...And read something "witchy".
I stumbled across this book while reading Irving's Halloween
story extraordinaire, The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow. The main character,
Ichabod Crane, literally memorized this book, and believed every word of
it. While not specifically referred to
by title in Sleepy Hollow, the author
of Ichabod's "witchcraft book" was named...
Cotton Mather was perhaps the most influential religious
figure in New England in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. He was lettered, he was published, he was a
Harvard graduate. He was also very good
at supporting the practice of trying, convicting and executing witches. Both he and his father Increase were major
figures in the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692. To be fair, many prominent Massachusetts Bay
Colony officials were involved, all very confident that the accused were denizens
of Satan’s realm. What places Cotton in
front of this pack of pitchfork carrying Puritans is that he wrote and published
a book in defense of killing those pesky women who consort so "knowingly" with
the dark arts.
His book, Wonders of
the Invisible World: Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches, Lately
Executed in New-England: And of Several Remarkable Curiosities therein
Occurring, exhibited his defense of hunting and smiting those wicked wart
sporting, black hat wearing, cat loving creatures...placing our dear Mr.
Cotton in the pantheon of "true believers", no matter what shreds of reason
this particular Age had to offer...
For your edification, a first edition of Wonders of the Invisible World