the first hunted were the “crones,” the wise women, the elders, typically widows who refused to remarry or had no options to do so. These older women had long been the keepers of powerful traditions—they were the culture’s healers, prophets, and midwives; they initiated young girls into the rites of womanhood; they mentored mothers; and they carried intergenerational stories and wisdom. But beginning in the middle of the fifteenth century (dramatically peaking from 1560 to 1760), these women, too old to be seen as sexual objects, and possessing knowledge and skills the church viewed as
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