Abstract
THIS is an industrious and careful study of the voluminous records of various kinds of witchcraft and kindred practices, some of which survive to-day. The bibliography would have been more useful if dates of publication had been given throughout. The preliminary chapter on the "Art of Magic" follows Sir James Frazer's view that magic is "probably older than religion"; but doubt is cast on Miss Margaret Murray's belief in a "Witch Cult in Western Europe" transmitted from pagan times, though many rites and beliefs are of pre-Christian origin. The various forms of harmful magic are classified and illustrated in detail, with the ingenious and horrible methods of detecting witches within historic times, and the comparatively harmless practices of the ‘white witch’, which have survived the repeal of the statute against witchcraft in 1736 and the spasmodic panics, here and there, of later date.
Witchcraft in England
By Christina Hole. Pp. 168 + 16 plates. (London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1945.) 21s. net.
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M., J. Witchcraft in England. Nature 156, 765 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/156765d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/156765d0