The Other Sides of the Moon: Assembling Histories of Witchcraft

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Cornish, Helen. 2019. The Other Sides of the Moon: Assembling Histories of Witchcraft. In: Shai Feraro and Ethan Doyle White, eds. Magic and Witchery in the Modern West: Celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary of 'The Triumph of the Moon. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 65-83. ISBN 9783030155483 [Book Section]

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Official URL: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030155483

Abstract or Description

Over the last 20 years British witches have reconsidered historical orthodoxies handed down from earlier generations. Over this time most practitioners have followed the lead of contemporary historians who offer revised empirical accounts that suggest received claims about continuity have no basis in the historical record. In doing so, they contributed to strategic perspectives on the history of a modern movement. Simultaneously, revisionist histories have provided new spaces to trace alternative connections to the past through less rational and more analogic ways. This chapter explores how the “traditional wise-woman”—made tangible through the tale of the "Wayside Witch” at Cornwall’s Museum of Witchcraft—provides a sensory and emotional means to consider the past in the present. It traces how empirical sources are one thread in a complex and dynamic sense of historicity where official histories are continually combined with multiple sources and polyvocal accounts towards creative ways of making meaningful histories.

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Book Section

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15549-0_4