Witchland
A Tale of Witch Hunting and War in Seventeenth-Century Britain
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Witchland
Narrated by:
Anna Wilson-Jones
Pre-order Now for £13.64
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Narrated by:
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Anna Wilson-Jones
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By:
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Marion Gibson
‘An immensely knowledgeable and engaging guide’ The Times
‘A remarkable feat of scholarship and empathy’ Shelley Puhak, author of The Blood Countess
‘Astounding . . . a tour-de-force of archival research’ Publishers Weekly
'As close to an eye-witness view of [British witch trials] as we are likely to get' Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch
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If the witchfinders came to your town, who would you have believed – and what would you have done?
In the 1640s, Britain was swept up in a brutal witch hunt. The economic uncertainty and religious extremism fuelled by the English Civil War created a climate of fear. Neighbours turned on each other. Women and the poor were especially vulnerable, scapegoated by the powerful looking for someone to blame. In the resulting hysteria – which would, just a few decades later, provide a handbook for the Salem trials – hundreds of innocent people were killed.
Moving from village to village in Scotland and England, Professor Marion Gibson reveals how accusations grew out of everyday tensions – poverty, grief, and resentment – and how entire communities took part in persecuting the vulnerable. Drawing on newly uncovered historical records, this gripping account restores the voices of those accused of witchcraft. Vivid and intimate, Witchland shows that these were ordinary people with extraordinary stories, largely forgotten by history, caught up in suspicion and moral panic.
Witchland is a captivating story of fanaticism, inequality and the violence that surfaces during times of political upheaval.
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Critic reviews
‘Terrifying but compulsive . . . I finished this wonderful book feeling less like a voyeur of historic pain and more like someone who has received a timely reminder about the life-and-death importance of never allowing yourself to get caught up in the latest criminal conspiracy’
'No historian before Marion Gibson has managed to convey so well the lived reality of British witch trials at the local level, rooting them vividly and perceptively both in their physical landscapes and in the identities and experiences of seventeenth-century villagers and townspeople. This is as close to an eye-witness view of them as we are likely to get' (Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch)
‘Gibson offers an astounding revisitation of the witch panic that swept through Britain during the English Civil War ... It’s a tour-de-force of archival research and an unsettling cautionary tale’
'A disturbing portrait of centuries-old paranoia that speaks to our times… The stories of how men and women ran afoul of their neighbors and how the witch hunters bamboozled superstitious villagers into believing fellow townspeople collaborated with the devil makes for arresting reading'
'Witchland is a remarkable feat of scholarship and empathy, a journey through 1640s Britain to explore an outbreak of “well-meaning mass murder.” Marion Gibson painstakingly excavates and recenters the lives of the victims; she proves this panic was neither inevitable nor inexplicable and reminds us that resistance was – and is – possible. A chilling and timely read!' (Shelley Puhak, author of The Blood Countess and The Dark Queens)
'Witchland gives witches back their names. This book gives us history with its feet on the ground, harrowing in its wealth of ordinary details. Gibson dispels the fog of centuries, allowing us to glimpse the real people of a terrible era' (Rebecca Romney, author of Jane Austen’s Bookshelf)
'These stories of witchcraft, true and vividly told, demonstrate the potent reality of belief in evil and how in any era or place fear can be weaponised and marginal people, mostly women, labelled as wicked and dangerous. Together they comprise not just a history of witchcraft but a cautionary tale’
(Malcolm Gaskill, author of The Ruin of Witches, on Witchcraft)
(Malcolm Gaskill, author of The Ruin of Witches, on Witchcraft)
'Thought-provoking and timely . . . Searing' (Jessie Childs)
'Inventive and compelling... A work of restitution and historical reparation, an attempt to give voice to those who have been silenced over the centuries'
‘A vital and vivid study on the history of witch trials. Fantastic’ (Anya Bergman, author of The Witches of Vardo, on Witchcraft)
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