Between the living and the dead : a perspective on witches and seers in the early modern age /

Fascination with the phenomenon of medieval witchcraft and witch hunting has produced a plethora of works detailing new discoveries and theories in a continuing attempt to understand one of Europe's most enduring historical legacies. Until recently, however, English language works have neglected central southeastern European regions. This newly translated work by Eva Pocs (anthropology, Janus Pannonius Univ., Pecs, Hungary) begins to fill some gaps while providing valuable insights into parallels between this region and western Europe. Pocs argues that fairies, magicians, seers, and witches each played a dualistic mediatory role in the life of the early modern Hungarian village. Rather than seeing these systems of mediation as evolving from benevolent to demonic, she convincingly shows that they were interactive and concurrent. By demonstrating the positive and negative functions of the belief figure, Pocs effectively draws attention to the dual nature of the witch as an important, albeit dangerous, element of communal life. In documentation and analysis, the work supports Carlo Ginzburg's The Night Battles (1983). While Pocs at times asserts minor questionable conclusions based on fragmentary evidence, this in no way detracts from her overall thesis. The text would be greatly enhanced by better correlations between the text and illustrations and including more illustrations from Hungarian sources. Excellent bibliography. J. W. Dippmann University of Wisconsin--Stout