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Book The Visions of Isobel Gowdie

Download or read book The Visions of Isobel Gowdie written by Emma Wilby and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-04 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The confessions of Isobel Gowdie are widely recognised as the most extraordinary on record in Britain. Using historical, psychological, comparative religious and anthropological perspectives, this book sets out to separate the voice of Isobel Gowdie from that of her interrogators.

Book The Confessions of Isobel Gowdie

    Book Details:
  • Author : Michael McGrinder
  • Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
  • Release : 2016-08-27
  • ISBN : 9781533090560
  • Pages : 178 pages

Download or read book The Confessions of Isobel Gowdie written by Michael McGrinder and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-08-27 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: sobel Gowdie has been unfairly labelled "The Witch Queen of Scotland" largely due to her confessions to witchcraft being a matter of historical record. Michael McGrinder tells Isobel's story on a grand canvas spanning a period of seventeen years. This full-length play is not for the prudish nor is it for the faint-hearted, but neither is it for those without a sense of humor or deep compassion. It is for those who like a good story well-told and for those especially who enjoy a love story. It is definitely for all who appreciate great theatre!

Book Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits

Download or read book Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits written by Emma Wilby and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the hundreds of confessions relating to witchcraft and sorcery trials from early modern Britain we frequently find detailed descriptions of intimate working relationships between popular magical practitioners and familiar spirits of either human or animal form. Until recently historians often dismissed these descriptions as elaborate fictions created by judicial interrogators eager to find evidence of stereotypical pacts with the Devil. Although this paradigm is now routinely questioned, and most historians acknowledge that there was a folkloric component to familiar lore in the period, these beliefs and the experiences reportedly associated with them, remain substantially unexamined. Cunning-Folk and Familiar Spirits examines the folkloric roots of familiar lore from historical, anthropological and comparative religious perspectives. It argues that beliefs about witches' familiars were rooted in beliefs surrounding the use of fairy familiars by beneficent magical practitioners or 'cunning folk', and corroborates this through a comparative analysis of familiar beliefs found in traditional native American and Siberian shamanism. The author explores the experiential dimension of familiar lore by drawing parallels between early modern familiar encounters and visionary mysticism as it appears in both tribal shamanism and medieval European contemplative traditions. These perspectives challenge the reductionist view of popular magic in early modern British often presented by historians.

Book Invoking the Akelarre

    Book Details:
  • Author : Emma Wilby
  • Publisher : Liverpool University Press
  • Release : 2019-08-02
  • ISBN : 1782846220
  • Pages : 667 pages

Download or read book Invoking the Akelarre written by Emma Wilby and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-02 with total page 667 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With their dramatic descriptions of black masses and cannibalistic feasts, the records generated by the Basque witch-craze of 160914 provide us with arguably the most demonologically-stereotypical accounts of the witches sabbath or akelarre to have emerged from early modern Europe. While the trials have attracted scholarly attention, the most substantial monograph on the subject was written nearly forty years ago and most works have focused on the ways in which interrogators shaped the pattern of prosecutions and the testimonies of defendants. Invoking the Akelarre diverts from this norm by employing more recent historiographical paradigms to analyze the contributions of the accused. Through interdisciplinary analyses of both French- and Spanish-Basque records, it argues that suspects were not passive recipients of elite demonological stereotypes but animated these received templates with their own belief and experience, from the dark exoticism of magical conjuration, liturgical cursing and theatrical misrule to the sharp pragmatism of domestic medical practice and everyday religious observance. In highlighting the range of raw materials available to the suspects, the book helps us to understand how the fiction of the witches sabbath emerged to such prominence in contemporary mentalities, whilst also restoring some agency to the defendants and nuancing the historical thesis that stereotypical content points to interrogatorial opinion and folkloric content to the voices of the accused. In its local context, this study provides an intimate portrait of peasant communities as they flourished in the Basque region in this period and leaves us with the irony that Europes most sensationally-demonological accounts of the witches sabbath may have evolved out of a particularly ardent commitment, on the part of ordinary Basques, to the social and devotional structures of popular Catholicism.

Book The Witches of Fife

Download or read book The Witches of Fife written by Stuart MacDonald and published by John Donald Publishers. This book was released on 2014-08-18 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Along the coast of Fife, in villages like Culross and Pittenweem, history records that some women were executed as witches. Nevertheless, the reality of what happened the night that Janet Cornfoot was lynched at Pittenweem is hard to grasp as one sits by the harbour watching the fishing boats unload their catch and the pleasure boats rising with the tide. How could people do this to an old woman? Why was no-one ever brought to justice? And why would anyone defend such a lynching? The task of the historian is to try to make events in the past come alive and seem less strange. The details of the witch-hunt are fascinating. Some of the anecdotes are strange. The modern reader finds it hard to imagine illness being blamed on the malevolence of a beggar woman denied charity, or the economic failure of a sea voyage being attributed to the village hag, not bad weather. Witch-hunting was related to ideas, values, attitudes and political events. It was a complicated process, involving religious and civil authorities, village tensions and the fears of the elite. The witch-hunt in Scotland also took place at a time when one of the main agendas was the creation of a righteous or godly society. As a result, religious authorities had control over aspects of people's lives which seem as strange to us today as beliefs about magic or witchcraft. It was not accidental that the witch-hunt in Scotland, and specifically in Fife, should have happened at this time. This book tells the story of what occurred over a period of a century and a half, and offers some explanation as to why it occurred.

