Benevolent Magic and "The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft"

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[This post discusses the extraordinarily informative website The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft. Here is how they like to be cited: Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin, Joyce Miller and Louise Yeoman, 'The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft', http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/witches/ (archived January 2003, accessed March 2013).]

Over at the "The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft" website, one can read the following, on the page "Introduction to Scottish Witchcraft":

"Q. Were the witches midwives or healers?
A. Not usually. We have recorded 9 individuals whose occupation was recorded as being a midwife, and for 10 people midwifery practices were included as part of the accusations of witchcraft levelled against them. This is a tiny percentage of the overall total. Folk healing was more common and featured in the witchcraft accusations of 141 people—about 4%. Even so, it was not something that the typical witch seems to have engaged in—though the beliefs that underpinned folk healing were closely related to witchcraft beliefs. If magic could be used to heal, it could also be used to harm."

On the face of it this seems very straightforward. A simple matter of arithmetic. But if we drill down a little into the database itself, the picture quickly become more interesting.

"Folk healing" and "midwifery" are two of the sixteen different categories that the researchers at the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft call "characterizations". Here are all sixteen in descending order (according to how many cases were found to possess the particular "characterization" in question): 

1. Implicated by another Witch 948
2. Demonic 528
3. Maleficium 414
4. Folk Healing 141
5. Neighborhood dispute 120
6. Fairies 113
7. Unorthodox religious practice 85
8. Demonic Possession 79
9. White magic 70
10. Property Motive 62
11. Political motive 52
12. Consulting 46
13. Other/Unknown 23 
14. Treason  19
15. Refused charity to economic dependent 19
16. Midwifery 10

Right off the bat one can see a major problem, for there is no way that these numbers add up to 3,413, which (apparently) is the total number of cases that was used to arrive at the "about 4%" figure, which in turn was used to justify the claim that magical healing was not something that the "typical" Scottish Witch was involved with. The disparity is even greater when we realize that there is a great deal of overlap due to the fact that many trials involved two or more of the sixteen "characterizations".

Let me put that another way, before getting into the gruesome details: the percentage given ("about 4%") is artificially small because the total number of cases used to calculate the percentage is greatly exaggerated. The total is exaggerated because it is mostly (see below) made up of cases for which we have no idea what the accused Witches in question were actually accused of. It is highly misleading to include those cases in which we have no information of any kind about what the accused person actually did, as if these cases represented positive evidence of what accused Witches did not do.

In fact, it turns out that less than half (1,511) of all the surviving trial records in the database have any information that allows for assigning any of the sixteen categories to them. This is easily verified by going to the "Search the database" page, then selecting "Search for cases of witchcraft by date and characterisation" link. Once there you go to the "characterization" table and select everything except for "any" (that particular selection is fairly misleading, for it does not mean "any characterization" but, rather "any case, regardless of whether or not it has any characterization assigned to it"), and then over to the right be sure to select the "Any selected option (OR)" button. This means you are selecting every case for which at least one of the sixteen different "characterizations" has been assigned. Then you click the 'Search Cases" button and, voila, a list of all cases matching that search appears, with the total number of cases helpfully appearing at the top of the list.

But it gets even worse, because almost half of these 1,511 cases, in turn, have "implicated by another Witch" as the only "characterization" that has been applied to the case, and this obviously has no bearing on what the accused Witch was actually accused of doing (or wasn't accused of doing). And so if we now eliminate those trials for which the only characterization was that it involved "implication by another Witch", which, to repeat, tells us nothing about what the accused Witch was actually accused of, there are only 876 cases left. Here is a brief summary:

3,413 cases total (the number of cases returned with all filters set to "any")
1,511 cases with enough information for one or more "characterization"
876 cases with any "characterization" other than "implicated by another Witch"

This suddenly increases by fourfold (up to 16%) the percentage of Witches involved in folk healing, if we limit ourselves, as we should, to only those cases where we have some factual, documented basis for saying whether or not the accused were involved in such practices.

