Her style is fluent and accessible, but those who examine the 59 pages of closely printed notes will rapidly see the depth of scholarship that underpins her work."- Times Higher Education Supplement "Lyndal Roper is an original and insightful historian of witchcraft, and the publication of this major work is most welcome. we finally have a joined up history of the witch."- The Guardian "In this brilliant piece of investigative history . thanks to Roper’s patient and sophisticated work. She also explores the psychology of witch-hunting, explaining why it was mostly older women that were the victims of witch crazes, why they confessed to crimes, and how the depiction of witches in art and literature has influenced the characterization of elderly women in our own culture. This book is a gripping account of the pursuit, interrogation, torture, and burning of witches during this period and beyond.ĭrawing on hundreds of original trial transcripts and other rare sources in four areas of Southern Germany, where most of the witches were executed, Lyndal Roper paints a vivid picture of their lives, families, and tribulations. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries thousands of women confessed to being witches-of making pacts with the Devil, causing babies to sicken, and killing animals and crops-and were put to death. A powerful account of witches, crones, and the societies that make themįrom the gruesome ogress in Hansel and Gretel to the hags at the sabbath in Faust, the witch has been a powerful figure of the Western imagination.
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