Witchcraft and Belief in Early Modern Scotland

Witchcraft has almost always had an important place in people's belief systems, helping them to organise and understand their ideas about community and neighbourliness, good and evil, harm and healing, and indeed God and the Devil. These ideas took different shape and form over time and place. In early modern Europe these beliefs became matters of life or death. What were the beliefs behind the witchcraft prosecutions of early modern Scotland? What was their wider import in Scottish society and culture?

The book is a collection of essays on Scottish witchcraft belief. It ranges widely across areas of popular belief, culture and ritual practice, as well as dealing with intellectual life and incorporating regional and comparative elements. The editors were members of the team responsible for the recently-completed Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, and the book incorporates a number of pioneering findings from this rich online resource.