Book Bitter Magic  Inspired by the True Story of a Confessed Witch

Download or read book Bitter Magic Inspired by the True Story of a Confessed Witch written by Nancy Hayes Kilgore and published by Milford House Press. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A chance encounter leads teenaged Margaret into the circle of Isobel Gowdie, a "cunning woman" who practices magic and travels in the fairy world. But Scotland is aflame with wars over religion and "correct" belief-English against Scots, Catholics against Protestants-and in the Scottish Highlands, the witch craze is at its height. When Margaret starts to meet with Isobel to learn magic, Isobel is accused of witchcraft, and Margaret becomes a suspect, too. Can Margaret's tutor, Katharine, a Christian mystic, affect the outcome? Bitter Magic is inspired by the true story of the witchcraft trial of Isobel Gowdie in 1662.

Book The Occult Laboratory

    Book Details:
  • Author : Michael Hunter
  • Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
  • Release : 2001
  • ISBN : 0851158013
  • Pages : 257 pages

Download or read book The Occult Laboratory written by Michael Hunter and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2001 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magic, science and second sight in 17c Scottish Higlands, with new edition of Kirk's Secret Commonwealth.

Book Vampires and Vampirism

Download or read book Vampires and Vampirism written by Montague Summers and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-05-14 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVStudy examines vampire lore in fantastic detail, addressing such issues as how vampires came into existence, vampirish behavior, vampire-like ancient myths, and vampires in modern literature. /div

Book Herodotus and Religion in the Persian Wars

Download or read book Herodotus and Religion in the Persian Wars written by Jon D. Mikalson and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2004-07-21 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The two great Persian invasions of Greece, in 490 and 480-79 B.C., both repulsed by the Greeks, provide our best opportunity for understanding the interplay of religion and history in ancient Greece. Using the Histories of Herodotus as well as other historical and archaeological sources, Jon Mikalson shows how the Greeks practiced their religion at this pivotal moment in their history. In the period of the invasions and the years immediately after, the Greeks--internationally, state by state, and sometimes individually--turned to their deities, using religious practices to influence, understand, and commemorate events that were threatening their very existence. Greeks prayed and sacrificed; made and fulfilled vows to the gods; consulted oracles; interpreted omens and dreams; created cults, sanctuaries, and festivals; and offered dozens of dedications to their gods and heroes--all in relation to known historical events. By portraying the human situations and historical circumstances in which Greeks practiced their religion, Mikalson advances our knowledge of the role of religion in fifth-century Greece and reveals a religious dimension of the Persian Wars that has been previously overlooked.

Book Satan s Conspiracy

    Book Details:
  • Author : P. G. Maxwell-Stuart
  • Publisher : Dundurn
  • Release : 2001
  • ISBN : 9781862321366
  • Pages : 242 pages

Download or read book Satan s Conspiracy written by P. G. Maxwell-Stuart and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2001 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synthesizing the evidence for magic and witchcraft in 16th-century Scotland, this book profiles unpublished manuscripts, 19th- and early-20th-century transcriptions, and passing remarks in the histories of shires and boroughs. Preliminary suggestions are made about how these sources can be interpreted, so that nature scholars of Scottish witchcraft in particular will be able to more easily construct their theories with the analyses provided.

Book Contemporary Religious Satanism

Download or read book Contemporary Religious Satanism written by Jesper Aagaard Petersen and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2009 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the fascinating nature of religious Satanism, it has attracted little scholarship until relatively recently. This book brings together a group of international scholars to produce the first serious book-length study of religious Satanism, presenting a collection that will have wide appeal to specialists and non-specialists alike. The first part contains broader studies of influential groups and important aspects of the Satanic milieu, especially regarding historical developments, the construction of tradition and issues of legitimacy. The second part narrows the view to regional variations, especially with studies on Northern and Eastern Europe. The third part consists of primary documents selected for their representational and informational value.

Book Scottish Witchcraft

Download or read book Scottish Witchcraft written by Barbara Meiklejohn-Free and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2019-11-08 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hear the Call of the Highlands for Powerful Magick, Healing, and Divination Take a journey through the magickal folk traditions of Scotland. Barbara Meiklejohn-Free, a Scottish hereditary witch, shares her own spiritual awakening into the craft and shows you how to integrate these practices into your own life. Discover the secrets of divination, scrying, faery magick, and communication with ancestors. Explore herb and plant lore and specific rituals to address what you most desire. Filled with inspiring anecdotes, craft history, and step-by-step instructions, this book will help you begin a new chapter of spiritual discovery.

Book Transformations of Musical Modernism

Download or read book Transformations of Musical Modernism written by Erling E. Guldbrandsen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-26 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection brings fresh perspectives to bear upon key questions surrounding the composition, performance and reception of musical modernism.

Book Highroad to the Stake

Download or read book Highroad to the Stake written by Michael Kunze and published by . This book was released on 1989-06 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Princess Awakening

Download or read book Princess Awakening written by L. A. Soria and published by . This book was released on 2020-12-05 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Princess Aurelie has just one day left to break her curse and get out of the tower if she wants to live past this day and become the leader of her people. So the game begins, and the stakes increase as each new character comes into play, vying for power or influence as they move in or out of the tower, while the door always remains shut to the princess. It is only through the search for truth and the revelation of her own power that Aurelie will find the keys that could finally unlock that door and her destiny. But first, she must decide what cost she's willing to pay. Set in Medieval France, this coming-of-age story is the beginning of a gripping four-part saga in which the self-liberation is more powerful than any prison of sand or spell or stone.

Book Biddy Early

Download or read book Biddy Early written by Meda Ryan and published by Mercier Press Ltd. This book was released on 2023-09 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biddy Early, a mysterious woman from Clare, Ireland was a mystic or witch, her extraordinary abilities sparked tales of cures, prophecies, and spells. Her magic cloaked bottle, served as a tool of clairvoyance, shrouding her life in mystery.

Book Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft

Download or read book Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft written by Walter Scott and published by . This book was released on 1830 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: