What do we burn apart from witches? More witches!

From: Argrath_at_aol.com
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 20:04:55 -0500


In Glorantha Digest V2 #332, Andrew Behan writes:

>The documentary evidence for malicious witchcraft in pre-Industrial Europe
>is no better and no worse than the documentary evidence for a great many
>other
>areas of fruitful historical research. Do you think that the evidence for
>ancient Europe is any better?

Ancient European _what_? I'm more inclined to trust historical accounts about people who weren't being burnt at the stake by the authorities, and there were lots of magicians in the Roman Republic and Empire. Which reminds me, I want my next Lunar character to be an extispex, so when the cook asks me how I want my kukbird prepared, I can say, "extispicy."

>Caesar's description of the druids isn't
>propoganda?

See above.

>I suppose Christina Larner, Norman Coehn, Keith Thomas et al were just
>misguided by "propaganda".

Who?

>Anyway there are strong parallels between the use of magic for
>maleficent/anti-social purpose in widely disperate culture. Apart from
>which there is plenty of non-polemical evidence for non-malicious folk
>magic in the Middle Ages, cf "Prayers, Charms and Spells" in "The
>Stripping of the Altars" by Eoin Duffy.

I don't think we actually disagree.

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