The Last Witches of England

The Last Witches of England PDF Author: John Callow
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350196142
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
"Fascinating and vivid." New Statesman "Thoroughly researched." The Spectator "Intriguing." BBC History Magazine "Vividly told." BBC History Revealed "A timely warning against persecution." Morning Star "Astute and thoughtful." History Today "An important work." All About History "Well-researched." The Tablet On the morning of Thursday 29 June 1682, a magpie came rasping, rapping and tapping at the window of a prosperous Devon merchant. Frightened by its appearance, his servants and members of his family had, within a matter of hours, convinced themselves that the bird was an emissary of the devil sent by witches to destroy the fabric of their lives. As the result of these allegations, three women of Bideford came to be forever defined as witches. A Secretary of State brushed aside their case and condemned them to the gallows; to hang as the last group of women to be executed in England for the crime. Yet, the hatred of their neighbours endured. For Bideford, it was said, was a place of witches. Though 'pretty much worn away' the belief in witchcraft still lingered on for more than a century after their deaths. In turn, ignored, reviled, and extinguished but never more than half-forgotten, it seems that the memory of these three women - and of their deeds and sufferings, both real and imagined – was transformed from canker to regret, and from regret into celebration in our own age. Indeed, their example was cited during the final Parliamentary debates, in 1951, that saw the last of the witchcraft acts repealed, and their names were chanted, as both inspiration and incantation, by the women beyond the wire at Greenham Common. In this book, John Callow explores this remarkable reversal of fate, and the remarkable tale of the Bideford Witches.

The Last Witches of England

The Last Witches of England PDF Author: John Callow
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350196142
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
"Fascinating and vivid." New Statesman "Thoroughly researched." The Spectator "Intriguing." BBC History Magazine "Vividly told." BBC History Revealed "A timely warning against persecution." Morning Star "Astute and thoughtful." History Today "An important work." All About History "Well-researched." The Tablet On the morning of Thursday 29 June 1682, a magpie came rasping, rapping and tapping at the window of a prosperous Devon merchant. Frightened by its appearance, his servants and members of his family had, within a matter of hours, convinced themselves that the bird was an emissary of the devil sent by witches to destroy the fabric of their lives. As the result of these allegations, three women of Bideford came to be forever defined as witches. A Secretary of State brushed aside their case and condemned them to the gallows; to hang as the last group of women to be executed in England for the crime. Yet, the hatred of their neighbours endured. For Bideford, it was said, was a place of witches. Though 'pretty much worn away' the belief in witchcraft still lingered on for more than a century after their deaths. In turn, ignored, reviled, and extinguished but never more than half-forgotten, it seems that the memory of these three women - and of their deeds and sufferings, both real and imagined – was transformed from canker to regret, and from regret into celebration in our own age. Indeed, their example was cited during the final Parliamentary debates, in 1951, that saw the last of the witchcraft acts repealed, and their names were chanted, as both inspiration and incantation, by the women beyond the wire at Greenham Common. In this book, John Callow explores this remarkable reversal of fate, and the remarkable tale of the Bideford Witches.

Any Last Witches?

Any Last Witches? PDF Author: Kathryn Lin
Publisher: Kathryn Lin
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
Welcome back to Windfall, Nevada. An RV gathering of eccentric characters out in the desert, a crazy new moneymaking scheme that threatens to bankrupt her mom, and a broomstick that refuses to fly. There's never a moment of peace for Tara Hart. When a dead body turns up in the middle of the desert, Tara ends up as the main suspect, under the suspicious eye of the town sheriff. With the help of her witchy godmothers and a snarky silkie chicken, Tara sets out to clear her name. Can Tara put out the multiple fires in her life before it's too late and everything burns to the ground?

Embracing the Darkness

Embracing the Darkness PDF Author: John Callow
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786722615
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
As dusk fell on a misty evening in 1521, Martin Luther - hiding from his enemies at Wartburg Castle - found himself seemingly tormented by demons hurling walnuts at his bedroom window. In a fit of rage, the great reformer threw at the Devil the inkwell from which he was preparing his colossal translation of the Bible. A belief - like Luther's - in the supernatural, and in black magic, has been central to European cultural life for 3000 years. From the Salem witch trials to the macabre novels of Dennis Wheatley; from the sadistic persecution of eccentric village women to the seductive sorceresses of TV's Charmed; and from Derek Jarman's punk film Jubilee to Ken Russell's The Devils, John Callow brings the twilight world of the witch, mage and necromancer to vivid and fascinating life. He takes us into a shadowy landscape where, in an age before modern drugs, the onset of sudden illness was readily explained by malevolent spellcasting. And where dark, winding country lanes could terrify by night, as the hoot of an owl or shriek of a fox became the desolate cries of unseen spirits.Witchcraft has profoundly shaped the western imagination, and endures in the forms of modern-day Wicca and paganism. Embracing the Darkness is an enthralling account of this fascinating aspect of the western cultural experience.