But there is also another category that demands our attention: "white magic," which is category #9 in the full list of all sixteen "characterizations" listed above. For some reason, the term "white magic" isn't included in the (otherwise) very helpful glossary at the site, but it is discussed in the paper "Survey of Scottish Witchcraft Database Documentation and Description," where one reads that "white magic" encompasses a variety of activities including astrology, love magic, and finding lost goods. The grand total of cases involving either "folk healing", "midwifery", or "white magic" brings us up to 181 cases, which is 21% of all cases for which such information is available.

In other words, the answer to the question "were Witches midwives or healers?" is a simple "yes". This becomes even more the case if we further include other documented cases of beneficial magic ("white magic") along with "folk healing" and "midwifery". And on top of all that we must add the fact that Witches who practiced healing and other forms of beneficial magic tend to be systematically underrepresented in the trial records, because they were less likely to have charges brought against them .

The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft is an extraordinarily informative website. It is a shame that it is to some extent marred by such an egregious misrepresentation of the very data that it provides. The relationship between beneficial magic and Witchcraft is now a very "hot topic" in the scholarly study of historical Witchcraft. Unfortunately, a few scholars involved in this field appear to have an agenda that impels them to exaggerate the malefic characterizations of Witches and Witchcraft, while either denying outright, or systematically trying to diminish the clearly documented historical relationship between Witches and beneficial magic. Because certain widely respected scholars are now very aggressively promoting such an agenda, it is possible even for unbiased researchers, let alone the "lay" public at large, to unintentionally become convinced of (and even complicit in the spread of) crude misrepresentations of historical Witches.

Witchcraft and Benevolent Magic in Finland

Below are three excerpts from the writings of Raisa Maria Toivo on Witchcraft in Finland. The first two are from her book Witchcraft and Gender in Early Modern Society: Finland and the Wider European Experience (Ashgate 2008), and the third is from her article Marking (dis)order: witchcraft and the symbolics of hierarchy in late seventeenth and early eighteenth century Finland, which is the first chapter of the anthology Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and Magic in Enlightenment Europe, edited by Owen Davies and Willem De Blécourt (Manchester, 2004).

excerpt 1

Benevolence or malevolence was a relative quality, begging the definition of good and bad and from whose side is that determined. Rather a lot of benevolent magic consisted of ensuring healthier and more productive cattle, better fishing luck, more butter and beer and so on, but the rest of the villagers present this magic as theft; 'milk thieves' were commonly spoken of. Curing illnesses was often seen as transferring it to someone--or something--else. Exposing thieves and so forth might well be less than righteous and good when a petty thief--as despised and dishonest as they were--was uncovered through deadly accidents. Most often maleficium and vikdskepelse were confused in courts. Moreover, there is not, in the Finnish material, any way to distinguish between witches who performed malevolent witchcraft and those who performed different kinds of benevolent magic: they are the same people, even when semi-professional, and charges were often mixed in the same trials.
[pp. 41-2 in Witchcraft and Gender in Early Modern Society: Finland and the Wider European Experience]

excerpt 2
The question of witchcraft and power must not be asked on the basis of a benevolent/malevolent distinction. In most cases of good magic, one could ask whom it was good for: if a thief was caught by making him mad, was it good? Moreover, most witches in the Finnish material as well as elsewhere seem to have performed both kinds of magic; good and bad, causing and curing illness, procruring cattle luck and stealing it, as all Agata's trials [referring to multiple legal proceedings involving Agata Pekantyär during the 1670s and 1680s] show. The witnesses in all Agata's witchcraft trials recounted both benevolent and harmful magic, and the same is true of Risto Olavinpoinka, the semi-professional witch who was the Sawo household's favorite son-in-law's father. It is also true of many other witches from the 1660s onwards--before that, benevolent magic was rarely prosecuted in secular courts.

