In 14th-century England, peasant girl Christine Carpenter is so attracted to a statue of the Virgin Mary that the local priest (who lusts after her) suggests that she be walled up in the church as an anchoress, a holy woman with the responsibility of blessings the villagers. But when the priest has Christine's mother tried as a witch, she digs herself out of her cell, a crime for which the punishment is death.—Michael Brooke