Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery

Slewfoot: a Tale of Bewitchery is a 2021 historical horror novel by writer and illustrator Brom. Set in Connecticut in 1666, the novel follows the tribulations of Abitha Williams, a widowed farmwife who must tend and harvest an impossibly large crop in order to avoid being indentured to her husband’s conniving brother, Wallace. While working the land, Abitha encounters a mystical and possibly devilish entity whom she names Samson; Samson might have the power to help Abitha avoid indenture, but his help could well come at the cost of Abitha’s soul. As the summer goes on and Abitha grows closer to Samson, their relationship begins to reveal the dark underbelly of their small, colonial town. Abitha, Samson, and the townspeople are drawn together into a conflict that leaves few alive and all transformed. Slewfoot draws on the history of American witch trials to tell a story of power, oppression, and the cost of vengeance. The novel is both written and illustrated by Brom, whose other horror novels include The Plucker (2005), The Devil’s Rose (2007), and Krampus, the Yule Lord (2012).

This guide refers to the 2021 hardcover edition of Slewfoot published by Nightfire Books.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss murder, death by suicide, torture, and anti-Indigenous racism.

Plot Summary

Slewfoot: a Tale of Bewitchery takes place in 1666 and tells the braided stories of Abitha Williams, a British woman sent to live with her new husband, Edward, and a mystical entity initially known only as “Father.” Abitha lives on Edward's farm on a remote Puritan settlement in America. “Father” awakens in a pit with no memory but is attended by a cohort of beasts with the faces of children who call themselves “wildfolk.”

The novel begins with Abitha chasing her goat, Samson, into a pit. Samson is promptly devoured by Father, who hungers for blood, though he doesn’t understand why. Abitha is distressed by this loss because she and Edward are barely making ends meet on the farm. When she gets back to the farmhouse, she and Edward find Edward’s brother, Wallace, waiting for them there. The conniving and duplicitous Wallace informs them that because of the debts he owes to his lender due to the loss of his ill-planned tobacco crops, he’s selling Edward’s farm. Wallace is legally able to do this because his name is on the deed to the farm; Edward has been paying this debt back to Wallace, and he has only one more harvest to go until the farm would be fully his in name. Abitha is horrified by this, and she convinces the demure Edward, who won’t stand up to his brother, to bring it up with the church Reverends when she and Edward head into town the next day. Abitha is not beloved by the other women of the church—even though she makes many of them charms to help with their love lives—because she is perceived as an outspoken outsider. Her outspokenness helps Edward, though, who uses her talking points to convince Reverend Carter that he should be given the opportunity to produce his last harvest and take control of the farm. Wallace, disturbed by this development, goes to his lender, Lord Mansfield, and tells Mansfield that this is all Abitha’s doing. Mansfield gives Wallace permission to do what he needs to nullify Abitha.

Later, Abitha and Edward return to the pit to try to keep other animals from falling in. While Abitha isn’t paying attention, Edward falls in and is also consumed by Father. Abitha gets men from the village, including Wallace, to search for him, but she ultimately realizes that no one could have survived the fall. Abitha convinces Reverend Carter, to Wallace’s dismay, that it is her duty to complete Edward’s harvest and pay off his debt.

Father wakes again, plagued by terrible memories of blood, smoke, and spiders. The wildfolk are distressed by this. Amongst themselves, they discuss the possibility that Father is being contacted by a being called Mamunappeht, and they worry about what Father might learn from Mamunappeht. However, all they tell Father is that he is their protector and the protector of a magical tree called Pawpaw. They want him to feed to become stronger, so they send him after Abitha. Abitha is horrified at the sight of the goat-horned Father and assumes that he is the devil. Despite Father’s protests that he’s not, Abitha still gets a lock of her foremothers’ hair—her last physical connection to the folk magic her female relatives used to work—and remembers how to protect her home from dark magic using blood and ash.

When Abitha eventually goes back into town, she’s warned by Sarah Carter, the minister’s wife, that Wallace is making plans to indenture her if she isn’t able to produce a full crop. This prospect frightens Abitha, because there’s been little rain this summer. Father, meanwhile, has violent encounters with some of the townspeople, some of whom call him “Satan.” Confused about his identity, Father returns to Abitha in the hopes that she might know who he is. Abitha, wondering if Father might be a kind of forest-god who can be appeased, offers him gifts. This awakens something in Father, who forms a magical connection with Abitha and helps her grow her corn. Abitha decides to start calling him “Samson.”