The tasks of good and bad witches were not clearly defined, and, like most Europeans, Finns, too, believed that witches, saints and in general people who could make bad things good, cure illnesses or improve bad luck could also cause the same things. The line between good and bad magic seems an arbitrary one, imposed from outside by contemporary elites and later historians. Moreover, harmful as well as benevolent magic may command a certain amount of respect, if it is thought of as an ability to influence things which others cannot, a knowledge which others do not have.
[p. 131 in Witchcraft and Gender in Early Modern Society: Finland and the Wider European Experience]

excerpt 3
[T]he story of a widow called Agata Pekantyär is very instructive. Agata worked a sizeable farm in Ulvila. Like most of those accused of witchcraft and vidskepelse [benevolent magic], but contrary to some modern popular beliefs, she was neihter old nor poor. She was linked to some of the cases already described. She appeared as a witness in the aforementioned case of defamation, for example, and the aunt of the man supposedly killed by Heikki Yrjönpoika Janckari and Risto Olavipoinka had previously accused Agata of vidskepelse. The web of accusations and counter-accusations at this period obviously trapped a significant portion of the parish. Agata found herself prosecuted for 'benevolent' magic in 1675 and 1676, and on both occasions she was merely sentenced to pay fines. Ten years later she was accused of flying to Blåkulla, a famous witches' meeting place where extraordinary sabbaths occurred, and also charged once again for benevolent magic. The jury considered the accusation concerning Agata's flight to Blåkulla less than reliable, and it was remarked that the witness who made the allegation was prone to drinking too much. Some of the other accusations took a little longer to refute, but refuted they were and she was finally acquitted. At the end of the 1690s a fourth accusation about her activities was aired but never came to court, although the rumour was mentioned in a separate trial to clear the reputation of another alleged witch.
[p. 11 in Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and Magic in Enlightenment Europe]

"All agreed that it was Witchcraft." (A case of beneficent Witchcraft in Sweden)

The following passage is from Magic, Body and the Self in Eighteenth-Century Sweden by Jaqueline Van Gent (Brill, 2009), chapter five, "The Ambiguity of Magic."
http://books.google.com/books?id=xqAcJ3KiRv4C

In 1709, when Anna Thoresdotter and her daughter, Kierstin, had to defend themselves against the accusation of theft and the use of superstition, they stated very clearly their ideas about the meaning of their special powers:

the widow Anna Thoresdottir [said that she] had neither learned nor used any superstition at any time, but admitted that all she could do was to bless pain [Signa Wred] which she does not regard as a damned or sinful, but rather as a useful art, in which she uses the following word or blessing over folk and animals: 'Jesus stroked over a joint, so badly did his horse hurt its foot that Jesus dismounted [from the horse]." In this way she blessed the painful [wredna] blood in Jesus' blessed name.

This blessing Anna Thorseottir occasionally used, with success, and she did not believe that she had committed any sin, for goo and pious words were used.

In contrast, the local court regarded Anna's magical healing practices as sinful. For her misuse of Jesus' name, her Christian faith was further questioned in subsequent interrogations. To Anna, however, there was no contradiction between her blessing of people and animals, and her Christianity. Instead, she represented herself as being in the succession of Christ, emphasizing repeatedly that Jesus himself, 'when he was in flesh on earth', had sued these words.

In the course of Anna Thoresdottir's trial, other witnesses from her local community accused her directly and indirectly of witchcraft. Although nobody interpreted her magical practices as sin or blashpemy, all agreed that it was witchcraft.
[p. 159]

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"England is indeed the one country outside Italy to display the most obvious similarities with Venice as far as witchcraft practices are concerned." (from Ruth Martin)

Below are some selected passages from Ruth Martin's book, Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice, 1550-1650, (Blackwell, 1989). These quotes from Ruth Martin's book all appeared in an earlier post in this blog: "A Different World"? (Ronald Hutton's Recantations, Part Deux) :
 

"[t]here is clear evidence of a great deal of interpenetration of 'popular' and 'learned' beliefs throughout this period ... but the actual mingling of these two strands, if they ever were entirely separate, seems to have taken place earlier [that is, prior to 1550] ...."
[p. 225]

"Until more work is done on Venetian social history as a whole it will be hard to draw ... conclusions .... Even so, it seems that witchcraft of one type or another held an interest for people from all levels of society .... Womens' social standing ranged from the gentildonne who would often consult witches or even try the experiments themselves, through wives of retailers and craftsmen, to washerwomen, arsenal workers (making sails or ropes), the wives of boatmen, prostitutes, to some with no visible means of income at all. Witchcraft had in fact become the main craft of many, hence their titles: la Pirotta, la Caballada, l'Astrologo and la medegha."
[p. 234]

