Witchcraft by Pennethorne Hughes

This is one of last year's I didn't get around to writing up.

Oft-cited in other witchy books I've read, Mr Hughes's does-what-it-says-on-the-tin guide to Witchcraft through the ages was probably a lot more revolutionary in its no-nonsense approach to witch facts and fiction than it is now.

Nevertheless, it was a good read. His amusing - sometimes lofty - tone is just what one would expect and hope for from a mid-twentieth-century historian, and I like that he manages our expectations by proclaiming early on that he won't be using any exclamation marks to draw attention to the especially interesting bits. Perhaps Aleister Crowley, some fifty years previously, could have taken a tip from Mr Hughes when penning his poetry.

Anyway, aside from curiously open-minded approaches to the evil eye and related voodoo-esque practices, Hughes's book is mainly concerned with dispelling the popular and fantastic image of witches (which largely prevails today - so I guess he failed) and with contextualising witchcraft and its supporting religious and social cultures within what we know of European history - specifically that of the British Isles.

In the latter, he's a bit vague in his Dark-Ages coverage (but then, I guess there's a reason they call them the Dark Ages). Nevertheless, he offers some interesting theories on the symbolism of fairy mythology. All this iron-fearing, church-bell-hating behaviour from little swarthy people who eat a lot of fruit and brew foreign headspin makes for a delectable caricature of pre-Celtic (neolithic?) Britain.

Whether fairy myths sprung from Picts or Britons or those who came before them (or those who came before those who came before them) remains conjecture. But Hughes's conjecture is pretty insightful, and founded in what seems to be a wide-reading of (his) contemporary pre-modern history.

His witch-hunting coverage is brief but well-handled, and his amusing portrayal of Matthew Hopkins as a dangerous and slightly odd man obsessed with supernumerary nipples does not disagree with Malcolm Gaskill's more detailed portreyal.

Still, being 50+ years old, there's a lot of "witch cult" and "diabolism" talk that sounds less historical and more fanciful than Hughes probably intended. Indeed, his was seemingly a very level-headed approach for his time. But nowadays I like to think we're less ashamed of what we don't know, and less inclined to cling to flimsy terms for things we reckon might have happened in the past. He does own that the "witchcraft" concept - regardless of outsiders' views - was a fluid thing though, and that it probably changed a great deal depending on the prevailing religious and cultural environment in which "it" was practiced. I am not explaining this very well, but it was months ago I read it, in my defence. Perhaps he was just trying to annoy his Wicca friends by poo-pooing the concept of a witchy tradition passed down secretly on the outskirts of a disapproving Christian society?

The truth must be that whatever its numerous origins, witchcraft in any of the forms we know it - historical or contemporary - cannot claim to exist independently from Christianity, whether or not it is in any way concerned with the relatively modern Christian concept of the Devil. Nor should anyone sensible claim anything of the sort on its behalf.

Though dated, this book is handy, if only to see how we got from there to here. Better books on the same subject exist nowadays from a historical point of view, no doubt; but Pennethorne Hughes's gift for narrative isn't matched by many. He does bang on about Margaret Murray a bit, like other witch historians I've read. I will have to dig deeper and pick up a copy of her version of events some day, no matter how all her followers (respectfully) disagree with many of the finer details of her "witch cult" hypothesis. She must be a big cheese, as few of these folks have their own Wikipedia page.

As an end note, a bookmark remains in my second-hand copy of this book: a blank white card that reads:

"Thank you for the first five wonderful years. / All my love forever / philip xx"

I don't know what to make of it.

The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley

Probably best-known as the basis for the Ken Russell film The Devils, this is also considered one of Aldous Huxley's best books.

It's one of those rare beasts: a non-fiction novel, according to some sources. Although, interesting as some of it was, I'd feel short-changed by any novel that was as slow-paced and ponderous as this.

