The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present

The title of this book is a bit deceptive. It sounds like it's a history of the European witch trials, perhaps with a social-justice lens and an examination of the ways in which Paganism, feminism, and cognitive/physical atypicality were vilified. It's not that. This is a book about the different stereotypes of witch folklore (e.g., Satan worship, riding broomsticks, owning toads), and geographically, where those bits of folklore originated and how they migrated around Europe. Which is interesting, it's just not what I thought I was going to learn about, and so I still feel the need to read a different book to find out what I wanted to know. I had a hard time motivating myself to read this one. Hutton is an academic, and his writing reads like that of academic textbooks or journal articles. My mind wandered, my eye strayed from the page, and I had to re-read entire sentences and paragraphs upwards of three times in some spots. It's dry and poorly organized for my linear-thinking brain. Rather than focusing on one location and discussing how the witch developed over the course of its history, Hutton has organized the book by topic (e.g., ceremonial magic, shamanism, witches and animals, night rides, etc.), meaning that he jumps all over Europe while discussing a topic as well as back-and-forth in time (e.g., He might reference an Alpine witch trial in the 1600s, then jump back to the 1300s to refer to a similar idea taking shape in a different location). This was disorienting for me and made it difficult to focus on the emerging story of Europe's history. That said, I still finished it because the content was interesting and each time I learned something, it gave me the mental fortitude to keep going. I'm pleased I finished it, but I'd never read it cover-to-cover a second time. I did keep it though as a reference text, and may use the index to refer to specific information in the future.