Rita

The first thing to be made clear is that, in this work, Dr. Hutton is dealing only with belief in witches who are practitioners of maleficium: magic that harms humans and their property. He admits in a introductory note that there are currently at least four different usages of the word "witch" in English: 1) the worker of magical harm, as above, 2) any worker of magic, although beneficial magicians are sometimes distinguished as "good" or "white", 3) practitioners of a particular nature-based Pagan religion and 4) as a symbol of independent female authority. In reference to those people labeled "white witches" or "cunning folk" he choses to use the term "service magician." This term also encompasses the medicine men and witch-doctors of non-Western societies.

Hutton demonstrates through references to history and ethnographies that many societies believe in and fear witches. These range from hunting and gathering cultures to the sophisticated nation states of Early Modern Europe. Nor was the Witch Hunt era of European history unique in the number of victims. Witch-hunts in Republican Rome and surrounding cities may have claimed more than 5000 victims. However some other cultures have no concept of witchcraft and do not fear it. Hutton notes that such cultures usually believe in others sources of unexpected and unexplained misfortune: demons, fairies or angry ghosts.

This work is too detailed to easily summarize, and any serious student of the subject will want to read the work itself. Hutton surveys the work of earlier historians and examines the work of historians in Continental Europe, much of which is unknown to British or American readers. Of particular interest to some will be Hutton's refutation of earlier theories on the origins of witch beliefs. For example, he examines the recorded practices of shamanism and concludes that the public performances typical of shamanistic rites are quite different from the secret practices attributed to witches. He does note some overlap in beliefs in the far North of Europe, where the different cultures are in contact.

Another item of interest is his conclusion that the use of the quartered (four directions) circle as a locale for magical workings seems to have originated in Christian Europe around the 12th Century. The pentagram (five-pointed star) became an important symbol, both for Christians and for magicians at about the same time, although it had been known and used in decoration in many times and places.

Hutton devotes a chapter each to the subjects of witches and fairies, witches and animals and witches in Celtic nations. Each of these chapters contains matter of interest. Animal familiars, by Hutton's account, are peculiar to English areas. Magicians in other cultures may have spirit helpers that take on animal forms, but the concept of a small animal with a magical function seems to appear in only a minority of witch trials, confined to Early Modern England. Fairies may be claimed as the teachers of magic or may be feared as magical entities to be feared in their own right. The latter seems to be the case in the Celtic areas known for their low incidence of witch trials. Misfortunes that were blamed on witches in neighboring areas, such as dry cows, crop failures, failures at butter making, sour beer and so forth, are blamed on fairies by the Irish and some Welsh and Scots.

_The Witch_ includes extensive end notes, a bibliography of material not directly cited, an index and a section of illustrations. The later includes the first known portrayal of a witch riding a broom, from a French manuscript of the 1440s. Although academic books are frequently overpriced, $30 for a quality hardcover of over 350 pages is actually quite reasonable. I recommend this work for libraries and for individuals with a serious interest in the subject.

The Witch: a History of Fear, From Ancient Times to the Present
Ronald Hutton
New Haven, NJ: Yale UP, 2017
978-0-300-22904-2