"There was also a close degree of contact between the different classes of Venetian society. The rich and poor lived side by side and the flow of ideas and beliefs between them must have been considerable. As we have seen, the distinction between the 'learned' and the 'popular' elements of witchcraft beliefs in Venice was not always easy to define. This distinction has perhaps been overemphasized in the past in any case. Christina Larner's recent work on Scottish witchcraft, for instance, has revealed a considerable degree of interpenetration between the so-called learned and popular beliefs. In Venice this sharing of beliefs by popular and learned elements of society was even closer."
[p. 243]

"It is clear that Venetian witchcraft was by no means unique. Each category of witchcraft in Venice ... paralleled what is known to have existed elsewhere in Europe during the period and, no doubt, outside this period as well ....

"Necromancy, or the practice of the learned tradition of magic, was current throughout a great part of Europe, and certainly throughout Italy during this period. Some records still survive for the Holy Office of the Roman Inquisition which contain copies of certain processi, usually just the sentence and/or abjuration, which were forwarded to Rome from all over Italy. Necromantic exploits feature prominently in these records. The sentence of the 1580 Vicentine trial against Antonio de Franci, for instance, refers to the work of Pietro d'Abbano and to the Clavicula Salomonis being used used in the celebration of a mass as part of a love magic ceremony. There is little doubt that these and other books of magic like them circulated widely in Europe during this period as did the corrupted versions of traditions evident in many of the conjurations and divinatory experiments seen in Venice.

"At a different level of society other forms of witchcraft also were all part of what was presumably a Europen-wide system of popular beliefs. Mary O'Neil describes the same experiments, with some local modifications, being practiced in Modena. The Udine records, and those in Trinity College, Dublin, covering the whole of Italy contain references to similar practices. Indeed, whenever the available records provide us with a glimpse into traditional beliefs and activities, for instance those of the so-called 'cunning folk' in England, we see time and time again what were basically the same types of witchcraft as those observed in Venice.

"England is indeed the one country outside Italy to display the most obvious similarities with Venice as far as witchcraft practices are concerned .... [T]he nature of the records in each area enables us to see beyond the large trails, the epidemics of witch-hunting, to the day-to-day beliefs and attitudes of the population as a whole .... The Venetian records provide us ... with a detailed picture of a way of life ... [W]hat Venice shows us was, broadly speaking, the picture throughout most of Europe."
[pp. 239-241]

How to Distinguish "Witchcraft" From "Maleficium" (with a little help from Jonathan Seitz)

From: Witchcraft and Inquisition in Early Modern Venice, by Jonathan Seitz (Cambridge, 2011)
http://books.google.com/books?id=zWSx4FVsYxUC

"In practice, most of the terms and categories the historical actors used when discussing crimes of magic were remarkably unstable, elastic, and imprecise. Just as the Venetian Inquisition's charge of 'Lutheranism' embraced all manner of Protestantism, so the tribunal's (Latin) charge of sortilegium usually signified magical divination, but it also applied to other categories of misconduct, such as the practicing of harmful magic, otherwise termed maleficium. In Italian, magical acts could be termed variously as magia (magic generally), fatture (usually malevolent magic), erbere (literally herbal magic, but also used to denote divination or witchcraft more broadly), stregheria (witchcraft generally), maleficio (harmful magic), or divinazione or sortilegio (divination). Someone who engaged in any of these activities could be called a strega (female) or stregone (male) or an erbera, a term that was sometimes applied to female healers as well. A Venetian suffering from a magical attack might be called guasto (literally 'broken' or 'spoiled'), ammaliato, fatturato, maleficiato, or stregato.

"To impose some order on these overlapping, shifting terms, I will use the term maleficio to mean harmful magic causing illness or injury, and "witchcraft" to encompass practices--performed predominantly by women in the lower orders of Venetian society--of divination, maleficio, love magic, and the like. Such activities were usually free of the theoretical underpinnings of natural magic practiced predominantly by high-class males. The term 'magic' will stand in as an umbrella for all of these practices, while 'bewitched' and 'sickened' will be used to translate the various terms describing the victims of a magical attack."
[p. 12]

To summarize: "Witchcraft" (or, in Italian, Stregheria or Erbere) can refer to any number of beneficial magical practices, including herbal medicine (and other healing arts), divination, and love magic. Those who are expert in these arts can be called many things, including Witch (or in Italian Strega or Erbera). Those who claim that Witches are hated, malevolent workers of malefic magic are either unfamiliar with the truth, or knowingly distort it.

