Most of us think of witchcraft as a relic of a hyper-religious past. Most of us also don’t have detailed beliefs about the practice of killing witches in the name of beating the devil – other than it’s wrong. However, the authors make a compelling case that the persecution of “witches” in prior centuries was just patriarchy rearing its ugly head. Seventy percent of accused witches were women; the other thirty percent were often the…
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë is an eminent, classic work of fiction. It speaks of an English teacher who falls in love with a wealthy landowner, only to encounter inevitable obstacles. An early ode to feminism, Jane finds happiness by being herself, not conforming to a social ideal. It’s one of my favorite stories from the early Victorian era. In this retelling, Sharon Lynn Fisher recasts this intriguing story in modern language, only with the…
Witchcraft and alchemy, when they appear in literature, often do so in a young adult novel teaching about the difference between such crafting and reality. In a twist, Jennifer Sherman Roberts attempt to spin these entities into a tale of historical fiction geared towards adults. Set in 17th-century England – the age of Republican passions and Reformation excesses – this tale weaves together a sketchy “witchfinder” and a plain but strong village healer. The female…