WITCHCRAFT

These stories of witchcraft true and vividly told demonstrate the potent reality of belief in evil and how in any era or place fear can be weaponised and marginal people mostly women labelled as wicked and dangerous Together they comprise not just a history of witchcraft but a cautionary tale Malcolm Gaskill author of The Ruin of All Witches Thought provoking and timely Searing Jessie Childs The Times In Witchcraft Professor Marion Gibson uses thirteen significant trials to tell the global history of witchcraft and witch hunts As well as exploring the origins of witch hunts through some of the most famous trials from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century it takes us in new and surprising directions Three women were prosecuted under a version of the 1735 Witchcraft Act as recently as 2018 Professor Gibson also tells the stories of the witches mostly women like Helena Scheuberin Anny Sampson and Joan Wright whose stories have too often been overshadowed by those of the powerful men such as King James I and Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins who hounded them Once a tool invented by demonologists to hurt and silence their enemies witch trials have been twisted and transformed over the course of history and the lines between witch and witch