Page "Rosaleen Norton" Paragraph 3

Norton had been born in Dunedin, New Zealand during a thunderstorm at about 4: 30 in the morning, to an English middle class, Anglican family who had moved to the country a number of years before.

She was the third of three sisters and her siblings, Cecily and Phyllis, were each over a decade older than her.

In later life, she would claim that she had been born a Witch, with certain biological features to mark her out as such, including pointed ears, blue markings on her left knee and a strand of flesh that hung on her body.

When she herself was eight, in June 1925, her family emigrated to Sydney, Australia, where they settled in Wolseley Street, Lindfield.

As a child, she never liked being conventional, and disliked most other children, as well as authority figures, including her mother Beena, with whom her relationship was very strained.

Her father Albert, who was a sailor, was regularly away from home, although provided enough of an income so that the Nortons were able to live comfortably.

Nonetheless, she would later describe her life at this time as being " a generally wearisome period of senseless shibboleths, prying adults, detestable or depressing children whom I was supposed to like, and parental reproaches.

" Due to this, she kept herself to herself, sleeping not in the house, but in a tent which she pitched in the garden for three years, and kept a pet spider at the entrance which she named Horatius, as well as other pets including cats, lizards, tortoises, toads, dogs and a goat.