 When a traditional festival is revived at Midsomer Parva, it goes disastrously wrong, with the curate (or assistant priest) being burnt alive inside a straw effigy of a woman. Local property owner Alan Clifford holds an orgy at the Manor House, and it seems he has secrets... And then, just after finding a pig s head on the altar of the parish church, the dead curate s gay lover, the Reverend Jim Hale, dies too, seemingly of  spontaneous combustion  - that is, he bursts into flames without any normal explanation. Barnaby refuses to believe in rumours of witchcraft and is vindicated when it proves that Hale s clothes had been sprinkled with phosphorus. Then, with Barnaby hot on the killer s trail, Liz Francis is knocked out with a candlestick and becomes the third villager to be burnt alive.