| Popis: |
Gerhild Williams reviews texts about children or very young adolescents who are being led to the witches’ sabbath by adults, usually their mothers or aunts, to be offered to Satan. We also meet a boy who changes into a werewolf terrifying the neighbors (Pierre de Lancre 1612). Sensational news about children accused of and instructed in black magic appears in chapbooks, demonologies, and pamphlets all across early modern Europe, telling us of a community fearful and suspicious of the outsider, the witch, the shapeshifter. The texts under discussion here argue that the Devil relentlessly pursues the young in his efforts to seduce and destroy them. Perhaps less intentionally these texts also demonstrate that he thrives on despair, sadness, poverty, and abuse. These childhoods are not ours, we do not look at children as potential victims of evil forces, except for the real threat visited upon them by adults. But since Satan exercised his powers over all humanity, the child as victim is present in many early modern demonologies and trial records. |