Sure, it provided an insight into the period of French history (early-to-mid 17th century), or - more specifically - the history of demonology and possession in the Catholic church. But for me, randy old goat Urbain Grandier's life and adventures made up by far the more intriguing of the three biographies comprised in this (sometimes too-) detailed account of the Loudun possessions. So after he was dead, and we were stuck with the self-important mentalist, Soeur Jeanne, and the nonentity object-of-her-affections (and exorcist of choice), whose name I forget, the finishing of the next two thirds of the "novel" became a chore.

Huxley sums up his own view on things quite neatly in the following quote:

"Those who crusade, not for God in themselves but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better... ." (His italics.)

If that sounds like a statement of the bleedin' obvious to you, then you probably needn't read this book; but if it doesn't, or you're particularly interested in the sordid (or, more often, tedious) details of the life of a lunatic Frenchwoman in a 17th century nunnery, then this is the book for you.

I've read no Huxley before and on the basis of this - supposedly one of his better books - I won't be rushing back for more. He can turn a phrase, but he could do with editing a bit more.

Then again, this is history, so the service he's done in compiling all the evidence that made up this book (I assume he didn't make it all up himself, or it would be more interesting) was probably worthwhile regardless of how gripping I didn't find it.

A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin

Yep.

With my reading rate having dropped to a pitiful less-than-one-book-per-month I didn't hold out hope for finishing this before the baby's due date (August 4th).

Nor then did I necessarily expect to finish it this year, but it's amazing how much Mr. Martin's page-turning unputdownability (and other such clichés) singlehandedly reversed my recently acquired ambivalence to reading as an enjoyable act of freewill - as a hobby, which is what it ought to be, not a chore, which is what it sometimes seems - to the point that I've spent the last week (particularly when off sick from work) doing little but reading this book.

*** SPOILERS ALERT ***

I don't plan to recount the plot, as this blog serves the purpose of chronicling what I read, and what I felt about it, but it will inevitably follow that in writing up a book that's part of a series (something I don't often do, I suppose), some spoilage might be apparent for those who have not read this book and plan to, or worse still, those who have seen the recent HBO adaptation of the first book in the series, Game Of Thrones, and plan to set out and read the entire series.

First impressions, anyway: much better than the last book. I read the last book (A Feast For Crows) shortly after it came out (I think) and (I know) shortly after having read the first four in fairly quick succession. It was decidedly the weakest of a quite brilliant (thus far) series, and while it didn't show a dip in form exactly, its fragmented nature, covering as it did only half of the geographical terrain of the story so far and only half of the sub-plots and intrigues thus far developed, gave it a slightly disappointing, frustrating feel.

I'm still not convinced it was the right thing to do. I certainly don't imagine they will be able to film it that way, if they ever get around to it.

A Feast For Crows was mainly composed of new characters, new storylines, new sub-plots: particularly in introducing Dorne - a pretty large and complex and - due to its latecoming, disjointed feel - boring part of Westeros.

All that aside, ...Dragons seems to be the book ...Crows should have been, or at least the bits of the book that should have been part of it. But publishers didn't fancy a 2,000 page novel I suppose.

It's back to Westeros and Essos to follow some of the more central plotlines centred around some of the more beloved characters (I'm talking generally), such as Jon, Daenerys and Tyrion.

I don't include Bran in the above list because personally I inwardly groan every time his Pan's Boring Labyrinthe of a dead-end storyline rears its ugly head. I know this is purely subjective, but I wouldn't have felt I'd lost much if the last time we saw Bran was when he was shoved from a window in Winterfell by Jaime Lannister in Book 1.

I used to feel a bit unbothered about the Daenerys storyline, but with the added significance of the if-the-dragon-won't-come-to-Westeros... philosophy that's spread like jam among many of the secondary characters over the last few books, there's a really fun wild goose chase element to a lot of this volume, especially in following the unlikely antics of Tyrion, Victarion Greyjoy (my personal favourite - he's hilarious), that rubbish guy from Dorne, and the secret new character with blue hair.

