Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment

Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment represents the first in-depth investigation of Scottish witchcraft and witch belief post-1662, the period of supposed decline of such beliefs, an age which has been referred to as the 'long eighteenth century', coinciding with the Scottish Enlightenment. The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were undoubtedly a period of transition and redefinition of what constituted the supernatural, at the interface between folk belief and the philosophies of the learned. For the latter the eradication of such beliefs equated with progress and civilization but for others, such as the devout, witch belief was a matter of faith, such that fear and dread of witches and their craft lasted well beyond the era of the major witch-hunts. This study seeks to illuminate the distinctiveness of the Scottish experience, to assess the impact of enlightenment thought upon witch belief, and to understandhow these beliefs operated across all levels of Scottish society.

• Witchcraft
• Folk Belief
• Scottish History
• Scottish Enlightenment
• Cultural History
• cultural history
• enlightenment
• Scotland
• scottish history

“This book reveals a nuanced, shifting, and hitherto underexplored landscape of belief in the supernatural in Enlightenment-era Scotland. … Such historical empathy should be a model, not just for historians of the supernatural in Scotland, but for all of us interested in the experiences of people living in worlds just as real—and fantastical—as our own.” (Michelle D. Brock, Magic Ritual and Witchcraft, Vol. 12 (3), 2017)

• University of Glasgow, UK

  Lizanne Henderson

Lizanne Henderson has been a lecturer and cultural historian at the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Glasgow, UK since 2004. She is Editor of Review of Scottish Culture and has published on the Scottish witch-hunts, folk belief, ballads, critical animal studies, Scottish diaspora, polar explorers, and the transatlantic slave trade. Her books include Fantastical Imaginations: The Supernatural in Scottish History and Culture (2009) and, with Edward J. Cowan, Scottish Fairy Belief: A History (2001), and A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland, 1000 to 1600 (2011).

Policies and ethics