Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction (review)

Oxford’s “Very Short Introduction” series now contains more than two hundred small volumes dedicated to the condensed exploration of a wide variety of subjects and scholarship. In addition to addressing subjects as varied as Buddhism, dinosaurs, and Vikings, these diminutive texts pack a considerable amount of explanation and analysis into a format designed to attract those interested in a subject’s breadth as well as its depth. The series appeals to a wide readership, and the books’ style generally recommends them for classroom use. True to form, Malcolm Gaskill’s introduction to witchcraft provides description, interpretation, and analysis in an accessible package. From the start, Gaskill provides the reader with an overview of many of the pertinent philosophical and analytical approaches. Only when I finished the book did it strike me what a challenge it must have been to write, given that it starts with the dawn of humanity and ends in the present, draws conclusions across various disciplines as well as time and space, and acknowledges a vast and diverse historiography. Inevitably, choices have to be made and certain subjects sidelined in such a short book, and—just as inevitably—some readers will lament their absence. Nonetheless, Gaskill has written an introduction to witchcraft that will satisfy popular readers, college students, and scholars looking to assign something both intelligible and conducive to discussion.

Gaskill has established himself as a historian of crime and witchcraft in early modern England, and has also written about England’s last conviction, in the twentieth century, under the 1735 Witchcraft Act. The breadth of Gaskill’s work also allows him to comment with authority on witchcraft beyond England’s borders. This book encapsulates research about witchcraft, magic, and supernatural belief in the classical world, medieval and early modern Europe, the extensive witch hunts of the sixteenth century, occultism and spiritualism in nineteenth-century Britain, neo-paganism and Wicca, and contemporary persecution of suspected witches across the globe. The book is divided into eight thematic chapters with titles that highlight some of the central elements of witchcraft belief and persecution. Some of these, like “Fear,” “Malice,” “Rage,” and “Fantasy,” call to mind both the causes of witch trials and the characteristics attributed to witches. “Heresy,” “Truth,” and “Justice” evoke the countless attempts over the centuries to classify the nature of witchcraft as a crime, and to respond appropriately. The last chapter, “Culture,” addresses the longevity of the witch image around the world and encourages the reader to consider the social and psychological functions it continues to serve. Those accustomed to scholarly monographs may find the “References” section in the back of the book less satisfying than footnotes. This suits the series, however, and many readers will likely see clarity and accessibility in the choice. Given the sheer volume of witchcraft scholarship, the “Further Reading” section seems comprehensive enough to satisfy a wide variety of readers and to ensure that students in the early stages of a research project receive a solid foundation.

One of the strengths of the volume is the way Gaskill tackles the elusive and inconsistent nature of the witch image. The ambivalence embodied in the witch figure—both human and nonhuman, good and evil, insider and outsider—partly explains its particular power to alarm. Witchcraft has always been shifting, dualistic, and marked by blurred boundaries. Accordingly, the discernment of a witch from a regular person, or a witch’s spirit from a devil or ghost, or diabolical witchcraft from “good magic,” was a knotty problem. The potential for witches to dwell within communities, undetected or long suspected, certainly contributed to the fear and panic that fed witchcraft trials. The dualities that made the witch image so flexible also explain the difficulty historians face when trying to draw conclusions about its status as a crime, its causes, and (in many places) its eventual decline. The same difficulties faced early modern magistrates and demonologists who attempted to craft legally and intellectually coherent responses to witchcraft. As a conspiracy against God...