There's a lot of people knocking about with false names in this volume, and I love the philosophical angle of identity that comes through with a lot of that, especially with the utterly horrible and brilliantly written Reek POV chapters: a right royal delve into the dingiest recesses of Martin's unashamedly grotty imagination.

'Reek' - or rather, his past-life self - has fast become my favourite character. I always thought he was a bit of a twonk, but have increasingly felt very, very sorry for him as the books have progressed. From a hopelessly humbling - even humiliating - upbringing he's gone from kick in the face to kick in the nuts right back to kick in the face again, to the point that where we find him in ...Dragons it's hard to tell what he fears more, his future, his present, or his past.

On a related note, Ramsay Bolton is one of the best characters in the books so far in my view - possibly the worst man in Westeros? Though there's plenty of competition - and his father has a few rare chances to have his character fleshed out in a suitably nasty manner in these pages.

Elsewhere, Stannis is hard to like, but a convincing character, and some of the POV choices in this volume (notably Davos, Melisandre, Cersei) give a nicely rounded feel to proceedings that was hard to get - or perhaps less necessary - at points in the past.

The massive cliffhangers at the end of this one are perhaps the most frustrating yet, maybe because this time I know (or think I know) I am faced with years' worth of waiting before I find out what happens next, and - more importantly of course - before I get to read it.


Predictions:

Bastard # 1 isn't dead... or he is and he'll come back as lord of the white walkers. Erm... hopefully the former. Bastard # 2 is full of crap and about to be pounded into the snow by the most boring man in Westeros. Victarion is going to ride a flying squid into the desert where he'll find the dragon lady sacking that interminably annoying multi-coloured brick city with a host of horse lords. Victarion will then explode in a shower of excitable black ink and cease to exist. Mace Tyrell will somehow become interesting. The sand snakes will struggle but ultimately fail to form individual identities within their collective whole. Bran will befriend a talking mushroom, very slowly, and continue to stay alive against all odds. Tyrion will mount Ser Mormont and ride him to Casterly Rock where he'll find Jaime Lannister in bed with Brienne and strangle them both. The little dragon boy will die at Storms End and they'll try and pretend he's still alive. Arya will officially spin off into her own series of YA fantasy books or - more likely - a really good computer game. Littlefinger will somehow become king while no one is watching. Varys will shake his fist in anger. Cersei's new zombie knight will kill her somehow. Greatjon Umber will eat the Twins: surviving Freys will be assimilated into the flora of Westeros.

Have I missed anything?

Oh, yes: everyone will start worshiping R'hllor.

So yes, in short: I have no idea. Every time I think something is inevitable, something completely unexpected happens. It's like the opposite of (my) real life, and I suppose that's why it makes such great reading.

I await a post-script interactive version where you can create your own novels by following the stories you want to follow and ignoring Bran. (I am only partly joking here.)

The Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau

Well, I'm not going to lie: I found this about as difficult as I expected.

I've long wondered about Dharmic religion and how (and why) it differs at its fundaments from Abrahamic religion.

But I've more often wondered just how different a concept of 'enlightenment' Buddhists have from, say, 18th century Europeans. And - you know, by extension - just what can be gained by sitting there doing nothing with your legs crossed for hours on end, probably up a mountain.

I've never been able to stay still for very long: not even during sleep. That's not to say I am what one might call an "active" person: on the contrary, I'm passive like Poland; passive like Paraguay probably is passive; passive like a massive but non-aggressive dinosaur. A diplodocus or something.

But I move a lot. I am jittery. I think it's a nervous condition related to my underlying certainty that pretty much most things around me could possibly kill me at any given point. Or maybe I've just got too much or not enough fluid in certain systems that may or may not be working as my evolution as an Homo Sapien reckons they ought to, at what one might call optimum capacity.

And it bothers me that a philosophy so centred on the mind (to attain enlightenment) seems to require a perfectly disciplined and functioning body to not really use.

