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This book examines the social history of ghosts from the medieval period to the present. Belief in them has been manipulated for political and religious purposes, generated social panics and scandals, been a perennial source of literary inspiration and learned investigation. Underpinning Davies' approach is the awareness that for all the intellectual and scientific advances of the last five centuries the belief in ghosts
continues to be vibrant and socially relevant. Understanding the history of ghosts helps explain why we continue to feel haunted by the people of the past.
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In 1856 William Dove, a young tenant farmer, was tried and executed for the poisoning of his wife Harriet. The trial might have been a straightforward case of homicide, but because Dove became involved with Henry Harrison, a Leeds wizard, and demonstrated a strong belief in magic and the powers of the devil, considerable effort was made to establish whether these beliefs were symptomatic of insanity. It seems that Dove murdered his wife to hasten a prediction made by Harrison that he would remarry a more attractive and wealthy woman. Dove employed Harrison to perform various acts of magic, and also made his own written pact with the devil to improve his personal circumstances.
The book will study Dove’s beliefs and Harrison’s activities within the rural and urban communities in which they lived, and examine how modern cultures attempted to explain this largely hidden mental world, which was so sensationally exposed. The Victorian period is often portrayed as an age of great social and educational progress. This book shows how beliefs dismissed by some Victorians as ‘medieval superstitions’ continued to influence the thoughts and actions of many people.
Cunning-Folk,
Popular Magic in English History (Hambledon & London, 2003)
Local practitioners
of magic, providing small-scale but valued services to the community,
cunning-folk were far more representative of magical practice than the
arcane delvings of astrologers and necromancers.
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this book
For the first time, this book traces the history of witchcraft and magic from 1736 to the year 1951, when the passing of the Fraudulent Mediums Act finally erased the concept of witchcraft from the statute books. The reader will discover the extent to which witchcraft, magic and fortune-telling influenced the thoughts and actions of the people of England and Wales in a period when the forces of 'progress' are often thought to have vanquished such beliefs.
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A
People Bewitched (Bruton Press, 1999)
A People Bewitched is based on detailed research on the continued popular
belief in witchcraft and magic in nineteenth-century Somerset. This has
included extensive surveying of local newspapers, censuses, ethnographic
sources, and trade directories where the author has found 26 court cases
involving assaults or threats against supposed witches and a similar number
of trials concerning cunning-folk, astrologers and fortune-tellers. The
study of all this material has provided new insights into the continued
influence of such beliefs in nineteenth-century society.
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Witchcraft, magic and culture 1736-1951: A brief historiographical review
Talk of the Devil: Crime and Satanic Inspiration in Eighteenth-Century England
Read summaries of articles written by Owen Davies between 1996 - 1999