Witches Of Pennsylvania

Author : Thomas White
Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
Page : 125 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2010-12-03
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781625845870

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Witches of Pennsylvania by Thomas White Pdf

A folklorist chronicles the history and lore of witchcraft in the Keystone State from William Penn’s 17th century witch trial to 20th century occultism. As English and German settlers migrated to Pennsylvania, they brought their beliefs in magic with them from the Old World—sometimes with dangerous consequences. In 1802, for example, an Allegheny County judge helped an accused witch escape an angry mob. But Susan Mummey was not so fortunate. In 1934, she was killed in her home by a young Schuylkill County man who was convinced that she had cursed him. In other regions of the state, views on folk magic were more complex. While hex doctors were feared in the Pennsylvania German tradition, powwowers were and are revered for their abilities to heal, lift curses and find lost objects. In this revealing study, author Thomas White traces the undercurrent of witchcraft and occultism through centuries of Pennsylvania history.

Author : Thomas White
Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
Page : 117 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2020-09-21
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781439671290

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The Witch of the Monongahela by Thomas White Pdf

A look at the folklore surrounding the legendary Pennsylvanian witch, and the facts behind them. In the ancient hills and misty hollows of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, generations of locals have passed down stories of a woman with mysterious magical powers. People came from near and far to seek healing and protection through her strange rituals. Some even believed she could fly. Named Moll Derry and nicknamed the Witch of the Monongahela, her legend has been documented by writers and folklorists for more than two hundred years. She is intertwined in many regional tales, such as the Lost Children of the Alleghenies and Polly Williams and the White Rocks. Author Thomas White separates fact from fiction in the many versions of Moll Derry and recounts Western Pennsylvania's folk magic history along the way.

Author : Richard L.T. Orth
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2018-01-22
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781476672267

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Folk Religion of the Pennsylvania Dutch by Richard L.T. Orth Pdf

For almost three centuries, the "Pennsylvania Dutch"--descended from German immigrants--have practiced white magic, known in their dialect as Braucherei (from the German "brauchen," to use) or Powwowing. The tradition was brought by immigrants from the Rhineland and Switzerland in the 17th and 18th centuries, when they settled in Pennsylvania and in other areas of what is now the eastern United States and Canada. Practitioners draw on folklore and tradition dating to the turn of the 19th century, when healers like Mountain Mary--canonized as a saint for her powers--arrived in the New World. The author, a member of the Pennsylvania Dutch community, describes in detail the practices, culture and history of faith healers and witches.

Author : Lu Ann Homza
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2022-04-25
Category : History
ISBN : 9780271092096

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Village Infernos and Witches’ Advocates by Lu Ann Homza Pdf

This book revises what we thought we knew about one of the most famous witch hunts in European history. Between 1608 and 1614, thousands of witchcraft accusations were leveled against men, women, and children in the northern Spanish kingdom of Navarre. The Inquisition intervened quickly but incompetently, and the denunciations continued to accelerate. As the phenomenon spread, children began to play a crucial role. Not only were they reportedly victims of the witches’ harmful magic, but hundreds of them also insisted that witches were taking them to the Devil’s gatherings against their will. Presenting important archival discoveries, Lu Ann Homza restores the perspectives of illiterate, Basque-speaking individuals to the history of this shocking event and demonstrates what could happen when the Spanish Inquisition tried to take charge of a liminal space. Because the Spanish Inquisition was the body putting those accused of witchcraft on trial, modern scholars have depended upon Inquisition sources for their research. Homza’s groundbreaking book combines new readings of the Inquisitional evidence with fresh archival finds from non-Inquisitional sources, including local secular and religious courts, and from notarial and census records. Expanding our understanding of this witch hunt as well as the history of children, community norms, and legal expertise in early modern Europe, Village Infernos and Witches’ Advocates is required reading for students and scholars of the Spanish Inquisition and the history of witchcraft in early modern Europe.

Author : Michael D. Bailey
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 136 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2021-02-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9780271089515

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Origins of the Witches’ Sabbath by Michael D. Bailey Pdf

While the perception of magic as harmful is age-old, the notion of witches gathering together in large numbers, overtly worshiping demons, and receiving instruction in how to work harmful magic as part of a conspiratorial plot against Christian society was an innovation of the early fifteenth century. The sources collected in this book reveal this concept in its formative stages. The idea that witches were members of organized heretical sects or part of a vast diabolical conspiracy crystalized most clearly in a handful of texts written in the 1430s and clustered geographically around the arc of the western Alps. Michael D. Bailey presents accessible English translations of the five oldest surviving texts describing the witches’ sabbath and of two witch trials from the period. These sources, some of which were previously unavailable in English or available only in incomplete or out-of-date translations, show how perceptions of witchcraft shifted from a general belief in harmful magic practiced by individuals to a conspiratorial and organized threat that led to the witch hunts that shook northern Europe and went on to influence conceptions of diabolical witchcraft for centuries to come. Origins of the Witches’ Sabbath makes freshly available a profoundly important group of texts that are key to understanding the cultural context of this dark chapter in Europe’s history. It will be especially valuable to those studying the history of witchcraft, medieval and early modern legal history, religion and theology, magic, and esotericism.

