The Witch Steps

The approach

There are three ways up Pendle and the puzzle only works from one of them. Come from Barley for the short climb, from Downham for the long view, and from Sabden if you want to arrive at the steps from below — which is the only direction that makes the inscription readable in order.

The steps are a stone flight set into the wall on the north-east shoulder, roughly 480 metres above sea level. They were cut so that farm workers, and later quarry traffic, could cross the wall without opening a gate. There are thirty-one of them, and that count is the first thing the puzzle asks you to confirm for yourself rather than take on trust.

Reading the inscription

Cut into the risers of steps one to ten, one letter per riser, are initials. They are shallow and easy to miss in flat light. Go early or late, never at midday in July. In order from the bottom they read:

The listing hands you six people tried at Lancaster in August 1612: Elizabeth Device, James Device, Alizon Device, Anne Whittle, Alice Nutter, Jane Bulcock. Work out which four of those initials belong to the accused and which two are decoys inserted by the setter, then convert the order they appear on the steps into a four-digit key.

The decoys share something the accused do not: both gave evidence against other people rather than being charged themselves. That is the whole trick, and it is why the difficulty is a four rather than a two — the puzzle tests whether you read past the first paragraph of the history.

Using the key

Four digits, each between one and four. Take them in the order the accused appear on the steps from bottom to top and use them as multipliers of ten metres applied to the final bearing given in the listing. Then walk.

The final is a small clip-lock in a hollow on the lee side of a gritstone slab, six paces downhill from the bottom step. It is not in the wall and it is not at the summit cairn — those are the two places that get dug over every year by people who skipped the arithmetic and guessed.

Terrain and footing

• The upper path is eroded to bare peat and stays wet all year. Gaiters earn their weight.
• The wall is drystone and under a management agreement. Do not climb it, and do not pull stones out to reach anything.
• The descent to the north-east is steep and loose. If you are finishing in the dark, take a headtorch and tell somebody where you are going.
• The summit plateau is exposed; wind up there regularly exceeds anything forecast for the valley.

After the find

Barley has two pubs within four hundred metres of the car park, and the Pendle Sculpture Trail is a flat, waymarked hour in the woods below — worth doing when the cloud is down and the summit view has gone.