Most of the Governments of Europe were now content to leave sorcerers and witches to the irregular persecutions…
- Date of account
- Published 1865
- Source
- The Superstitions of Witchcraft
- Reference
- The Superstitions of Witchcraft · selected passage 183
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
most of the Governments of Europe were now content to leave sorcerers and witches to the irregular persecutions of the people, tacitly abandoning to the mob the right of proceeding against them as they pleased, without the interference of the law, in a remote kingdom of Europe a witch-persecution commenced with the ord…
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 onlymost of the Governments of Europe were now content to leave sorcerers and witches to the irregular persecutions of the people, tacitly abandoning to the mob the right of proceeding against them as they pleased, without the interference of the law, in a remote kingdom of Europe a witch-persecution commenced with the ordinary fury, under express sanction of the Government. It is curious that at the last moments of its existence as a legal crime, one of the last fires of witchcraft should have been lighted in Sweden, a country which, remote from continental Europe, seems to have been up to that period exempt from the judicial excesses of England, France, or Germany. The story of the Mohra witches is inserted in an appendix to Glanvil's 'Collection of Relations,' by Dr. Anthony Horneck. The epidemic broke out in 1669, in the village of Mohra, in the mountainous districts of Central Sweden. A number of children became affected with an imaginative or mischievous disease, which carried them off to a place called Blockula, where they held communion and festival with the devil.
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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