes,

different tracks.

Whose desk is that?

No one's.

Margaret Murray said
specifically in the Walton case,

that the murder
had been committed

to give the blood sacrifice to
the land for fertility purposes.

And from his blood,
the crops would spring.

The earth has to have
sacrifice.

So Fabian left Lower Quinton,

never having resolved this case,

never having found out
what really happened.

Did you find the girl?

No, well,
I can't say I'm very surprised.

"The Wicker Man" is set on
a far-flung island

among people who are still
trying to live in the distant pagan past.

But it's also very much
a film of the 1960s and '70s.

The hysteria around
Charles Walton,

the sexual revolution,

and a fascination
that people had for witchcraft.

I invoke thee and call upon
thee, mighty mother of us all.

Bringer of all fruitfulness.

Queen of Heaven.
Queen of Hell.

Horned hunter of the night.

The wind is crying through the
trees.

And we invoke thee to appear.

Mighty god of the sun,

Bountiful goddess
of our orchards...

So "The Wicker Man" is as much
about fact as it is fiction.

But the killing
of Charles Walton

wasn't the only occult crime
that inspired folk horror.

Highgate Cemetery.

Something was going on there.

I worked for an architect.

He came into work one morning,

he was as white as a sheet.

And I said,
"Are you all right?"

And he said, "I've just had
a weird experience, Janet.

Um, you're a witch,
aren't you?"

And I said, "Well,
you know I am. Why?"

He said, "When I went
home the other night,

I parked my car where
I usually park it,

right by the railings
of the old Highgate Cemetery."

I went, "Yeah, so?"

"I saw something, Janet."

"What did you see?"

"I don't know," he said,

"but it scared the hell
out of me.

It was about seven foot tall
with blazing red eyes,

and it was staring at me.

And it was shaped
like a human being,

but I don't know what it was."

He said, "I've never been
so scared in my life."

He said, "I ran.
I absolutely ran to my house."

Shortly after that,

David Farrant started
investigating the concept

of the Vampire
of Highgate Cemetery.

Farrant wanted publicity.

He contacts a newspaper.

The journalist wanted to take
somebody along

who was a natural
born medium --

muggins here.

So I'm going to be roped
along to go marching

into an old cemetery.

I am a natural medium,

and I think the idea was that I
was supposed to be able to dowse

where the vampire was,

and maybe communicate with it.

In the meantime, Farrant goes
with a different young lady.

According
to the newspaper reports,

the young lady danced naked
on top of the gravestone.

Farrant, not content with naked
ladies dancing on gravestones,

decided to slay the vampire.

Have you ever seen this --
vampire?

I have seen it. Yes.

I saw it last February.
And I saw it on two occasions.

What was it like?

It took the form
of a tall gray figure,

and it -- about eight feet tall,

and it seemed to glide off the
path without making any noise.

Farrant, because he
can't keep his mouth shut, gets arrested.

Desecration of the dead.

In the late '60s
and early '70s,

the line between fiction and
fantasy became somewhat blurred.

In fact, they do say that
a Hammer film

called "Dracula A.D. 1972"

was directly inspired
by the Highgate Vampire.

Well, come on,
before some nosy cop nabs us

- for loitering with intent.
- Intent to what? Rob a grave?

David Farrant used to
come into the shops.

I would see him.
I got to know him a bit.

And he was one
of these foppish hippy types.

He was born to wear a velvet
drape suit and lace cuffs.

But in a case of
what-goes-around-comes-around,

it interests me that when the
Highgate Vampire palaver all began,

right at the end of 1969,

an earlier Hammer Dracula film,
"Taste the Blood of Dracula,"

had been filming
in Highgate Cemetery.

Action!

This may have
stimulated imaginations,

the fact that a vampire film
was being shot in the cemetery.

And so eventually we end up with
apparently"Dracula A.D. 1972"

was inspired by
the Highgate Vampire.

I summoned you!

It was my will.

I think this really is
an indication

that fiction and fantasy
were bleeding into the real

or the imagined,
or whatever it might be,

but nevertheless, stuff that
was happening in the real world,

in a most intriguing
and off-the-leash kind of way.

What is interesting also is
what Farrant was accused of.

He was accused of
actually doing rituals.

