Witchcraft, Magic and Culture 1736-1951

by Owen Davies 337 pp.

Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1999. Pp. xiii + 337. Index, glossary. $79.95 cloth, $29.95 paper

This excellent historical and folkloristic study examines witchcraft and related beliefs in England from 1736, when the Witchcraft Act was passed, to 1951, when legislation related to occult and supernatural beliefs and practitioners was finally repealed, "thereby erasing the concept of witchcraft from the statute books once and for all" (75). In six chapters--which cover the shift in elite attitudes towards belief in witchcraft, the treatment of witchcraft in popular justice and in popular literature, the relationship of witchcraft to other kinds of occult practitioners, the image of the witch, and the eventual decline in traditional witchcraft beliefs in the twentieth century--Owen Davies details the nature of witchcraft beliefs in the period. Though he writes as an historian, Davies utilizes sources from folklore and popular culture admirably; consequently, his descriptions and analyses of the materials are consistently convincing.

The study of European witchcraft and magic has been dominated by studies of early modern witchcraft that argue for a substantial decline in such beliefs after the era of the witchcraft trials. The evidence from folklore and popular culture, however, clearly indicates that supernatural beliefs survived well into the twentieth century, often undergoing transformations that assured their survival into the future. Davies's book thus not only provides a much needed correction to the notion that supernatural belief declined after 1736, but it is also a model for future studies of supernatural belief after the era of the witchcraft trials.

David E. Gay
Indiana University