These were women of every class and every age, from just above puberty to old women of over seventy, unmarried,…
- Date of account
- Published 1921
- Source
- The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology
- Reference
- The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology · selected passage 135
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English with quoted European trial material
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
These were women of every class and every age, from just above puberty to old women of over seventy, unmarried, married, and widows
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyThese were women of every class and every age, from just above puberty to old women of over seventy, unmarried, married, and widows. It is unscientific to disbelieve everything, as Scot does, and it is equally unscientific to label all the phenomena as the imagination of hysterical women. By the nature of things the whole of this evidence rests only on the word of the women, but I have shown above (pp. 63-5) that there were cases in which the men found the Devil cold, and cases in which the women found other parts of the Devil's person to be cold also. Such a mass of evidence cannot be ignored, and in any other subject would obtain credence at once.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyA modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.
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