Nigel Jones

Any beggar woman was a potential scapegoat during the European witch craze

John Callow describes the hanging in 1682 of three penniless women from Bideford, accused of bewitching the sick relative of a prosperous local businessman

A witch is punished by being dipped in a millstream (17th-century English woodcut). [Bridgeman Images]
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  • The Last Witches of England: A Tragedy of Sorcery and Superstition

    John Callow

    Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 331, £25

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