And now for a few links:

• A review of Seitz' book by Thomas Deutscher at H-Net:
  http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=35798
• Raven Grimassi on Italian Folk Magic and Witchcraft:
  http://www.ravengrimassi.net/FolkView.htm
• Max Dashu on "The Politics of Witchcraft Studies":
  http://www.suppressedhistories.net/secrethistory/witchpolitics.html
• Sally Scully on "Marriage or a career? Witchcraft as an alternative in seventeenth-century Venice":
  http://www.stregheria.com/Witchcraft-Venice.htm

Of White Witches, Rattlesnakes, David Hume, and Jean Jacques Rousseau (1807)

And now for something completely different, here's an excerpt from An account of the life and writings of David Hume, by Thomas Edward Ritchie, first published in 1807 (http://books.google.com/books/about/An_account_of_the_life_and_writings_of_D.html?id=fjQIAAAAQAAJ). (The backstory on this is long, and deep, and totally fascinating, btw.):

The following jeu-d'esprit, which was printed in some of the periodicals of the day, is really a pretty accurate abridgment of Rousseau's paper. It has the appearance of having been written by a Scottish lawyer : —

Heads of an Indictment laid by J. J. Rousseau, philosopher, against D. Hume, Esq.

1. That the said David Hume, to the great scandal of philosophy, and not having the fitness of things before his eyes, did concert a plan with Mess. Tronchin, Voltaire, and D'Alembert, to ruin the said J. J. Rousseau for ever, by bringing him over to England, and there settling him to his heart's content.

2. That the said David Hume did, with a malicious and traitor- ous intent, procure, or cause to be procured, by himself, or somebody else, one pension of the yearly value of £100 or thereabouts, to be paid to the said J. J. Rousseau, on account of his being a philoso- pher, either privately or publicly, as to him the said J. J. Rousseau should seem meet.

3. That the said David Hume did, one night after he left Paris, put the said J. J. Rousseau in bodily fear, by talking in his sleep ; although the said J. J. Rousseau doth not know whether the said David Hume was really asleep, or whether he shammed Abraham, or what he meant.

4. That, at another time, as the said David Hume and the said J.J. Rousseau were sitting opposite each other by the fire-side in London, he the said David Hume did look at him, the said J.J. Rousseau, in a manner of which it is difficult to give any idea; that he the said J.J. Rousseau, to get rid of the embarrassment he was under, endeavored to look full at him, the said David Hume, in return, to try if he could not stare him out of countenance; but in fixing his eyes against his, the said David Hume's, he felt the most inexpressible terror, and was obliged to turn them away, insomuch that the said J.J. Rousseau doth in his heart think and believe, as much as he believes anything, that he the said David Hume is a certain composition of a white-witch and a rattle-snake.

5. That the said David Hume on the same evening, after politely returning the embraces of him, the said J. J. Rousseau, and gently tapping him on the back, did repeat several times, in a good-natured easy tone, the words, Why what my dear Sir ! Nay my dear Sir! Oh my dear Sir!— From whence the said J. J. Rousseau doth conclude, as he thinks upon solid and sufficient grounds, that he the said David Hume is a traitor ; albeit he, the said J. J. Rousseau, doth acknowledge, that the physiognomy of the good David is that of an honest man, all but those terrible eyes of his, which he must have borrowed ; but he the said J. J. Rousseau vows to God he cannot conceive from whom or what.

6. That the said David Hume hath more inquisitiveness about him than becometh a philosopher, and did never let flip an opportunity of being alone with the govemante of him the said J. J. Rousseau......

