Description:
Drawing on wide range of legal documents from the seventeenth-century, this book contains quantitative and qualitative analyses of witchcraft trials in Scotland and Finnmark, Norway. Attention is drawn towards the voices of the accused persons, the witnesses, and the law.
Nominee for the 2016 ICHTH International Book prize.
Review Quotes: "Von ausserordentlichen Interesse sind die quantitativen Aussagen, welche die Verfasserin auf der Grundlage der ihr zur Verfügung stehenden Daten machen kann. Willumsens mikrohistorischer Ansatz füllt die «nackten» Zahlen mit Leben. Ein facetten- und aufschlussreicher Band."
Georg Modestin in SZRKG 110 (Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte)
"Willumsen's Witches of the North is a richly suggestive, satisfying and important contribution to the study of witchcraft, both locally and globally. [...] innovative, informative, thought-provoking and valuable in many different ways"
Marion Gibson, University of Exeter in Acta Borealia, October 2015
Full review: http: //dx.doi.org/10.1080/08003831.2015.1089714
''The book is intended to provide a specific, comparative, regional study and serve as a general model of comparative history and the narratological approach. Its primary audience is scholars of early modern witchcraft, but it will also be of interest to historians of the law, popular culture, and the regions it covers.''
Edward Bever, SUNY College at Old Westbury. In: Renaissance Quarterly , Vol. 67, No. 4, Winter 2014, p. 1412
"...a wealth of useful data..."
Ronald Hutton in Historisk Tidsskrift 93.1
"Willumsen's study strengthens the argument that demonological trials could lead to higher levels of witchcraft persecution. Her detailed analysis of court records provides new data on execution rates and gender biases and her comparative approach allows us to see trends between two countries which both experienced severe witchcraft persecution. Although further work needs to be done, this study encourages us to think about key similarities between other European regions."
Charlotte-Rose Millar in Women's History Review, 23.5