This is something
that was actually going on.

Like you see in
"Dracula A.D. 1972,"

you were having this
whole crowd from Hampstead

who were experimenting
with cultism using old churches.

They were dabbling.

They weren't serious occultists,
they weren't serious witches,

but they were dabbling around.

You can't underestimate
the power of Dennis Wheatley,

Hammer House of Horror,
Hollywood, all those things.

I call on Andras,
Grand Marquis of Hell.

A little knowledge is
a dangerous thing.

They are dabbling.

And they don't know a demon
from an entity.

If enough people believe in
something, it can become real.

It can materialize.

So if enough people had believed

that there was a vampire
in Highgate Cemetery,

they could manifest this.

I was at Highgate Cemetery
a few years ago,

and I was looking
through the wrought iron gates

to see if I could see
anybody's gravestones...

...and I felt something.

I looked across the lane

and there was a man in
a stovepipe hat, all in black.

He was about seven foot tall,
it seemed,

and in two or three strides,
he was across the lane.

I saw the Highgate Vampire.

Despite the sensationalist
tabloid headlines

and all the horror films,
the question remained --

who killed Charles Walton?

And most puzzling of all, why?

The Charles Walton Enigma is
not just that of a

straightforward whodunit.

It's the enigma
of Britain itself.

Was Britain's pagan past
secretly alive in the present?

Or was this just
yet another fantasy?

So in 1945, as Fabian's
investigating this crime,

his first motive for the killing
that he comes up with

is that it's a robbery.

But there is no evidence,
obviously,

that a robbery occurred.

So the second theory is
that he was killed by witches

as part of some sort of
blood sacrifice to the land.

And according to these theories,

he was murdered
in broad daylight

and then there was a pagan dance
ritual around his body.

It's a village of 493 people.

They're aware of outsiders.

If you have a coven of 13 people
walking through the town,

someone's gonna notice that.

One of the villagers

is probably the murderer.

When the Charles Walton
murder occurred in 1945,

basic forms of folk magic
were still carried out.

The origin
of festivities such as this

at Abbots Bromley
in Staffordshire

lie centuries back
in prehistory.

What you see is the she-male...

...dancing at the head
of the procession.

The hobby horse...

...and the horned dancers,
with the antlers.

And that festival is
still carried out.

Beltane is, of course,
May Day...

...where traditionally
you would jump over a fire

for the purpose
of fertility in the countryside.

They're jumping
through the flames

in the hope that the god
of fire will make them fruitful.

The May Queen appears
at Beltane

and she's the regrowth
of the land.

There's actually so much
in the horror films.

The first example has to be
"The Wicker Man".

Then films made later,
such as "Midsommar."

Normally a young girl is chosen.

Sometimes it was a competition.

You still see it around in
folklore customs around the UK.

- You are our May Queen.
- Me?

- Yes!
- Why?

You won!

The Cotswold Hills
at the bottom of Warwickshire

in the mid 20th century,

was one of the most folklore-
saturated parts of England

and especially the area around
the village of Lower Quinton.

Warwickshire people seem to
have the same kind of affinity

with witchcraft that the Welsh
have with singing.

Today, one of Warwickshire's
best known witches is Irene Ison.

In fact, she's been called
the Queen of English Witches.

There are still
so many self-contained villages

who really do not like strangers
and don't like visitors,

and they cover all things up

that they don't want
anybody to know about.

The communication here,

although for radio,
television, and telephone

still people believe in
the old ways.

These standing stones on a
ridge above Long Compton village

are known locally
as the Rollright Stones.

Covens of witches,

who, even in these modern times,

visit the Rollright Stones
in the dead of night

and dance naked
around his unmoving form.

Rollright Stones have very,
very, very strange energy.

Really a warmth to it
in a strange sort of way.

It's a great place to work.

You can get loads of people
into the Rollright Stones.

I've been to handfastings there.

It's a nice place.
It's fairly central.

You can't really park
there very well.

But it's so open.

You feel you are somewhere else.

One of the
very last real murders

of somebody connected
with witchcraft

was that of Anne Tennant...

...right underneath
the famous prehistoric monument,

the Rollright Stones.

She was murdered by a farm
laborer called John Heywood.

He murdered her because he was
convinced that she was a witch,

and that she had bewitched
both him and his livestock.

