Can you recommend some historical works on Irish and Scottish witchcraft from 500-1750 AD?

by saddetective87

I am looking for first hand accounts of practises, academic reviews of historical record, historically verified grimoires, and other primary and secondary sources on Irish and Scottish witchcraft from 500-1750 AD.

Also, if anyone would like to provide some background and details that they have done through some of their own research (with sources of course).

queenpeggyhill

That's a mighty big timespan. Did you mean 1500? Anyway, you could start here and then dive into the book's bibliography.

Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland
Andrew Sneddon
Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015

https://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1946

CaledonianinSurrey

I can provide some reading on Scotland in the early modern period.

Christina Larner, “The Enemies of God: Witch Hunt in Scotland”

Christina Larner (ed), “A Source Book of Scottish Witchcraft”

Brian P. Levack, “The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe”

Brian P Levack, ‘The Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661-1662’, 20 (1979-81), “Journal of British Studies”, pp.90-108

Julian Goodare, ‘Women and the Witch-Hunt in Scotland’, (1998), “Social History”, 288-308

SW McDonald, ‘The Devil's mark and the witch-prickers of Scotland’, J R Soc Med. 1997 Sep; 90(9): 507–511.

“Selected Justiciary Cases, 1624-1650” (a pdf of this series can be found in the website of the Stair Society)

James VI, ‘Demonologie’ in “Minor Prose Works of James VI” ed. by James Craigie

MoragLarsson

I'm coming in late, but I know of a lot of sources that aren't listed here so I'll add what I know:

First, if you are looking for primary sources, you can, with caution, use primary sources that apply to most of Europe in terms of witch belief. Each region had its specific features (for example, we rarely see familiars in Scotland, while they're all over the place in English witch trials), but there are a good deal of continental sources on witchcraft that apply, especially since Scotland employed the inquisitorial method and was influenced by learned concepts of magic, heresy and demonology.

To a certain degree, the same holds for more recent secondary studies of the European witch hunts. Scottish historiography lagged behind somewhat in this regard and so the data just wasn't there for people who wrote about all of Europe. In recent years, however, updated editions and new scholarly works on Europe as a whole are including what we know about Scotland and Ireland.

If you have access to the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) database, you're golden and will be able to find hundreds of books, articles and book chapters on the subject with little effort.

FYI you're not likely to find a lot on witchcraft in the medieval period simply because Scottish sources are notoriously ill-preserved. The best ways to get at this subject is through court records or print literature. Unfortunately, the printing press didn't show up until the fifteenth century and Scottish court records do not survive very well for the period pre-1500.

As a colleague of Sierra Dye's and an Assistant Editor of the IRSS, I second /u/Dudhope's recommendations!

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Primary Sources

  • Levack, Brian P. (ed). The Witchcraft Sourcebook. Second Edition. London: Routledge, 2015.
  • Kors, Alan Charles and Edward Peters (eds). Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700: A Documentary History. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
  • Campell, John Gregorson (ed). Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands: Tales and Traditions Collected Entirely from Oral Sources. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970
    • 19th century oral folklore collection (reprinted)
  • Pitcairn, Robert (ed). Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland. Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1833.
    • Pitcairn mined the justiciary records for sensational crimes that occurred throughout Scottish history. You'll want the volumes that cover the time you're interested in - there are some witchcraft trials recorded, starting with that sham trial of Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis.

Secondary Sources

Scotland

  • Henderson, Lizanne. Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment: Scotland, 1670-1740. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
  • Henderson, Lizanne and Edward J. Cowan. Scottish Fairy Belief. East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 2001.
  • Hendersdon, Lizanne. '"Detestable Slaves of the Devil": Changing Ideas about Witchcraft in Sixteenth-Century Scotland'. In A History of Everyday Life in Scotland. Edited by Edward J. Cowan and Lizanne Henderson. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011.
  • Dye, Sierra.'"Devilische Wordis": Speech as Evidence in Scotland's Witch Trials, 1563-1736'. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Guelph, 2016.
  • Goodare, Julian. The Scottish Witch Hunt in Context. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
  • Levack, Brian P. Witch-hunting in Scotland: Law, Politics and Religion. London: Routledge, 2008.
  • Maxwell-Stuart, P. G. Satan's Conspiracy: Magic and Witchcraft in Sixteenth-Century Scotland. East Linton: Tuckwell, 2001.
  • Goodare, Julian (ed). Scottish Witches and Witch-Hunters. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Ireland

  • Callan, Maeve Brigid. The Templars, the Witch, and the Wild Irish: Vengeance and Heresy in Medieval Ireland. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015.

Europe

  • Rowlands, Alison. Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
  • Levack, Brian P. (ed). The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
  • Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. Fourth Edition. London: Routledge, 2015.

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Dudhope

Dye S, ‘To Converse with the Devil? Speech, Sexuality, and Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland’ (2012) 37 IRSS 9 - Search for 'witch' on the International Review of Scottish Studies site, and you'll find more articles on witchcraft.

Goodare J and others, Survey of Scottish Witchcraft (Database) - There is a long list of primary and secondary, manuscript and printed sources here. Some of these can be downloaded from the National Library of Scotland (NLS).

Goodare J (ed), Scottish Witches and Witch-Hunters ( Palgrave Macmillan 2013) (Palgrave has a whole series on witchraft and magic.)

Goodare J, ‘Witchcraft in Scotland’ in Levack BP (ed), The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America (OUP 2013)

Levack BP, Witch-Hunting in Scotland (Routledge 2007)

The National Library of Scotland comlpiled a handy Scottish Witch-Hunts Reading List.

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There is also the Daemonologie by James VI.