The Laws of Witchery

The subject of our final history is witchery. A first alliteration is sorcery and sexuality. A second, little easier to distinguish, is law and lore. Any history of witchery is essentially ironic, tripping the margin of reality and illusion. It also tends towards the anecdotal, liking the curious, commonly situating itself around the case study. The latter tendency inscribes a further insinuation; any history of witchery is as much about the witch-hunter as it is about the witch. We will trace some of the tracks laid down by these hunters, as we will those left by generations of poets and lawyers. If we want to discern, however dimly, the voices of those who found themselves consorting with Satan, we have no choice. Otherwise, we have an enormous choice. It is estimated that around 50,000 witches were ‘discovered’ and executed during the successive ‘crazes’ which possessed early modern Europe, of which 80% were female. A familiar misogyny and a predictable violence.