This is not the Middle Ages,
it's 1875.

And he had killed her
in the same way

that Charles Walton died.

He had pinned her down
with a pitchfork.

And his defense was
that he didn't mean to kill her.

That he knew --
and this was indeed a very widespread

popular superstition,

that you could break
the curse of a witch,

providing you drew blood
from her.

And it seems extremely likely
that the person

who killed Charles Walton
would have known

how Ann Tennant had died.

These villagers were only
a few miles from each other.

They're walking distance.

We fear that
witchcraft has returned.

It is more than witchcraft.

When Fabian arrives
in Lower Quinton.

Obviously, one of
the first things he wants to do

is establish a motive
for the crime.

"What motive?"
I asked briskly.

"Revenge?
A quarrel?"

"Well," he hesitated,

"Perhaps you'd better
look at this."

"Folk Lore, Old Customs
and Superstitions in Shakespeare Land"

by J. Harvey Bloom."

"Puzzled, I read, 'In 1875,
a young man killed a woman

with a hay-fork because he
believed she had bewitched him.'"

But Fabian ultimately
doesn't pursue the angle.

Too much time has passed.

But then, in the 1950s,

a distant relative
of Ann Tennant

writes a letter to the police

which makes its way
to Scotland Yard.

And the letter basically says,

my great grandmother Ann Tennant

was murdered in Long Compton
back in 1875

by a man with a pitchfork.

The man believed my
great grandmother was a witch,

and she had a
quote unquote "evil eye."

And she put a curse on one
of his pigs, and the pigs died.

The Evil eye, for instance,
has been known to be used there,

and I've actually seen
this thing used and

I've seen its effects.

For instance on animals
such as pigs and then cows.

They can be bewitched
by the power of the evil eye.

It is a baleful glance
thrown toward the object,

which is generally
an object of hate.

And it causes,
well, some misfortune,

usually some kind of
wasting illness.

This sort of
grabs the attention

of the Warwickshire police,
who first see the letter,

because obviously Charles Walton
was killed with a pitchfork.

And number two,
Alfred Potter, the key suspect,

he'd had a cow die in a ditch
the day before the murder.

Dead pig in the
Ann Tennant case.

Dead cow in the Walton case.

Did the police believe
that Potter killed Walton

over the death of this cow?

Just as Heywood
had killed Tennant

over the death of his pig.

Did Potter believe
that Walton was a witch?

By the late 1960s,

rumors were starting
to circulate

that Walton had been odd
in really quite profound ways.

I grew up in Warwickshire.

One time we had a lot
of snowfall in the winter,

and we went sledging on hills
very close to Meon Hill.

We heard all these stories and
the fact that there was a ritual murder.

The story that I was told

was that the body was discovered
with frogs pinned to the ground

all around the body,

and the frogs were pinned
in various postures.

There have been
so many accounts written

about this case,

and they all clue into the fact
that Walton was a witch.

Depending on what account
you read,

Charles Walton bred
Natterjack toads.

He could talk to animals or
he could forecast the weather.

He had all these powers
of clairvoyancy.

The demon walks again!

He is said to have tied a toy
plow to the leg of a pet toad

and sent it scurrying
across the local fields.

And this is called blasting...

an ancient which tradition,
apparently,

of killing fertile soil.

And so the rumor is
that Walton was killed

because he bred these toads,
he killed the crops.

And so the villagers
wanted vengeance.

Oh, that's it.
The crops failed.

In 1945,
when the murder happened,

it was quite common
to look for supernatural sources of bad luck,

such as dead cattle
or personal ailment.

Let's chuck her in,
see if she's a witch!

The accused could
have had nothing

to do with the occult at all.

So it has come to this.

You accuse me, a priest,
of working with the devil.

We can only judge
by the evidence.

And there's a lot
of that, old man.

Just innocent victims
of spurious accusations.

As was most likely the case with
Ann Tennant...

...and Charles Walton.

Unable to solve the crime,

Fabian leaves the force.

He starts writing his memoirs.

Elements of the supernatural
start creeping in.

He says that during
the course of his investigation,

he walks up to the top
of Meon Hill one day

to look out at the village.

"I climbed Meon Hill,
a bleak and lonely spot

to examine the scene
of the crime for myself.