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"The White-Witch is presently sent for to bless.": John Brinley on White Witches (1680)

Here are two quotes from John Brinley's relatively minor and reputedly unoriginal book on Witchcraft, first published in 1680: The Discovery of the Impostures of Witches and Astrologers:


1. Quoted in The Lancashire Witches, Robert Poole, chapter seven: "Beyond Pendle".
(http://books.google.com/books?id=YOCioQDsM3oC)

"These are such as we usually call White Witches, a sort of Sots who being Gull'd and having their understanding Dabauch'd by Superstition, do evil that good may come of it, that is use Charms, Spells and Incantations (all of which are of no force without the Cooperation of the Devil) to remove Distempters, and do certain Feats in some measure useful to mankind yet of pernicious consequences to themselves."

2. Quoted in Notes and Queries, November 2, 1878, p. 342
(http://books.google.com/books?id=zsrfAAAAMAA)

"The ignorant multitude in all Misfortunes, Crosses and Afflictions, forthwith make their Applications to them as most readily help. If a man be sick, where shall he have his Physick but from one that fetches it from behind the Curtain? If he lie under any Misfortune he presently betakes himself to some Fortune-teller or Conjurer. If the Cattel be sick, the White-Witch is presently sent for to bless."

The White Witch of Waverly, from Grose's Antiquities (1785)

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The Antiquities of England and Wales, Volume V
Francis Grose (1731-1792)
http://books.google.com/books?id=zZIFAAAAQAAJ
first published in 1785

"The place derives its name from a popular story, which make it formerly the residence of a white witch, called Mother Ludlam, or Ludlow; not one of those malevolent beings mentioned in the Daemonlogie, a repetition of whose pranks, as chronicled by Glanvil, Baxter, and Cotton Mather, erects the hair, and closes the circle of the listening rustics round the village fire. This old lady neither killed hogs, rode on broom-staves, nor made children vomit nails and crooked pins; crimes for which many an old woman has been sentenced to death by judges, who, however they may be vilified in this skeptical age, thereby certainly cleared themselves from the imputation of being wizards or conjurors. On the contrary, Mother Ludlam, instead of injuring, when properly invoked, kindly assisted her poor neighbors in their necessities..."

The above passage is from pages 111-112 of  the edition linked to above (at googlebooks). If you have another edition just be sure it is volume V, and look for the section on Surrey.

There are many later references to "Mother Ludlam", "The White Witch of Waverly", etc. But Grose is the earliest source I have found to use the phrase "white witch". In fact, Grose is so far the earliest source I have found to use this phrase after the end of the period of the Witch Hunts. Indeed, Grose is a full 36 years earlier than Walter Scott's Kenilworth, which had previously been the earliest post-Witch-Hunt reference to "white Witches" that I had found.

Note to Ronald Hutton, Owen Davies, and Jacqueline Simpson: hey, you guys are supposed to be the pros. If I can find this stuff, why can't you?

Beneficent Witchcraft: One Hundred And Seven Sources

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The one hundred and seven sources listed below all do one or more of the following:

1. Attest to the attribution of beneficent magical powers to Witches.
2. Attest to the usage of the phrases "good Witch," "white Witch," etc.
3. Attest to the equivalence of the term "Witch" with "wise woman", "wise wife", or "cunning woman", and/or attest to the association of Witches with wisdom and knowledge.
4. Attest to the use of the word "Witch" to refer to those who resisted Christianization and continued to follow the Old Religion.

Most of these sources come from the times of the Witch Hunts themselves (or even earlier), and their first hand accounts of Witches as practitioners of beneficial magic, as well as their use of phrases such as "good Witch", are in every case seamlessly consistent with later sources. Nor is there any evidence for the claim that the way in which the words "Witch" and "Witchcraft" are used in the sources listed here is in any way anomalous or neatly confined to certain social classes or subject to any of the other fanciful limitations that some have claimed.

Each entry in the list links either to the full text of the source in question, or some other helpful online resource. Many of the sources are discussed elsewhere in this blog, such as in the following posts:

• Witches, Wise Women, William Shakespeare, and the Lambton Worm
• "The White Witches Of Our Ancestors"
• "Such as they call Witches"
• The Case of the North Devon White Witch
• Popular usage of "good Witch" according to ten early modern sources

Lastly, it should be noted that this list is strictly limited to English language sources using the English words "Witch" and "Witchcraft", with the one exception of the the late 16th century Welsh language dialogue by Robert Holland (for which a modern English translation of some passages can be found in the paper by Stuart Clark and P.T.J. Morgan linked to below).

