From the biblical witch of Endor to Harry Potter, witches have always captured the public imagination. The era of the European witch hunts, from the early 15th century to the mid-18th century, was permeated with fear of a secret sect of witches intent on overthrowing Christian society with the aid of the Devil. Religious, legal, intellectual, social, and climatic developments produced the great witch hunts of the 15th to 18th centuries, and that persecution of witches constituted an important milestone in the history of violence, intolerance, women, and the law. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition is the most thorough examination of that period ever produced, incorporating scholarship on all aspects of the field, with emphasis on the theories and history developed as interest in the field has bloomed over the last 20 years. Myths abound about witches, witchcraft, and witch hunts; this work rigorously sorts myth from fact, both correcting and adding to knowledge, for general readers and scholars.

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