ABSTRACT
In the first section of this book the historical sources for the study of witchcraft were described. In the next two sections a number of questions were put to these sources and various hypotheses concerning the relationship of witchcraft to other phenomena were tested. In this fourth section the English conclusions will be placed in the context of modern investigations of witchcraft by anthropologists.1 Anthropological studies, based on actual experience of witchcraft beliefs and accusations, provide an invaluable list of questions for the historian. They also provide some alternative theories to those suggested above. It is hoped that a survey of the type of problems discussed by anthropologists will also provide a ‘model’ for future historical investigation. The work of social scientists may be arbitrarily divided into four parts: a study of witchcraft beliefs, of counter-actions against witches, of the ‘sociology’ of witchcraft-that is, ‘who bewitches who’, and the interpretations suggested by anthropologists to account for the phenomena. We commence, therefore, with the beliefs concerning witches.