1. Piers Plowman, (ca. 1380) William Langland
2. The Bible, (ca. 1385) John Wycliffe
3. Polychronicon, (1387) English translation by John Trevisa
4. The Bible, (1526) William Tyndale
5. Witchcraft Act, (1542)
6. Sermon by Bishop Hugh Latimer, (1552) 
7. The Examination of John Walsh Touching Witchcraft and Sorcerie, (1566) 
8. The Vanitie and Uncertaintie of Artes andSciences, (1569) English translation by James Sanford of Cornelius Agrippa's De incertitudine et vanitate omnium scientiarum et artium liber
9. The trial and execution of Jonet Boyman, (1578)
10. The trial of Ursula Kempe, (1582)  
11. Discoverie of Witchcraft, (1584) Reginald Scot
    
12. A Discourse of the subtill Practises of Devills by Witches and Sorcerers, (1587) George Gifford
13. A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft, (ca 1590) Willliam Perkins
14. A Treatise Against Witchcraft, (1590) Henry Holland  
15. Trial of Agnes Sampson, (1591)
16. Dialogue on Witchcraft, (ca 1595) Robert Holland
17. The White Witch of Westminster, (date unknown) Anonymous
18. Daemonologie, (1597) James I
19. Trial of Christiane Lewingstoun, (1597)
20. The Merry Wives of Windsor, (1602) William Shakespeare 
21. ROBERT CAWDREY'S A TABLE ALPHABETICAL, (1604)
22. Transcript of the trial of Joan Jurdie, (1605) 
23. The Captain, (1612) John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont
24. Sathan Transformed into an Angell of Light, (1617) Thomas Cooper
25. The Countrey Justice, (1618) Michael Dalton
26. The Anatomy of Melancholy, (1621) Robert Burton
27. Anything For A Quiet Life, (1621) Thomas Middleton and John Webster
28. A Guide to Grand Iury Men, (1627) Richard Bernard
29. The Winnowing of White Witchcraft, (1630) Edward Poeton
30. The Trial of Issobell Sinclair, (1633)
31. Select Cases of Conscience touching Witches and Witchcraft, (1646) John Gaule
32. A Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft, (1648) John Stearne 
33. The Divels Delusions, or, a Faithful Relation of John Palmer and Elizabeth Knott, Two Notorious Witches, (1649) Author unknown
34. The Witch of Wapping, (1652) Anonymous
35. A Candle in the Dark, (1656) Thomas Ady
36. Glossographia Anglicana Nova, (1656) Thomas Blount
37. The New World of English Words, or, a General Dictionary, (1658) Edward Phillips
38. Daimonomageia, a Small Treatise of Sickness and Diseases from Witchcraft, (1665) William Drage
39. Letter from Henry More to Joseph Glanvill, (ca. 1667) Henry More
40. The Present State of Russia, (1671) Samuel Collins
41. The Discovery of the Impostures of Witches and Astrologers, (1680) John Brinley
42. Saducismus Triumphatus OR, Full and Plain EVIDENCE Concerning WITCHES AND APPARITIONS,  (1681) Joseph Glanvill
43. The Medal, (1682) John Dryden
44. Remarkable Providences, (1684) Increase Mather
45. Pandaemonium, or, The Devil's Cloyster, (1684)
46. The Certainty of the World of the Spirits, (1691) Richard Baxter 
47. Wonders of the Invisible World, (1693) Cotton Mather
48. Court records from the trial of Henry Baron, (1694)
49. A Modest Enquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft, (1697) John Hale
50. The Diary of Humphrey Michel, (August 15, 1709) 
51. Sir Roger De Coverly and the Gipsies, (1711) Joseph Addison
52. THE CASEOF THE Hertfordshire WITCHCRAFT CONSIDER'D, (1712)
53. The Drummer, (1715) Joseph Addison
54. "An Extract of the information of 25 persons at Leister assizes against an old women her son and daughter for witchcraft ....", (1717) 
55. An Historical Essay Concerning Wichcraft, (1718) Francis Hutchinson 
56. The Mistake (a "Poetical Essay"), (1734)
57. Some Account of Merlin and the Figures that attend him, in the new erected Cave at Richmond, (1735) London Magazine, December 1735 
