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Download or read book The Witches of Selwood written by Andrew Pickering and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-29 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The witchcraft narratives explored in this study concern the ancient royal forest of Selwood, which straddled the Somerset-Wiltshire border and extended south of Frome almost into Dorset. The area has an exceptionally rich, though largely unrecognised, witchcraft history. Here two of the most important books (or demonologies) on the subject were written: Richard Bernard's 'Guide to Grand-Jury Men' (1628) and Joseph Glanvill's ' Saducismus Triumphatus' (1681). Among the first, and certainly the most detailed, accounts of 'black sabbath' meetings in early modern England come from the area--allegedly the activities of two substantial covens, one centred upon Bayford and Stoke Trister at the southern end of the forest and the other close by at Brewham near Bruton. The formal accusation for maleficent witchcraft of almost thirty women and men can be identified in the region between 1658 and 1690. Involving at least twenty-four named participants, the alleged witchcraft conspiracy in villages around Bruton and Wincanton at the start of the 1660s bears comparison with the supposed gathering of witches at Pendle, Lancashire, who were tried in 1612. Until its suppression by higher authorities, the Selwood Forest panic looked set to become one of the most severe witch-hunts in English history. This book tells its story and investigates the reasons for its origin and its suppression. It includes a fully-illustrated 'Places to Visit' section. The author, Andrew Pickering, is a Senior Examiner for OCR (A Level History) and the Programme Manager for a University of Plymouth BA (Hons) degree in History, Heritage and Archaeology. His first book on the history of witchcraft was 'Different Interpretations of Witch-hunting in Early Modern Europe' (Heinemann, 2019) and in the ensuing ten years he has written several more books on the subject and had several papers printed in a variety of academic journals including 'Magic, Witchcraft and Religion' and 'The Local Historian'.