Another thing - my stomach isn't great. Maybe that's due to my posture; maybe it's an absence or presence of certain enzymes. I don't know; it makes a lot of noise; it's already a focal point of my physical manifestation: I'm not sure I want my mental or spiritual being to be centred there at all. I quite like that bit being in (or near) my brain. Is that an issue?

Yep: ideas are bad.

Ideas are bad is the first lesson Mr Kapleau teaches his reader, and the first point at which my hackles were raised. (*Checks definition of hackles*)

"Idea-mongering" has always been discouraged by Zen masters, he says.

He doesn't mention, at this juncture, (or at any other for that matter), his beloved teacher Yasutani Roshi's vehement support of Imperial Japan and - by extension or possibly by actual association - nationalism, anti-semitism and, yep, you guessed it, only Nazi bloody Germany.

A pure and infinite discouragement of the notion of "ideas" as the way to create meaning out of the human existence I could entertain as what it is (philosophy), but looked at in the context of everything this book doesn't say it stinks of pretty much the same horse shit that every other religious text's teaching exudes: hypocricy. It seems to say that you oughtn't to have ideas unless they've been carefully orchestrated by your Zen master.

But to be fair, this book isn't wholly about doctrine; it's about practice: it's about what Zen Buddhists do.

That the book is invaluable for anyone really interested in Zen - as its lead "review" claims - can't really be contested. What bothers me is how soon I find fault with its author and his blinkered world view. It's not really what I expected. Once he's out of the way, things get better.

The dialogues between masters and students are genuinely interesting in their depiction (a presumably accurate one) of religious and pedagogical relationships. The revelations of Zen (if they can be so called when presented in this form which I imagine they can't) are just as everyday and as uninspiring as any others when presented in this manner.

There are a few colourful anecdotes to help illustrate why you are nothing and you are everything and if the universe dies you die too, but none of it is anything that any free-thinking mentally-healthy child hasn't toyed with if not firmly grasped by the age of about eleven.

The descriptions of enlightenment evoke the empty feeling of having completed your favourite computer game: particularly the ones that allow you to keep playing in the same world, despite there being no more for you to accomplish or to experience.

"What a curse a thought is: stop thinking; stop analysing", Kapleau seems to scream (and sometimes actually writes) throughout the text.

Yeah, I get you, but I'm struggling to see how this faith (if that's not too Abrahamic a word for it) can really help anyone but the lost, the desperate and the distraught.

The Zen structure seems no less geared toward the strong leading the week and the enlightened shepherding the ignorant than does Christianity. It's just a different goal: a promise of a reward here on earth, rather than in the afterlife.

You can tell by the personal accounts - certainly by those written by Westerners (especially the hilariously Martin-Amis-character-type American businessman) - that the quest for enlightenment is one that calls to people who have often searched rigorously and thoroughly in other walks of life: the corporate environment; Christianity; vegetarianism, and God only knows where else.

I think the reason Mr. Zen Pyramid sent me this book to read was in response to a poem I wrote ('Beware Enlightenment') about the fads and fashions of philosophy and the pitfalls of theism and atheism. The cover note inside the book said "When having doubts becomes a way of life".

It was a confused more than a confusing poem and - like many from my recently-ground-to-a-halt collection Has Doubts - its aim was to explore the human interaction with these human concepts of God, knowledge, philosophy, etc: to ask questions, not to provide answers (despite the advisory nature of the statement in its title).

The word 'Enlightenment' as I used it was mainly a reference to the 18th century fad (a fad still going, arguably) for emphasising logic and reason above superstition and supernature. But it was at least partly a catch-all term for any reactionary philosophy. Because, as I said in another poem earlier in the same project - (excuse me while I quote myself) -* "...what are answers but / Questions when the're dead?"

And if I have to explain the cyclical nature of that (most certainly rhetorical) question up there, and/or its deliberate grammatical ambiguity, then why are you still reading this blog post? (That's another rhetorical one: you're bored, certainly.)

