MAD ABOUT WITCHES IN SIXTEENTH- AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY GERMANY

Lyndal Roper, Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 2004) (From the book jacket: "From the gruesome ogress in Hansel and Gretel to the hags at the sabbath in Faust, the witch has been a powerful figure of the western imagination. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries thousands of women confessed to being witches--to making pacts with the Devils, causing babies to sicken and killing animals and crops--and were put to death. This book is a griping account of the pursuit, interrogation, torture and burning of witches during this period and beyond." Roper "also explores the psychology of witch-hunting, explaining why it was most older women who were the victims of witch crazes, why they confessed to crimes, and how the depiction of witches in art and literature has influenced the characterization of elderly women in western culture.").