The Ruin of All Witches

The Ruin of All Witches PDF Author: Malcolm Gaskill
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0593316584
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
A gripping story of a family tragedy brought about by witch-hunting in Puritan New England that combines history, anthropology, sociology, politics, theology and psychology. “The best and most enjoyable kind of history writing. Malcolm Gaskill goes to meet the past on its own terms and in its own place…Thought-provoking and absorbing." —Hilary Mantel, best-selling author of Wolf Hall In Springfield, Massachusetts in 1651, peculiar things begin to happen. Precious food spoils, livestock ails, property vanishes, and people suffer convulsions as if possessed by demons. A woman is seen wading through the swamp like a lost soul. Disturbing dreams and visions proliferate. Children sicken and die. As tensions rise, rumours spread of witches and heretics and the community becomes tangled in a web of distrust, resentment and denunciation. The finger of suspicion soon falls on a young couple with two small children: the prickly brickmaker, Hugh Parsons, and his troubled wife, Mary. Drawing on rich, previously unexplored source material, Malcolm Gaskill vividly evokes a strange past, one where lives were steeped in the divine and the diabolic, in omens, curses and enchantments. The Ruin of All Witches captures an entire society caught in agonized transition between superstition and enlightenment, tradition and innovation.

The Last Witch of Langenburg

The Last Witch of Langenburg PDF Author: Thomas Willard Robisheaux
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393065510
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
Exploring one of Europe's last witch panics, historian Thomas Robisheaux brings to life the story of an entire world caught between superstition and modernity in a high-stakes drama that led to charges of sorcery and witchcraft against an entire family.

The Last Witch

The Last Witch PDF Author: M J Lawrie
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
After the turbulent and heart breaking events of Lilly and Gabriel's almost wedding, nothing will ever be the same. The world has been thrown into violent chaos. Hunters have declared all out war on those with magic in their blood and everyone has been caught in the crossfire. But Hunters, it would seem, are far from the world's biggest threat. A dark evil has been unleashed. One driven by wrath and an insatiable hunger for vengeance. And the fate of the world and all those in it rest in a single pair hands. The final spell has begun. The end draws near. And Lilly Hooper's fate has been sealed. Volume three brings the gripping, dark and intense Last Witch trilogy to its climax. Get ready. This is no fairy tale.

Witchcraft in Colonial Virginia

Witchcraft in Colonial Virginia PDF Author: Carson O. Hudson Jr.
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 146714424X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
"While the witchcraft mania that swept through Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 was significant, fascination with it has tended to overshadow the historical records of other persecutions throughout early America. Colonial Virginians shared a common belief in the supernatural with their northern neighbors. The 1626 case of Joan Wright, the first woman to be accused of witchcraft in British North America, began Virginia's own witch craze. Utilizing surviving records, local historian Carson Hudson narrates these fascinating stories." --Back cover.

A Discovery of Witches

A Discovery of Witches PDF Author: Deborah Harkness
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101475692
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 593

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Book Description
Book one of the New York Times bestselling All Souls series, from the author of The Black Bird Oracle. “A wonderfully imaginative grown-up fantasy with all the magic of Harry Potter and Twilight” (People). Look for the hit series “A Discovery of Witches,” now streaming on AMC+, Sundance Now, and Shudder! Deborah Harkness’s sparkling debut, A Discovery of Witches, has brought her into the spotlight and galvanized fans around the world. In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont. Harkness has created a universe to rival those of Anne Rice, Diana Gabaldon, and Elizabeth Kostova, and she adds a scholar's depth to this riveting tale of magic and suspense. The story continues in book two, Shadow of Night, book three, The Book of Life, and the fourth in the series, Time’s Convert.

The Witches

The Witches PDF Author: Stacy Schiff
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316200611
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 718

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Book Description
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra, the #1 national bestseller, unpacks the mystery of the Salem Witch Trials. It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death. The panic spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors, parents and children each other. Aside from suffrage, the Salem Witch Trials represent the only moment when women played the central role in American history. In curious ways, the trials would shape the future republic. As psychologically thrilling as it is historically seminal, The Witches is Stacy Schiff's account of this fantastical story -- the first great American mystery unveiled fully for the first time by one of our most acclaimed historians.

The Book of Life (Movie Tie-In)

The Book of Life (Movie Tie-In) PDF Author: Deborah Harkness
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593511441
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 577

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Book Description
The #1 New York Times bestselling third installment of the All Souls series, the sequel to A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night. Look for the hit series “A Discovery of Witches,” now streaming on AMC+, Sundance Now, and Shudder! In The Book of Life Diana and Matthew time-travel back from Elizabethan London to make a dramatic return to the present—facing new crises and old enemies. At Matthew's ancestral home, Sept-Tours, they reunite with the beloved cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency. In the third volume of the All Souls series, Harkness deepens her themes of power and passion, family and caring, past deeds and their present consequences. In palatial homes and university laboratories, using ancient knowledge and modern science, from the hills of the Auvergne to Venice and beyond, the couple at last learn what the witches discovered so many centuries ago.