From the category archives:

Magic and Witchcraft

Witches Go to the Dogs

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Witches and Midwives

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By Holly Tucker
Witches can be nasty creatures…and doubly so anywhere near newborns. Just think about the evil fairies in Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. Nothing to trifle with!
If witches and mean fairies seem to be circling baptisms and childbeds in fairy tales, it has a lot to do with the fact that–according to [...]

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Queen of Hell

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By Kathleen Kent
I was a child when I first heard from my maternal grandmother that I was the descendent of an accused Salem witch, Martha Carrier. When I asked if Martha had really been a witch, my grandmother laughed. There are no such thing as witches, I was told, merely ferocious women. Well she would [...]

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National Library of Medicine’s Traveling Exhibit

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By Elizabeth Bland
The week before the July 21, 2007, release of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was an exciting one for fans all over the world, including some of the staff of the History of Medicine Division at the National Library of Medicine.
To coincide with the release of the book, a [...]

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Harry Potter’s World: A Traveling Exhibit

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By Elizabeth Bland
In 1997, British author J. K. Rowling introduced the world to Harry Potter and a literary phenomenon was born. Although a fantasy story, the magic in the Harry Potter books is partially based on Renaissance traditions that played an important role in the development of Western science, including alchemy, astrology, and natural philosophy. [...]

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Hints of Cherry and Witch’s Urine? (1400 AD)

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By Tony Perrottet
Today’s oenophiles have to consider the possibility that their valuable wine bottles may be corked, oxidized, “maderized” (ruined due to over-heating), re-fermented (gone fizzy in the bottle) or sullied by a contaminant.
Things were much easier in 16th century Italy: You could just blame the witches. It was commonly believed that after their [...]

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Of Jews, the Devil, and Blood Libels

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By Michelle Cameron
The legacy of the suspect Jew – the evil and mysterious stranger plotting evil in the midst of true believers – has a lengthy provenance. Back in the Middle Ages, long before Hitler’s minions created films equating Jews to rats, they were pictured as goats. Why goats? Because goats were said to [...]

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