Re: TWT #3: Witchcraft After the Witch Trials Jenny jenny@panix.com Tue Sep 5 17:27:11 2000 7. Ireland*p*Ireland had almost no witchcraft trials, and Gijswijt-Hofstra notes that the handful of trials it did have *all* arose amongst Protestant settlers from Scotland and England. (Or, in the case of Dame Alice Kytelier, were largely caused by a foreign priest.) The native Irish believed that witches could harm other people, but they never resorted to courts.*p*GH also notes that in Irish lore, the distinction between a fairy woman and a witch was very blurry. For instance, when Bridget Cleary began acting oddly in 1895, her friends and neighbors could not decide if she was a witch or a fairy changeling.*p**br*8. England*p*In England, people were of two minds about witchcraft after the end of the Burning Times. If you read the newspapers and "learned" publications, they were contemptuous and dismissive. There was no such thing as witchcraft, and everyone should know that. Yet folklorists found that many people still believed in witchcraft -- even though they were embarassed to admit it. Therefore England continued to have lynchings even after officials refused to try witches. *p*Dr. Owen Davies argues that it was the rise of the police force that ended witchcraft persecution in England. During the Burning Times, constables enforced the law. They were local men, elected officials. And when mobs attacked witches, they tended to stay out of the conflicts. However in 1856, England began appointing professional police officers. They were not elected, and often not local -- and they tended to stop lynch mobs. English lynchings and vigilanteism dropped sharply; by 1880, witch lynchings had virtually vanished in England.*p*As always, women were primarily the victims of these attacks. During the Burning Times, perhaps 80% of English witches were women. In the 19th century, this percentage actually rose! Women made up over 95% of the people attacked. However, it was mainly other women who attacked them. 66% of the people who assaulted witches were women. A third were men, usually young men in their 20s and early 30s.*p*(to be continued)*p*Jenny*br* Re: TWT #3: Witchcraft After the Witch Trials Jenny 265 Tue Sep 5 17:06:11 2000