WILBY, EMMA

Much of the data on early medievalwitchesis unreliable, extracted under conditions of torture and permeated by witchhunt propaganda discourse—originating not with witches but with “learned” or “elite” medieval theologians. In this light, the suggestion by Montague Summers (1880–1948) that Medieval sources on witches are accurate factual accounts must be viewed as eccentric, andMargaretMurray’s thesis that these sources reveal an “old religion” of fertility worship which endured for thousands of years has been deconstructed by scholars such asRonald Hutton. Nonetheless, Wilby, following in the vein ofCarlo Ginzburg, argues inCunningFolk and Familiar Spirits(2005) that the consistency of encounter narratives between witches, or “cunning folk,” and theirspiritfamiliars or devils in these early Medieval sources indicates that this feature must be considered seriously as evidence for actual belief and practice.Wilby’s revisiting of the sources is detailed and meticulous, although she gives the misleading impression that the disparate sources across Great Britain and through two centuries are coherent and related. Wilby concludes that a veneer—albeit an allpervading, official one—ofChristianityoverlay enduring traditions of pre-Christian shamanic practice among the populace of Great Britain and that “coherent and vigorous ‘shamanisticvisionarytraditions’ existed in many parts” of the country. While her approach to shamanism perhaps overemphasizes visionary experience and the induction ofaltered states of consciousness, there is compelling discussion of the overlap between what shamans and witches do in their engagements with communities of human andother-than-humanpersons. The replacing of the “fertility cult” hypothesis with “shamanistic visionary traditions,” however, may be too much of an interpretative leap for some scholars of witchcraft and of shamanism.