Witchcraft Magic and CUlture

            I did not particularly like this book especially because I thought that the placement of the chapters was not extremely well thought out.  However, it was extremely informative even if it was a little jumbled and quite dry.   Something I did like about this reading was that Davies focused solely on witchcraft in England, which was a nice change of pace from many of our other more general readings which tended to skip from place to place which could get quite confusing.  The book starts in 1736 right after Parliament had decided that witchcraft was no longer a criminal.  Much of what Davies says after this has already been summarized in other readings so I am going to focus on the topics that were addressed in this book that we have not really seen elsewhere. 

            Although witchcraft in literature was briefly discussed in Ankarloo and Clark, Davies gives a much more in depth explanation of what role magic and witches played in fantasy after 1736.  Witchcraft played a large role in chapbooks, which were popular from the 18^th century up until the mid-19^th century.  Publishers of these books realized the market for books about fortune telling and the supernatural, so they catered greatly to this audience.  Another interesting type of literature which magic played a role in was the Almanac, which made predictions of the future based on the stars, which the public seemed to hunger for.  There were also books used in order to denounce the belief in magic, although these often failed to get their point across to the reader. 

            Davies also focused on the practitioners of the occult.  These included cunning-folk, who people turned to when they needed help with a bewitching, finding lost items, medical treatment, and other such maladies.  These were often charlatans who knew how to string people along in order to get paid and they were often responsible for pointing our witches who violence later was used on.  Fortunetellers were also considered occult practitioners.  These people were not just seen by the lower class.  In fact, the elite often liked to use fortunetellers as a type of entertainment, somewhat similar to how many “physics” are used today at parties.