I think what this proves to me is that nobody else's teaching or practice or enlightenment is every going to be good enough for me. I may very well fashion quite the same pillars if left to my own devices with chisel and stone, and indeed I have - I'm convinced I became enlightened in the Zen sense at around the age of 11 or 12 on a school playing field: during a game of football, in fact - but I'd personally rather use my experience to inform my next question. I don't want to keep playing the same computer game on the 'easy' setting; I might want to take up a whole new computer game, or - you know - kayaking or origami or something.

Or sitting around having and dismissing ideas.

Maybe even mongering a few.

In summary, then: this book was a difficult read. Interesting, informative, and worthwhile, but I don't think it's changed my life especially. (Although it might have: I might not know it yet.)

I'm off to read some George R. R. Martin now.

Catch you later!

AV


* that was a punctuation joke there. I'll explain it if you buy me a drink. 

Isadora, an Intimate Portrait by Sewell Stokes

Sewell Stokes was only 26 when he wrote and published Isadora, an Intimate Portrait - his very short biography of Isadora Duncan, a woman as famous for being strangled by an impractically long printed silk scarf as she was for pioneering modern dance.

That it focuses on such a small part of the dancer's 50 years on this planet is due in no small part to the fact that it's essentially a memoir written by Stokes (ostensibly at Duncan's behest - more on that later) to complement the subject's own memoirs ('My Life' by Isadora Duncan), which she was writing at the time of her death, and which she is writing for the length of this vaguely chronological reminiscence of the days Stokes spent with her in Nice in the late 1920s.

That this young writer befriended a scandalous, washed-up, fat old woman (which is how the press and - by extension - the public then saw her) might seem odd; she was twice his age and had nothing by way of money or connections to offer him.

But there's no denying the obvious affection with which Stokes writes about his late friend; what from the outside looks like a cash-in - a sort of "my unique perspective on the dead gal everyone's suddenly so interested in" - soon changes shape as you journey through Stokes' early acquaintance with Isadora, and how he visibly warms to her nonconformist, helplessly unrealistic world view.

Isadora is a proto-feminist, kind of: but more accurately, perhaps, she's an artist, a hedonist, and an utterly hopeless romantic. Hardly iconoclastic by today's standards, in her time she was a "female Casanova", tarred with the brushes of Communism and lesbianism and no-doubt other isms I don't fully understand, relating to ballet and classical music and suchlike.

Stokes jokes about her contradictory nature: her continued dismissal of jazz music as vulgar, but her involuntary attachment to the popular dancing tunes of the day; her class and style, and her boorishness and dishevelment; her shallow insistence on the overall importance of beauty, and her depth of passion and artistic belief.

Perhaps he speculates a little more than he ought about the reasons for her increasing isolation and desperation (her children's drowning, her lovers' deaths and departures): but he does so as a  concerned friend rather than an idle journalist.

She is still a great dancer - Stokes recognises - but damns herself by living outside her means and squandering opportunities for patronage by insulting rich American men who she finds dull and unfathomable. She's entirely likable, consequently, but entirely tragic with or without the ignominy of her final moments, which are almost brushed over as insignificant here. It seems that Stokes - recognising in her a propensity to drink a glass or two more than happy people normally do (both metaphorically and actually) - felt something would happen sooner rather than later: it hardly mattered what.

As I mentioned earlier, Stokes makes clear in one exchange that Isadora asked him to write about her - is it true? It's certainly the sort of thing such people as Isadora would say to a writer, and Stokes recounts her continued frustration with her own memoirs project, which she was undertaking for the most part for much-needed money, to keep her (and her few remaining friends) in caviar and champagne, and to fund her art schools that would teach children how to "grow up beautifully".

But before doing this he admits that when he met Isadora he had the idea of a "realistic" biography in mind: of writing a close, personal and human portrait of a friend or acquaintance. It almost seems odd that he would admit to this. Perhaps he made it up: no one can know.