Author : Henry W. Shoemaker
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 28 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 1927
Category : Witchcraft
ISBN : MINN:319510009340125

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The Origins and Language of Central Pennsylvania Witchcraft by Henry W. Shoemaker Pdf

Author : Kirsten C. Uszkalo
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2017-02-22
Category : History
ISBN : 9780271090986

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Being Bewitched by Kirsten C. Uszkalo Pdf

In 1622, thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Jennings fell strangely ill. After doctors’ treatments proved useless, her family began to suspect the child had been bewitched, a suspicion that was confirmed when Elizabeth accused their neighbor Margaret Russell of witchcraft. In the events that followed, witchcraft hysteria intertwines with family rivalries, property disputes, and a web of supernatural beliefs. Starting from a manuscript account of the bewitchment, Kirsten Uszkalo sets the story of Elizabeth Jennings against both the specific circumstances of the powerful Jennings family and the broader history of witchcraft in early modern England. Fitting together the intricate pieces of this complex puzzle, Uszkalo reveals a story that encompasses the iron grip of superstition, the struggle among professionalizing medical specialties, and London’s lawless and unstoppable sprawl. In the picture that emerges, we see the young Elizabeth, pinned like a live butterfly at the dark center of a web of greed and corruption, sickness and lunacy.

Author : Thomas White
Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2020
Category : History
ISBN : 9781467145152

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Witch of the Monongahela, The: Folk Magic in Early Western Pennsylvania by Thomas White Pdf

In the ancient hills and misty hollows of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, generations of locals have passed down stories of a woman with mysterious magical powers. People came from near and far to seek healing and protection through her strange rituals. Some even believed she could fly. Named Moll Derry and nicknamed the Witch of the Monongahela, her legend has been documented by writers and folklorists for more than two hundred years. She is intertwined in many regional tales, such as the Lost Children of the Alleghenies and Polly Williams and the White Rocks. Author Thomas White separates fact from fiction in the many versions of Moll Derry and recounts Western Pennsylvania's folk magic history along the way.

Author : Stephen A. Mitchell
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2011-06-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9780812203714

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Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages by Stephen A. Mitchell Pdf

Stephen A. Mitchell here offers the fullest examination available of witchcraft in late medieval Scandinavia. He focuses on those people believed to be able—and who in some instances thought themselves able—to manipulate the world around them through magical practices, and on the responses to these beliefs in the legal, literary, and popular cultures of the Nordic Middle Ages. His sources range from the Icelandic sagas to cultural monuments much less familiar to the nonspecialist, including legal cases, church art, law codes, ecclesiastical records, and runic spells. Mitchell's starting point is the year 1100, by which time Christianity was well established in elite circles throughout Scandinavia, even as some pre-Christian practices and beliefs persisted in various forms. The book's endpoint coincides with the coming of the Reformation and the onset of the early modern Scandinavian witch hunts. The terrain covered is complex, home to the Germanic Scandinavians as well as their non-Indo-European neighbors, the Sámi and Finns, and it encompasses such diverse areas as the important trade cities of Copenhagen, Bergen, and Stockholm, with their large foreign populations; the rural hinterlands; and the insular outposts of Iceland and Greenland. By examining witches, wizards, and seeresses in literature, lore, and law, as well as surviving charm magic directed toward love, prophecy, health, and weather, Mitchell provides a portrait of both the practitioners of medieval Nordic magic and its performance. With an understanding of mythology as a living system of cultural signs (not just ancient sacred narratives), this study also focuses on such powerful evolving myths as those of "the milk-stealing witch," the diabolical pact, and the witches' journey to Blåkulla. Court cases involving witchcraft, charm magic, and apostasy demonstrate that witchcraft ideologies played a key role in conceptualizing gender and were themselves an important means of exercising social control.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 170 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2016-04-28
Category : History
ISBN : 9780271077529

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The Arras Witch Treatises by Anonim Pdf

This is the first complete and accessible English translation of two major source texts—Tinctor’s Invectives and the anonymous Recollectio—that arose from the notorious Arras witch hunts and trials in the mid-fifteenth century in France. These writings, by the “Anonymous of Arras” (believed to be the trial judge Jacques du Bois) and the intellectual Johannes Tinctor, offer valuable eyewitness perspectives on one of the very first mass trials and persecutions of alleged witches in European history. More importantly, they provide a window onto the early development of witchcraft theory and demonology in western Europe during the late medieval period—an entire generation before the infamous Witches’ Hammer appeared. Perfect for the classroom, The Arras Witch Treatises includes a reader-friendly introduction situating the treatises and trials in their historical and intellectual contexts. Scholars, students, and others interested in the occult will find these translations invaluable.

