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June 27 - June 27, 2019
In every culture, in every age, in every place and, probably, in every heart, there is magic.
how, in the quest to discover magic, practitioners laid the foundations of science.
Londoners used to paint it on their doors to ward off the plague in the 17th century.
Changing yourself into a lion was not a straightforward process: it required outside assistance.
Summoning demons into the resulting mêlée was considered perfectly normal.
It’s much more fun to summon Cupid than to summon a demon.
In the 17th century and beyond, women were often disenfranchised and vulnerable within wider society, along with the disabled and mentally ill. They were easy targets and that’s what we’ve seen in the iconography of witchcraft ever since: the witch with a walking stick is really a vulnerable old woman.
In folklore and mythology, they represent the duality between good and evil, light and darkness.
And, historically, you didn’t need the sword of Gryffindor to defeat a basilisk – a weasel would do!
