While we are unaware of whether actual witches ever frequented the Great Library (or still do), we do have several books in our collection that cover the topic of witchcraft. All these books are thanks to one man, William Renwick Riddell. In honour of All Hallows’ Eve, we thought we’d take a look at these items.
If you read our blog post, A Riddell in Time, you might be familiar with William Renwick Riddell. In 1916, the library was given a large collection of books from Riddell’s personal library. While Riddell is best known as a lawyer and a judge, he was also an avid collector of books, especially Canadiana and those that covered esoteric topics.
Riddell was so fascinated with the occult and witchcraft that he wrote many articles on the topic. In the article “How the Witches Cured Hiccough and other Diseases in Old France” (which we have in our collection), Riddell discusses the various cures that have been attributed to witches in the book Discours des Sorciers, written by Henri Bouquet in 1590. He was especially interested in a story about an old woman who cured an infant of hiccoughs,
Riddell was so fascinated with the occult and witchcraft that he wrote many articles on the topic. In the article “How the Witches Cured Hiccough and other Diseases in Old France” (which we have in our collection), Riddell discusses the various cures that have been attributed to witches in the book Discours des Sorciers, written by Henri Bouquet in 1590. He was especially interested in a story about an old woman who cured an infant of hiccoughs, which were so bad “…each spasm (and these were almost continuous) he could be heard at a distance of twenty-five or thirty paces, and also his eyes were so bleared and covered with wax that he could hardly see”.[1] The old woman asked for a tile, a salt-cat[2], and a blanket and locked herself in a room with the infant. The family looked through a window into the room and saw the woman warm the salt-cat and tile and then cover herself and the child with the blanket. They remained there for half an hour and when they emerged, the child was cured. The family of the child speculated “it is likely that the old woman, when she was under the blanket, used certain other words and ceremonies which she did not wish to be seen”.[3]
Riddell records a few other interesting cures attributed to witches in his article. These include:
- Curing the falling sickness by giving the epileptic a powder from the skull of a robber who had been hanged.
- Curing yourself from a witch’s curse by taking bread and salt from the witch’s house without her knowledge (the alternative remedy would be the brain of a cat or a raven’s head).
- Curing a man of impotence by having him urinate through the wedding ring.
While Riddell did collect some books that mainly covered the history or folklore surrounding witches (such as A Historical Account of the Belief in Witchcraft in Scotland by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, 1884), he was more interested in exploring the psychology or science surrounding the phenomena of witchcraft.
Many of the texts in Riddell’s collection concern the psychology or philosophy
Many of the texts in Riddell’s collection concern the psychology or philosophy of witchcraft, delving into some reasons behind why so many people believed in witchcraft during different eras. He seemed particularly interested in the witchcraft frenzy of the mid to late 1600s in Salem and the United States. One book in his possession, The Psychology of Salem Witchcraft Excitement of 1692 and Its Practical Application to Our own Time, by George Beard, 1882, discusses the delusion of witchcraft during this time period and often refers to the Salem witchcraft trials as the murder of 20 innocent victims. Other texts such as The Philosophy of Witchcraft, by Ian Ferguson, 1924 and Possession Demoniacal and other among primitive races, in antiquity, the middle ages, and modern times by T.K. Oesterreich, 1930, discuss witches and demonic possession in an abstract and detached way. Ferguson describes the witch as “not merely as an actual personage, but as a symbol of the predominant instinct toward what may be termed ‘a philosophy of comfort’, against which ethics and pure knowledge have striven and are striving to-day”.[4]
If you are interested in seeing any of the witchy texts in our possession, you are welcome to come into the library and ask one of our staff members to summon it for you. They definitely provide some fascinating reading, very different from our regular practical law material!
Further Reading
- Riddell, William Renwick. “Witchcraft in Old New York.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 19, no. 252, 1928.
- Riddell, William Renwick. “A Curious ‘Witchcraft’ Case.” Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 19, no. 2, Northwestern University School of Law, 1928, pp. 231–36.
- Riddell, William Renwick. “How the witches cured hiccough and other disease in old France.” Offprint from The Canadian Journal of Medicine and Surgery 76:6 (December 1934). Riddell Essays and Addresses, vol. 30.
[1] Riddell, William Renwick. “How the witches cured hiccough and other disease in old France.” Offprint from The Canadian Journal of Medicine and Surgery 76:6 (December 1934). Riddell Essays and Addresses, vol. 30.
[2] A lump of salt. Specifically: a mixture chiefly of salt, meal, and lime that is attractive to pigeons. From Merriam-Webster Online, accessed October 22, 2021.
[3] Riddell, William Renwick. “How the witches cured hiccough and other disease in old France.” Offprint from The Canadian Journal of Medicine and Surgery 76:6 (December 1934). Riddell Essays and Addresses, vol. 30.
[4] Ferguson, Ian. The Philosophy of Witchcraft. London: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., 1924.
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