Abitha’s increasingly close connection with Samson over the following months makes her more beautiful—something noticed by the women in town. The only woman who isn’t unkind to Abitha, Sarah, has a daughter who is suffering from measles, so Abitha uses some of her mother’s folk magic to help. Together, Abitha and Sarah spread a root-ointment on the girl and Abitha says a prayer to Samson that she masks as Christian prayer; the girl is miraculously healed. Meanwhile, a snooping Wallace is horrified to find that Abitha’s crop looks unnaturally healthy. He hires a group of local Pequot men (people Indigenous to modern-day Connecticut) to help him raid Abitha’s corn so that he can sell it. When he discovers that she has more corn than he could possibly steal, he and the Pequot set fire to the barn. They’re discovered by Abitha and Samson. One of the Pequot men calls Samson “Hobomok”—the name sends Samson into a rage, and he kills one of the men. Abitha manages to wound Wallace, but he and the others still escape. In the morning, Samson resolves to find the Pequot because they might be able to tell him more about who he is—this worries the wildfolk. Abitha, seeing her corn entirely ruined by the fire, uses Samson as a conduit for producing more honey, which is currently in demand. As Abitha’s connection with Samson grows, the wildfolk feel threatened by her so they try to kill her. Samson intercepts the murder attempt and, outraged, banishes the wildfolk. When Samson later sees some Pequot men at the edge of the forest, he follows them.

On the day that Abitha’s debts are due, Wallace returns with the town Sheriff, convinced that he’ll finally regain ownership of the farm. When Abitha presents them with enough honey to pay her debts, though, Wallace becomes convinced that she must be engaging in witchcraft. Wallace employs the town gossip and witch-hunter, Ansel Fitch, to spy on Abitha. The men find her weaving a crown made of flowers and bones alongside her cat—activity they take to the Reverends as unassailable proof of her wrongdoing. Reverend Carter begrudgingly agrees to bring her to trial. After Ansel and Wallace present their evidence and the women of the town confess to using Abitha’s folk magic charms, Abitha is found guilty.

Samson, meanwhile, is led by the Pequot to their Shaman (a spiritual specialist and healer), whom he discovers is actually an ancient being called Mamunappeht. Mamunappeht, who lives in a cave covered with animal skulls, tells Samson that he used to be a forest-god but died long ago—one of the skulls on the wall is his. Samson was sacrificed by the wildfolk; this is a truth too difficult for Samson to hear, so he asks Mamunappeht to put him to sleep with visions of spiders, just as Mamunappeht did many years ago. Back in the forest, the wildfolk learn that Samson has found Mamunappeht, and they head to his cave. Mamunappeht realizes what the wildfolk are up to and captures a few of them, giving one, called Forest, enough time to get into the cave and wake Samson. Forest finally tells Samson the full truth: that the Pequot, under Mamunappeht’s sway, became too greedy and tried to harm the land. In order to curb Mamunappeht’s power, the wildfolk made a blood sacrifice to turn Samson from forest-god into a slayer. In doing so, they imbued him with their own hatred and made him more monstrous than they could have imagined. Samson, now knowing the truth of his nature, fights Mamunappeht and destroys him by destroying all of the masks on the wall.

Abitha is imprisoned alongside Sarah, who is convicted of aiding Abitha in the unnatural healing of her daughter. Sarah won’t confess to having used witchcraft, so she is tortured by the magistrate presiding over the trials. When Abitha also refuses to incriminate Sarah, she’s hung by her feet. Abitha is saved by the return of Samson and the wildfolk, who massacre most of the men involved in the trial. Samson gives Abitha a choice: She can live and lose the use of her legs, or she can drink his blood, be entirely healed, and become a witch hellbent on protecting the forest. Abitha chooses the latter and embarks on a quest for vengeance: She hunts down and slaughters all of the men involved in her imprisonment, including Wallace. She becomes gravely injured in the fighting. Samson sacrifices Ansel at the base of the Pawpaw tree and uses the magic of Mother Earth to revive Abitha one last time. Abitha becomes a witch, half-human and half-goat, fully dedicated to the Earth Mother.

In the West Virginian forest in the 1970s, two drunken hunters encounter Abitha in the forest. She invites them to dinner, lulls them to sleep, and brings Samson to them.