Synopsis

The year is 1644 and England is in a time of civil war. Parliament feuds with the king, witchcraft haunts the land and old superstitions are being eroded by an Age of Reason.

But some mythologies are hard to kill.

Into this scene plunges a mysterious old traveller JOSEPH – who bears an item of great power – a magical book called the Crucible. Within are a thousand stories kept suspended in a world between its pages – all of them very much alive, capricious and in some cases, hungry to escape. His world collides with that of a young hustler MARTIN and his fiancée SARAH - a woman all too enamoured with the ways of magic. When their activities attract the attention of notorious witchfinder MATTHEW HOPKINS, violence ensues, the book is torn in two and Sarah is cast between its pages, destined to be trapped within until the two halves can be mended. So begins a quest of cat and mouse across England to unite the pages of the Book and rescue Sarah from the madness and terror within.

Beyond the long arc of the series, each episode revolves around a particular myth or fairy story – unpicked and revealed anew for its revisionist origins - from Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood and Beowulf to historical events such as the Eagle of the Ninth and the Countess of Blood herself, Elizabeth Bathory.

Through guile, swordplay and magic, our heroes will fight to understand that the truth behind those tales is far more dangerous than the quaint bed-time tales by which we know them. Meanwhile, aided by the corrupting force of the Witchfinder, other, darker figures from both within and outside of the Book will employ our heroes as puppets in an infinitely more sinister plan.