Public-domain ebook
The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology
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In: Paganism·Witchcraft·Anthropology
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #20411.
About this book
Margaret Alice Murray’s study is a scholarly investigation of the witch‑cult that once flourished across Western Europe, with a particular focus on Great Britain. In the opening pages she explains that, rather than attempting an exhaustive survey, she concentrates on British records while drawing on French and Flemish sources to illustrate the cult’s pan‑European character. Her research is built on judicial proceedings, contemporary chroniclers, and unpublished trial material, and she carefully separates fact from the opinions of earlier commentators. The work is organized into detailed sections on continuity, deity, ceremonies, assemblies, rites, organization, familiars, and transformations, supplemented by extensive appendices that include trial transcripts and comparative notes on fairy lore.
Written in the academic style of the early twentieth‑century anthropologist, the book combines meticulous citation of primary sources with a clear, methodical argument that the witch‑cult was a structured, pre‑Christian religion rather than mere superstition. Readers with an interest in the history of witchcraft, comparative religion, or the ethnology of early European societies will find Murray’s analytical approach and extensive documentation particularly rewarding.
The opening · free to read
The mass of existing material on this subject is so great that I have not attempted to make a survey of the whole of European 'Witchcraft', but have confined myself to an intensive study of the cult in Great Britain. In order, however, to obtain a clearer understanding of the ritual and beliefs I have had recourse to French and Flemish sources, as the cult appears to have been the same throughout Western Europe. The New England records are unfortunately not published in extenso; this is the more unfortunate as the extracts already given to the public occasionally throw light on some of the English practices. It is more difficult to trace the English practices than the Scotch or French, for in England the cult was already in a decadent condition when the records were made; therefore records in a purely English colony would probably contain much of interest.
The sources from which the information is taken are the judicial records and contemporary chroniclers. In the case of the chroniclers I have studied their facts and not their opinions. I have also had access to some unpublished trials among the Edinburgh Justiciary Records and also in the Guernsey Greffe.
The following articles have already appeared in various journals, to whose editors I am indebted for kind permission to republish: 'Organization of Witch Societies' and 'Witches and the number Thirteen' in Folk Lore; 'The God of the Witches' in the Journal of the Manchester Oriental Society; 'Child Sacrifice', 'Witches' Familiars', 'The Devil's Mark', 'The Devil's Officers', 'Witches' Fertility Rites', 'Witches Transformations', in Man; and 'The Devil of North Berwick' in the Scottish Historical Review.
My thanks are due to Georgiana Aitken, W. Bonser, and Mary Slater for much kind help, also to Prof. C. G. Seligman for valuable suggestions and advice as to lines of research.
M. A. MURRAY.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
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