Author : Alan Charles Kors,Edward Peters
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 382 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 1972
Category : Middle Ages
ISBN : OCLC:164633681

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Witchcraft in Europe, 1100-1700 by Alan Charles Kors,Edward Peters Pdf

Author : Kathryn A. Edwards
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2002-10-25
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780271091099

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Werewolves, Witches, and Wandering Spirits by Kathryn A. Edwards Pdf

Bringing together scholars from Europe, America, and Australia, this volume explores the more fantastic elements of popular religious belief: ghosts, werewolves, spiritualism, animism, and of course, witchcraft. These traditional religious beliefs and practices are frequently treated as marginal in more synthetic studies of witchcraft and popular religion, yet Protestants and Catholics alike saw ghosts, imps, werewolves, and other supernatural entities as populating their world. Embedded within notarial and trial records are accounts that reveal the integration of folkloric and theological elements in early modern spirituality. Drawing from extensive archival research, the contributors argue for the integration of such beliefs into our understanding of late medieval and early modern Europe.

Author : Frank Klaassen,Sharon Hubbs Wright
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2021-02-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9780271089522

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The Magic of Rogues by Frank Klaassen,Sharon Hubbs Wright Pdf

In 1510, nine men were tried in the Archbishop’s Court in York for attempting to find and extract a treasure on the moor near Mixindale through necromantic magic. Two decades later, William Neville and his magician were arrested by Thomas Cromwell for having engaged in a treasonous combination of magic practices and prophecy surrounding the death of William’s older brother, Lord Latimer, and the king. In The Magic of Rogues, Frank Klaassen and Sharon Hubbs Wright present the legal documents about and open a window onto these fascinating investigations of magic practitioners in early Tudor England. Set side by side with sixteenth- and seventeenth-century texts that describe the sorts of magic those practitioners performed, these documents are translated, contextualized, and presented in language accessible to nonspecialist readers. Their analysis reveals how magicians and cunning folk operated in extended networks in which they exchanged knowledge, manuscripts, equipment, and even clients; foregrounds magicians’ encounters with authority in ways that separate them from traditional narratives about witchcraft and witch trials; and suggests that the regulation and punishment of magic in the Tudor period were comparatively and perhaps surprisingly gentle. Incorporating the study of both intellectual and legal sources, The Magic of Rogues presents a well-rounded picture of illicit learned magic in early Tudor England. Engaging and accessible, this book will appeal to anyone seeking to understand the intersection of medieval legal history, religion, magic, esotericism, and Tudor history.

Author : Matthew Lake
Publisher : Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Curiosities and wonders
ISBN : 9781402732799

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Weird Pennsylvania by Matthew Lake Pdf

The Quaker State, the Keystone State, the Coal State-Pennsylvania is called all of these. But we like to call it the Weird State, because there's enough strange stuff going on here to fill an encyclopedia or, better yet, a book appropriately called Weird Pennsylvania. And who better to chronicle this state's roadside oddities, ancient mysteries, ghosts, and bizarre beats than Matt Lake, who, just like Benjamin Franklin, isn't from our state at all but sure has it in his bones. From the time he first arrived here last century, Matt has traveled thousands of miles, searching out Pennsylvania's best kept secrets and oddest legends. Scuttling about by every means available-except maybe the horse-drawn vehicles favored by some of our more famous citizens-and with notebook and camera in hand, Matt has gamely entered haunted houses, trekked lesser-traveled roads, discreetly photographed shoe-shaped houses, and made his way warily through abandoned mental institutions. Sheer force of will stopped him from buying a heart-shaped bathtub at the Mount Airy Lodge auction, but he did explore the wreck of the place so that we, admirers of the weird, could see the sad demise of another bit of Pennsylvania strangeness. So turn the pages and see the Statue of Liberty in the Dauphin Narrows, the dead and buried Corvette near Irwin, the tiny town of Midgetville, the Ape Boy of Chester, and Resurrection Mary in Schnecksville. Traipse through ghostly Eastern State Penitentiary, listen to the Screaming Lady in Fort Mifflin, and sympathize with Mrs. Snell, who was rained on by mud, lots of mud. Swim with the Monster of Lake Erie, bravely wander down Devil's Road, chat with the Green Man of Pittsburgh, and, if you dare, sit beneath Skull Tree. It's all here, it's all for you, it's all...very weird. A brand-new entry in the best-selling Weird U. S. series, Weird Pennsylvania is packed with all the info about the Quaker State that your history teacher never taught you. So travel down our state's highways and byways with Matt by your side. It's a great adventure. And we promise: It's a journey you'll never forget. Book jacket.

Author : Alison Games
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2010-10-16
Category : History
ISBN : 1442203595

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Witchcraft in Early North America by Alison Games Pdf

Witchcraft in Early North America investigates European, African, and Indian witchcraft beliefs and their expression in colonial America. Alison Games's engaging book takes us beyond the infamous outbreak at Salem, Massachusetts, to look at how witchcraft was a central feature of colonial societies in North America. Her substantial and lively introduction orients readers to the subject and to the rich selection of documents that follows. The documents—some of which have never been published previously—include excerpts from trials in Virginia, New Mexico, and Massachusetts; accounts of outbreaks in Salem, Abiquiu (New Mexico), and among the Delaware Indians. This fascinating topic and the book's broad geographic and chronological coverage make this book ideally suited for readers interested in new approaches to colonial history and the history of witchcraft.