#witch craze

[footnotes-in-historyy]

In 1594 Gwen Ferch Ellis was the first person to be executed for witchcraft in Wales. Like most accused female witches, Gwen was previously known to have carried out healing of sick humans and animals in the town of Landyrnog.

Gwen was accused of having a charm written backward; something that was assumed to be a form of bewitching. Gwen was taken to Flint goal to await trial.

During her trial, Gwen was accused of having murdered a man called Lewis ap John through witchcraft and was subsequently found guilty and executed as a witch.

Unlike in England, there were very few witch trials in Wales, with only five executions having taken place. It has been estimated that 500 executions of accused witches had taken place in England during the Early Modern Period.

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Ray Atkinson - Hexenwahn und Hexenprozesse - Eden - 1958

[clatterbane]

Just reminded of this classic when it showed up in the latest Esoterica video.

I just wanted to hug all of the imps as soon as I saw it. Really effective as propaganda, that.

Jarmara in particular can come live with me, anytime. Shame the artist didn't show us Griezzdl Greedigutt*, or the other few members of that crew.

* Though that may be me. I could probably be fairly described as sorta grizzled by this point, and also a greedyguts. Which my Nana still used half-jokingly about animals and kids who were particularly prone to gobbling down food with some gusto.

[the---hermit]

Articles I read in May 2022

I normally don't do this, but since I have been working full time on my thesis, I read a lot of articles, so I thought I do a wrap up of those aswell. The theme of the articles is witch hunts and the historiography of witchcraft, as my thesis is on a witch trial. All the articles I found on jstor (and I will link the website), the majority are in English but I'll also include those written in Italian.

The Pursuit of Reality: Recent Research into the History of Witchcraft by Malcolm Gaskill

The Historiography of European Witchcraft: Progress and Prospects by E. William Monter

The European Witch Craze of the 14th to 17th Centuries: A Sociologist's Perspective by Nachman Ben-Yehuda

Who Were the Witches? The Social Roles of the Accused in the European Witch Trials by Richard A. Horsley

Witchcraft, Female Aggression, and Power in the Early Modern Community by Edward Bever

Witchcraft Prosecutions and the Decline of Magic by Edward Bever

The Invisible Men: The Historial and The Male Witch by Lara Apps and Andrew Gow (This is the first chapter of the book Male Witches In Early Modern Europe, I ended up reading the whole book, all the chapters are present on jstor, but I will link only this one. For those interested the book is composed by five chapters plus the introduction and conclusion)

La stregoneria. Confessioni e accuse, nell'analisi di storici e antropologi di Mary Douglas Reviewed by Michela Pereira

Ancora a Proposito di Streghe by Michaela Valente

The full list of books I read this month and their reviews is here

[ouroboros8ontology]

The popular notion of the witch, which was in the making as early as the eleventh century, is likewise reflected in the Jewish sources, but the use of such terms as lamie, broxa, and estrie to describe the witch and her activities indicates the non-Jewish origin of the concept. We read in thirteenth-century works of witches with disheveled hair who fly about at night, who feed on the blood and flesh of infants and adults, who are accompanied and aided by demon familiars, who assume animal forms to carry out their nefarious designs. A story in Sefer Hasidim is a replica of dozens found in non-Jewish works: a man was attacked by a cat which he fought off; the next day a woman appeared, badly wounded, and asked him for bread and salt to save her life.

Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion; The Truth Behind the Legend: Jewish Magic

[shelivesinthatlibrary]

days spent doing coursework and research, and it will all be worth it in the end

[quasi-normalcy]

[nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius]

I SUBMITTED MY PAPER

It may have been two minutes before the deadline but I FUCKING SUBMITTED IT

[hellafluff]

Finally watching Witch from Mercury, like it a lot so far

[dingviant-art]

Birthday Jane for a Birthday @kittycatblast :0)

Patreon

[gobstoppercowboy]

Unfriendly reminder!

They did not burn witches! They burnt women!

There were no witch-hunts, or witch-hunters! There were women-hunts! Women-hunters!

They did not hold witch-trials! They held women-trials!

They did not care about witchcraft! They cared about women who didn’t do as they were told! Women who were intelligent! Women who investigated science! Women who broke the mould! Women who did anything, anything at all, that could be deemed “suspicious” enough for their murders, tortures, kidnappings, and public executions to be justified!

The women-hunters weren’t trying to prove theories! They didn’t care if the woman sunk or floated when they threw her into undercurrents and water rapids! They were going to kill her either way!

They were brutalists! They were sadists! They enjoyed and fed upon the prolonged suffering, physical torment, and public mocking of any woman they could get their filthy fucking hands on!

They did not burn witches!!!

They burnt women!!!

[roadkillip]

Everyone jokes about how Belos, a 400 year old man, would be absolutely horrified by anything in the modern world. He couldn't survive here. But, au contraire, he loves narrating his life while fabricating most of the drama to make himself look better. I think he could do numbers on TikTok!

[collegecraze]

This week, we've got a movie poster starring Trish by Vee for #FanArtFriday!

[ouroboros8ontology]

Prior to the inception of the Inquisition in the thirteenth century, excesses attributed to sorcery had been punished by the secular authorities simply as criminal acts. When the church undertook to stamp out sorcery it branded its practitioners as devil-worshiping anti-Christians.

Sorcerers and witches, brought before the bar of the Inquisition, were accused of, and confessed to, the adoration of Satan, the desecration of the host and other consecrated objects, the sacrifice of infants, cannibalism, the use of human ingredients, particularly blood and fat, in their salves and potions, affecting the death of their enemies by means of waxen images baptized in their names, poisonings, all the details of what came to be a stereotyped catalogue of crimes… It is these charges that determined the character of the sorcery propaganda against the Jews. 

Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion; The Legend of Jewish Sorcery

[lanne13]

because i have amc+ until sunday i am watching discovery of witches and the actress playing the main character reminds me of kristen stewart so when she accused the vampire of being a vampire all i could think was "say it. out loud."

[hotsweetcorn]

surely there is a reason why you are all obsessed with wizards