Witchcraft continuedWillem De Blecourt, Owen Davies This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. The study of witchcraft accusations in Europe during the period after the end of the witch trials is still in its infancy. Witches were scratched in England, swum in Germany, beaten in the Netherlands and shot in France. The continued widespread belief in witchcraft and magic in nineteenth- and twentieth-century France has received considerable academic attention. The book discusses the extent and nature of witchcraft accusations in the period and provides a general survey of the published work on the subject for an English audience. It explores the presence of magical elements in everyday life during the modern period in Spain. The book provides a general overview of vernacular magical beliefs and practices in Italy from the time of unification to the present, with particular attention to how these traditions have been studied. By functioning as mechanisms of social ethos and control, narratives of magical harm were assured a place at the very heart of rural Finnish social dynamics into the twentieth century. The book draws upon over 300 narratives recorded in rural Finland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that provide information concerning the social relations, tensions and strategies that framed sorcery and the counter-magic employed against it. It is concerned with a special form of witchcraft that is practised only amongst Hungarians living in Transylvania. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 14 | |
Witchcraft witch doctors and the fight against superstition in nineteenthcentury Germany | 29 |
midVictorian stories and beliefs | 46 |
Narrative and the social dynamics of magical harm in late nineteenth and early twentiethcentury Finland | 69 |
witchcraft in the western Netherlands 18501925 | 89 |
Witchcraft accusations in France 18501990 | 107 |
Other editions - View all
Witchcraft Continued: Popular Magic in Modern Europe Willem De Blécourt,Owen Davies Limited preview - 2004 |
Common terms and phrases
Ann Izzard Ballymena belief in witchcraft bewitched black magic Blécourt Brian McDermott Catholic cause Charlesworths Church clergy Colin Wallace contemporary context Copeland Islands court Csík cultural cunning-folk curanderos cure curse Devil early modern Europe Éva Pócs evidence evil eye example exorcism Finnish Finnish Literature Society folklore folklorists forensic France French Galicia Gorinchem healers healing Heupers History illness Italian kaluger London Madrid magical harm maleficium Martino Medicina Popular medicine murder narratives neighbours newspaper nineteenth century Orivesi Owen Davies Paris Paxton paysan PD&AC peasant person possessed practices priest Protestant Prussian region relevant religion religious reports ritual role Romanian Ronald Hutton rumours rural Satan Sliedrecht social society sorcellerie sorcery sources spell stories supernatural superstition tietäjä traditional trial Tunnicliff twentieth century unwitchment victim village violence Volksverhalen Western Willem de Blécourt witch doctor witchcraft accusations Witchcraft and Magic witchcraft discourse woman women