He was young, mind you, and his Intimate Portrait is no awesome literary feat: more an everyday pair of eyes staring in wonder at a rather startling painting; a young, anonymous English writer, passing through the weird and hardly-wonderful world of a debt-addled europhile American, perpetually refusing to act in accordance with her age or the age in which she lived. He acknowledges Isadora's genius, but quotes Isadora herself as saying:

"I'd stand children of genius up against the wall and shoot them all. It would be the kindest thing to do."

Stokes' book serves as an epilogue, then, to her autobiography; it fills in the blanks of the last few years of her life, which she hadn't the time to complete herself. For her fans and others interested in her life (or even her work, to a point) it serves a purpose as a secondary source, including a few choice anecdotes she felt she couldn't include in anything written before her death. It is billed as a myth-busting "portrait" of the real Isadora Duncan, but it reads like tidy and dignified punctuation.

I haven't read her memoirs, and had never really heard of her before picking this book up from a second-hand shelf in the café of a National Trust property. I read it because I thought it would be interesting to judge Stokes on the level of exploitation involved in the publication of these memoirs.

What I found was that I couldn't judge him particularly, at least not on ethical grounds, but that regardless of how Isadora Duncan might have felt about Stokes' unglamorous yet sympathetic take on her character, it was at least meant as a great compliment that she inspired this book.

Sharaf by Raj Kumar

I didn't finish this book, and in the past - while I have written about books I didn't finish - I haven't written about any books I got only 10% of the way through.

This was sent to me by a small publishing house called Myrmidon, as a result of me signing up my name to a list saying I'd be willing to read and/or review new titles on their list as and when they were published.

('As and when' is such a pointless phrase...)

To be fair, I probably wouldn't have picked this up if I saw it in a shop - even a charity shop. The strapline of 'Forbidden love in the kingdom of faith and honour' certainly sounds like story material, but it also sounds like a well-trod literary path, and the back blurb does nothing to convince me of its USP among the effectively infinite pool of world literature from whence I barely have time to sup in this hectic middle age of my life.

They spelled my name wrong on the jiffy bag, and there's a glaring copy error on the back cover ("Out [of] love for her father"), so in spite of the nicely-printed if arguably naff cover, I was already unconvinced by the professionalism of this enterprise.

I thought I'd give it a go though, because you never know, do you?

It was alright. Not terrible, but really not very good. From the off it's clearly trading on its exoticism: there's a glossary of Arabic/Saudi words on the first page, which sort of brings to mind teen fantasy novels, if anything.

And I think about half of the sentences in the first chapter end with the qualification "...which was traditional" or "...as was traditional". Other variations on this theme include "as a devout Muslim," and "as only men are allowed to do": this constant reminder that I am reading about a culture that's not mine is strangely patronsing: the constant reassurances that all of the weird and wonderful things (quite often just things I have here with different names) are "traditional" and the stylistically jarring italicising of these foreign words is a persistent thump around the ear for a reader (such as I was) desperately trying to find a way into the text.

It's almost as if the lowest level of intellect has been assumed of the reader, which you can sort of understand why a writer would do, but I reckon you have to be more optimistic, otherwise your first few chapters come across as a very boring Religious Education lesson. (With a bit of History thrown in for bad measure.)

In terms of what is conventionally thought of as good and bad writing, outside of my own prejudices, the first two chapters of Sharaf (I did make it to the end of number two, actually) are pretty close to an exercise in what not to do: it's all a whole lot of tell, and not much show. Nothing is left to the imagination, and everything is spelled out as though for an infant. Take this, which is essentially an enormous speech tag:

"[QUESTION] ...Joe inquired, knowing the only religion allowed to be practiced in the Kingdom was Islam and that everyone had to declare a belief in God or were denied a visa."

