Fables and Impossibilities
In 1584, Reginald Scot, a little-known English gentleman farmer from Kent, published a work that would shake the foundations of religious and legal authority in Europe. At a time when witch trials were sweeping through Europe, Scot’s book was a rare and radical challenge to the powers that be. This episode brings you the story of Reginald Scot and his The Discoverie of Witchcraft.
Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.
Music
Purple Planet - Revelations
J. S. Bach - Goldberg Variations, BWV. 988 - Variation 1 - Performed by Shelly Katz
Purple Planet - Ossuary
Purple Planet - Deadlock
Purple Planet - Sense of Loss
Purple Planet - Shadowlands
Sources
Primary
Bodin, Jean. De la démonomanie des sorciers. Anvers : Iehan Keerberghe, 1593.
Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), edited by Brinsley Nicholson. London: Elliot Stock, 1886.
Secondary
Almond, Philip C. England’s First Demonologist: Reginald Scot and ‘The Discoverie of Witchcraft’. London: I. B. Tauris, 2011.
Almond, Philip C. “King James I and the Burning of Reginald Scot’s the Discoverie of Witchcraft: The Invention of a Tradition.” Notes and Queries 56, no. 2 (2009): 209-213.
Estes, Leland L. “Reginald Scot and His Discoverie of Witchcraft: Religion and Science in the Opposition to the European Witch Craze.” Church History 52, no. 4 (1983): 444-456.
Kapitaniak, Pierre. “From Grindal to Whitgift: The Political Commitment of Reginald Scot.” Etudes Epistémè no. 29 (2016).
Kojoyan, Ani. “Inter-Textual Relations between Reginald Scot’s ‘The Discoverie of Witchcraft’ and Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’.” Armenian Folia Anglistika 9, no. 1-2 (11) (2013).
Littlewood, Roland. “Strange, Incredible and Impossible Things: The Early Anthropology of Reginald Scot.” Transcultural Psychiatry 46, no. 2 (2009): 348-364.
Pudney, Eric. A Defence of Witchcraft Belief: A Sixteenth-Century Response to Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft, edited by Pudney, Eric, Eric Pudney and Eric Pudney. 1st ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021.
Sharpe, James. Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in Early Modern England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. New York: Scribner, 1971.
