There are many stories of witchcraft in rural England from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but it is rare to find accounts of self-professed witches who actually attempted to make […]
The 1612 Pendle witch trials in Lancashire began when the peddler, John Law, refused to sell his pins to Alizon Device. Following the encounter, Law was stricken with a sickness […]
This post was first published on the blog of the Exeter Centre for Medieval Studies. I’m very pleased to announce that the Routledge History of Medieval Magic, edited by Sophie Page (UCL) […]
A ferocious hound, an omen of death, a guardian to lonely women, the size of a horse, the size of a calf, two glowing red eyes, one red eye. The […]
In October last year I was sent an email accompanied by a zip folder full of images; these included a witch and her familiars, a woman suffering from convulsions, an […]
When thinking of witch trials in Norwegian history, the case of Lisbeth Pedersdatter Nypan and her husband Ole often springs to mind. The case was brought to international attention with […]
Witch balls are globes of glass, with a hole in the top, often suspended in doorways or windows. They were made in most glass factories across Europe as glassblowers’ ‘whimsies’ […]
Coral is a complex marine organism and has a calciferous skeleton. It is sometimes blood red and is vascular in its form. Therefore in Greek legend it was said to […]
In 1582 John Dee (1527–1609), mathematician, astrologer, magician, and antiquary, claimed that he had been given a magic crystal by an angel called Uriel. Eventually this slightly purple rock crystal, […]
Between the 1320s and the 1620s a significant proportion of all accusations of high treason in England involved a magical element. People were accused of casting the horoscope of the […]