A black dog sat
on the nearby wall for a moment,

then it trotted past me.

Shortly afterwards, a farm boy
came along.

'Looking for your dog,'
I asked him.

'What dog?'
'A black dog.'

The lad didn't wait
to hear any more.

He fled down the hill.

Instantly, word spread
through the village

that I had seen the ghost."

He then goes down
to the local pub in the village.

A scene worthy of something like
"An American Werewolf in London."

He confronts this group
of yokels,

tells his story,

and they all suddenly exit
the bar in silence.

"The dog incident caused
a total change of attitude

towards us in Lower Quinton.

No longer did anyone cooperate
with our investigation.

It was like the pulling
down of a shutter."

Should the world know
our business?

- It's murder, then.
- Then murder it is!

"I realized for certain
we were up against witchcraft

when the body of a black dog
was found hanging from a bush

near the spot where Walton died.

I advise anybody who is tempted,

at any time and on any pretext,

to venture into black magic,
witchcraft,

Satanism,
call it what you will,

remember Charles Walton.

Think of his death,

which was so clearly the ghastly
climax of a pagan rite."

When you read the official
case reports that Fabian wrote,

he doesn't mention witchcraft.

Now, he does say the people
of Lower Quinton

are a secretive lot, and there
might be some sort of history here

that we're not aware of,
that they're not sharing us.

Perhaps he kept it out
of his official police reports

to avoid ridicule.

You know, you can't turn in
a case report

to the Commissioner of Police
going, "I think witches did this."

You're pulling my leg, sir.

After Fabian leaves
the force,

he becomes a real celebrity.

This is Fabian
of Scotland Yard.

Part of me thinks that Fabian
was a natural entertainer.

Fabian might have just been
giving people what they wanted,

stories of witchcraft
and folklore from movies and TV.

There's recently been
a murder in this district, as yet unsolved.

That's why we're interested
in strangers.

I see.

My personal viewpoint?

I don't think there's
any evidence whatsoever

that it was
a witchcraft killing.

What you have is Alex Sanders
regularly appearing

in the newspapers.

Margaret Murray is just trying
to prove her own theory.

And Fabian is jumping
on a bandwagon.

Charles Walton
was living with you

at the time of the murder?

Yes.

Do you think that
there was any chance

that witchcraft played
any part in his death at all?

No. I think, um,

the papers made a lot of it.

Um, and I lived with him
all my life,

and I've never,
never known such things.

I think it's ridiculous, really,
the things that were said.

In his official
police reports,

there is no mention
of encountering

a black dog on the hill.

The black dog is important,
though,

to the Charles Walton story

because in the 1929 book
by Harvey Bloom...

there's a story in there about a
young boy named Charles Walton.

According to this story,

young Charles Walton
has put in a day in the fields,

and he's walking home
and it's misty.

And he sees something take
shape in the mist.

Young Charles Walton goes home.
He's terrified.

No, sir, a sort of head,
a face.

Of a fiend?

He goes back to work
the next day in the fields.

And the same thing happens
the following night

when he's walking home.

On the third night...

the spectral hound appears.

And this time, it's accompanied
by a headless woman.

Now, according to the story
in the Harvey Bloom book,

several days later,
Charles Walton's sister dies.

And supposedly,
this whole incident gave

Charles Walton the powers
of clairvoyancy.

Beware my words, you fools!

For they are his commands!

This story is apocryphal.

No one knows where it came from,
where it originated.

But a lot of people believe
that Charles Walton

in the 1885 story

is the same Charles Walton
who got murdered in 1945.

Welcome, Poole.

You have come of your own free
will to the appointed place.

The game is over.

Game?

What game?

They say it's better
the devil you know

than the devil you don't.

But the murder of Charles Walton
suggests otherwise.

Perhaps the devil issomeone
you know.

The Charles Walton who,
according to Bloom,

encountered the dog

may not have been
the same Charles Walton

that was murdered on Meon Hill.

But just because it may
not have been true,

that wouldn't have stopped
many of the villagers from believing it.

- Youare
the right kind of adult.

Youuniquely were the one
we needed.

I feel like particularly
in the last 50, 60 years in Britain,

there's been a really strong
paranoia around our identity.

