Friday, August 16, 2024

A FORMATIVE INFLUENCE

I've been fascinated by the history of witchcraft since I was eight years old, at which point I acquired a copy of Peter Haining's superb WITCHCRAFT AND BLACK MAGIC (1972), part of the Knowledge Through Color series, via (believe it or not) the Scholastic Books program. 

Remember, kids: Knowledge is power!

It was a serious book on the history of witchcraft, mostly as seen in Europe and early America, and it pulled zero punches in describing all of the nastiness  that anti-witch crusaders wanted the general public to believe, and it even included reproductions of ultra-graphic woodcuts and pamphlets outlining assorted tortures administered by "professional" witch-hunters and agents of the Spanish Inquisition, so you can imagine what an education it was for this eight-year-old. From that formative influence I developed a taste for horror stories about witchcraft, especially those that hewed close to what was historically believed to have been practiced by real witches, and being awakened to the fact that the anti-witch hysteria and persecution was perpetrated by misogynistic criminals who feared wise women did nothing to diminish my taste for the sub-genre. 

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