Witchland
A Tale of Witch Hunting and War in Seventeenth-Century Britain
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Witchland
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Narrated by:
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By:
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Marion Gibson
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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'No historian before Marion Gibson has managed to convey so well the lived reality of British witch trials at the local level. This is as close to an eye-witness view of them as we are likely to get' Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch
'A remarkable feat of scholarship and empathy . . . a chilling and timely read!' Shelley Puhak, author of The Blood Countess and The Dark Queens
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Critic reviews
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 (Professor Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch)
'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)
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