That's kind of true of us today.

And I think horror
always reflects the time

in which it's being made.

In the last decade, this folk
horror trend has really taken off

- with things like "The Witch"...
- Boo!

..."Midsommar,"

the films of Ben Wheatley,
like "Kill List."

The brilliance of these films

is that they excavate into
the depths of the British psyche

and churning up all
that we fear about the world

and about each other.

There are these times
that I've kind of spent

in the countryside.

There is that palpable feeling
of invasion at times

when you go to your little,
local supermarket

or your little butchers
or the pub.

You arrive and you immediately
break an unspoken rule.

I think "Men" does capture,
in Rory Kinnear's performance,

particularly British
idiosyncrasies.

- Apple from the garden?
- Y-Yeah, it was delicious.

Scrumping, eh?

No, no, no, no, no.
Mustn't do that.

Forbidden fruit.

Oh, uh, God. Sorry.
I-I-I...

I'm joking.

There is this immediate
kind of tension that you feel.

Who are you?

Why are you here?

There is so much neurosis
about keeping others out

and maintaining the status quo
within places like that.

These films portray a constant
state of paranoia in Britain.

I have a weapon!

If you come in here,
I'm going to use it!

Miss Marlowe, what on earth
are you talking about?

You can just see
people getting whipped up

into a frenzy
over really strange ideas.

This is a country

that, in order
to make a point of principle,

is willing to burn things up
and do extreme things.

Well, don't you see
that killing me

is not going to bring back
your apples?

Summerisle, you know it won't.

Well, go on, man, tell them!
Tell them it won't!

I know it will.

The final scene
of "The Wicker Man"

is at once laughable
and horrific.

And that, to me,
is what Britain is.

I think in some ways...

...the Cotswold village

is the most likely place
in the world for me

for somebody to sacrifice
someone in a ritualistic way.

Oh, God! Oh, Jesus Christ!

Our fascination
with the Walton murder

and "The Wicker Man"

points to an unease we have

about ourselves
and what we're capable of.

Those lovely-looking tea ladies.

Or the charming butcher.

They aren't really
who they say they are.

Beneath the veneer of politeness

and good manners
lies something darker.

The enemy is not
the barbarian at the gates,

clamoring to get in.

The enemy is already inside.

The enemy within.

Quite literally,
the devil you know.

We know the terrible things
we've done to each other.

We know the bad things
we're doing to each other today.

Because we know ourselves.

And we know that deep down...

...it's possible.

"The Teletubbies" was almost
entirely filmed on location

in the corner of a field
on a farm

on the edge of the Cotswolds.

Cameras always angled down
to include the rabbits

and the Teletubbies,

but if they'd just gone up
slightly,

they would have seen
the surrounding countryside

and, of course, Meon Hill.

I was the original Tinky Winky,

the first actor
to inhabit that purple costume

with the triangular aerial.

Uh-oh.

Laa-Laa and Po and I

lived in a country house hotel,

and sometimes I'd take them
for a drive in my little car.

And one day drove off
trying to find Meon Hill.

And then we saw a sign saying
"private property, keep off."

But the lane was so narrow, we
couldn't actually turn round,

so we had to keep going.

And as we got into the driveway,

this ferocious black dog
attacked the car.

And then the front door opened
of this house

and this ferocious man
just started shouting at us.

He was quite evil
in his appearance,

and it just felt
like the black dog

and the man
with the shaggy beard

were almost like
two manifestations

of the same evil spirit.

Charles Walton saw a black dog
on nine consecutive mornings.

I can't help wondering
whether that black dog

was the same black dog

that nearly hurled itself
through the window of my car.

The filming went extremely well
throughout the summer.

The director told me
what I was doing was fantastic,

but the BBC didn't like
my performance,

and they wanted me
to be removed from the role.

So afterwards I got fired.

The "Sunday Mirror"
approached me,

and I told them about Meon Hill.

How I experienced extremes
of good fortune

and extremes of bad fortune.

And I can't help thinking
that that earth energy

around Meon Hill
actually had an effect.

And they say it's a place
of power.

Well, the Teletubbies had a
huge impact all over the world,

and it all emanated
from that little place

just next to Meon Hill,

the site of the most recent
satanic black magic murder.