Aside from the fact I'm not convinced of the grammatical integrity of the above, I can't imagine a clumsier way of conveying the information - or the character's knowledge of that information - to the audience.

You know what? We could probably have guessed. And if not, who cares? We're sure to find out - in context - later. This is, quite simply, bad writing.

Bah.

None of the characters had really come to life by the point I gave up, either; I witnessed the meeting between the romantic protagonists and was as unmoved as a horse by a bluebottle that lands on its eyelid. (I.e., I might have blinked.)

Stopped reading then. Went back to non-fiction. More on that later.

Sharaf is out now. You can buy it here, or you can have my copy. I won't be needing it.

Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-century English Tragedy by Malcolm Gaskill

I'd say "obsession" is too strong a word.

I have developed a particular interest in the history of witchcraft and demonology, though, particularly in and around Europe in the period from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

It's not as narrow a field as you may think, proven by the fact that the rather specific focus of this book - Witchfinders by Malcolm Gaskill - is one that's barely been touched on by previous books I've read on or around those subjects.

The subject is the lives of Matthew Hopkins ("The Witchfinder General") and John Stearne, and that focus brings a human angle to the story that is often lost in other accounts - certainly among the material dealing with the persecutors, as - naturally - it's much easier to emapthise with the victims in the witch trials than their tormentors and their executioners.

This book takes something of a story angle although it's not perhaps as dramatically structured as its title might suggest: it remains dry, unembellished non-fiction and for all its details and evocative portrayal of life in East England during the Civil War, it is a book that perfectly exemplifies the everyday tedium of evil.

Set at a veritable crossroads in history where science was coming to influence the rich (some of them at least) as much as religion but the poor remained as devoutly superstitious as ever they had been, Witchfinders paints a pretty bleak picture of the existence of the working classes (especially working class women) in the world-turned-upside-down mayhem of Essex and East Anglia under the influence of Cromwell.

Conventional wisdom (and the Malleus) would tell us papal edicts and Dominican inquisitors are to blame for the fiery misogynistic genocide of Europe's pagan females, but obviously the truth is far more complex than that. Certainly it seems England's own witch craze developed a little later than those in, say, Germany or Spain, and was nowhere near as bloody or as far-reaching: and nobody was burned. You could be burned for adultery against your husband, but not for witchcraft: not in England. A good clean hanging, instead, was your reward for fraternisation with the dark arts.

About those dark arts: they're more or less the same as elsewhere and formed from a[n un]healthy concoction of superstition, Christian mythology, pagan mythology and common or garden misanthropy, misogyny and neighbourly mistrust. Hopkins and Stearne's records recount a nationwide menagerie of imps suckling at women's (and men's) teats: hidden teats, often found in genital areas and almost as often unsuccessfully defended as hemorrhoids. There was the odd Sabbath but by this point in history most magistrates refused to acknoweldge the likelihood of broomstick flight, so imps, blood suckling and wicked pacts with Satan it was.

Actually, Satan was recognised by most as a concept rather than a "hairy bed-hopping goat man" (paraphrased), and therefore - along with flight and other forms of magic - not considered a legal issue. (I did say most though: see Gareth Medway).

It's a comprehensive book and offers about as much information as there is to be had about the characters and influences of Hopkins and Stearne, to the point that they are painted as very human monsters, but always a little too far out of reach to recognise as fully-formed individuals.

It's a shame so little of their real selves remains (some might not agree), but Gaskill does well to rebuild their world as faithfully as he can in the pages of Witchfinders. Indeed, unless you've a confirmed interest in the subject matter you will find the endless village names, cattle-murdering allegations, trials and hangings all a bit repetitive and even tedious, but personally I'm glad to live in a time when such exemplary and exhaustive history is made so publicly accessible.

The dark, dark punchline of Gaskill's conclusion is that all of this still goes on daily in sub-Saharan Africa: a truly chilling reminder of the proximity of our barbarous past in the modern world.

Who's going to write that book?