58. A Dictionary of the English Language, (1755) Samuel Johnson
59. The curious recipe of a white Witch, (1756) London Magains, vol. 25
60. Observations on Popular Antiquities, Chiefly Illustrating the Origin of our Vulgar Customs, Ceremonies and Superstitions, (1777) John Brand
61. The Antiquities of England and Wales, (1785) Francis Grose
62. A Provincial Glossary, (1787) Francis Grose
63. An account of the life and writings of David Hume, (1807) Thomas Edward Ritchie
64. An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, (1808) John Jamieson
65. The Antiquary, (1816) Walter Scott
66. The Lambton Worm, (1820) Robert Surtees 
67. Kenilworth, (1821) Walter Scott
68. Lord Byron's Combolio, (1822) Blaise Fitztravesty (possibly a pseudonym for Charles Lamb, according to Bertram Dobell)
69. Etymologicon universale, (1825) Walter Whiter 
70. An Etymological Dictionary of the Latin Language, (1828) Francis Edward Jackson Valpy
71. Letters on Demonlogy and Witchcraft, (1829) Walter Scott
72. The Rise and Progress of Witchcraft, (1829) Gentleman's Magazine
73. "The Witch of End-Door", (1835) a joke attributed to Charles Lamb in Edward Lucas' "Life of Charles Lamb"
74. The Doctor, (1835) Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine
75. Deutche Mythologie, (1835) Jacob Grimm
76. The Legend of the Lambton Worm, (1840) Tait's Edinburgh Magazine 
77. Remains Historical and Literary Connected With The Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester, vol. VI, (1845) James Crossley
78. Narratives of Socery and Magic, From the Most Authentic Sources, (1851) Thomas Wright 
79. Westward Ho, (1855) Charles Kingsley
80. Witch Stories, (1861) Eliza Lynn Linton
81. Legends and Traditions of Cornwall, (1871) 
82. Diabolism, (1872) Edward Turney 
83. A Recent Case of Supposed Witchcraft, (1875)Paul Q. Karkeek
84. The White Witch of Devon, (1877) R.P. Hampton Roberts
85. Relics Of Old Customs and Beliefs Still Observable In Devonshire, (1878), Paul Q. Karkeek
86. An Icelandic Prose Reader, (1878) Guthbrand Vigfusson, Frederick York Powell
87. The Book of Days, (1878) Robert Chambers 
88. Doctors, or The Science of Medical Thought Among the People, (1879) W.R. Bartlett, M.D.
89. A Supplementary English Glossary, (1881) Thomas Lewis Owen Davies
90. The White Witch: A Novel in Three Parts, (1884) Florence Warden
91. The White Witch of Worcester: A Tale of the Barons' Wars, (1885) James Skipp Borlase
92. The Vicar of Morwenstow, (1888) Sabine Baring-Gould
93. Witch, Warlock, and Magician, (1889) W.H. Davenport Adams
94. A history of the parishes of St. Ives, Lelant, Towednack and Zennor, (1892) John Hobson Matthews
95. Etruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition, (1892) Charles Godfrey Leland
96. Women, Church, and State, (1893) Matilda Joslyn Gage
97. Cock Lane and Common Sense, (1894) Andrew Lang 
98. Dictionary of National Biography, (1895) [see entry for Ruth Osborne]
99. English Etymology, (1898) Friedrich Kluge and Frederick Lutz
100. Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, (1899) Charles Godfrey Leland
101. A Book of the West, Volume 1, Devon, (1899) by Sabine Baring-Gould
     
102. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, (1900) Frank L. Baum
103. Malay Magic, (1900) Walter William Skeat 
     
104. A Dictionary of Miracles: Imitative, Realistic, and Dogmatic, (1901) Ebenezer Cobham Brewer [see the section on Ruth Osborne in the chapter on "Witches and Familiar Spirits (England)"]
105. Girls' Christian Names, (1905) Helena Swan [see entry for Ruth]
106. A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718, (1909) Wallace Notestein
107. Handbook of Folklore, (1914) Charles Sop Burne