1597 · Daemonologie
James VI, King of Scotland (later James I of England) · 1597
Daemonologie
Daemonologie is the treatise on witchcraft written by James VI of Scotland, published at Edinburgh in 1597, a few years after he had taken part in the North Berwick witch trials. Cast as a dialogue between the doubting Philomathes and the learned Epistemon, its three books argue against sceptics such as Reginald Scot and Johann Weyer that witchcraft is real. The first book treats magic and necromancy, distinguishing them from astronomy and lawful knowledge; the second deals with sorcery, the witches' pact, their meetings and their powers; the third describes ghosts, spirits that follow or possess people, incubi and the fairies, and ends with the trial and punishment of witches. The text keeps the Scots-inflected spelling of the 1597 printing as transcribed by EEBO-TCP.
Contents
- 1.Title page32 w.
- 2.The preface to the reader897 w.
- 3.First Book, chapters 1–7: Of magic and necromancy6,454 w.
- 4.Second Book, chapters 1–4: Of sorcery and witchcraft: the witches’ entry, their conventions and transportation4,071 w.
- 5.Second Book, chapters 5–7: What witches may do to others, who are subject to them, and the Devil’s visible converse3,274 w.
- 6.Third Book, chapters 1–6: Of spectres, spirits that haunt and possess, incubi, the Phairie, and the trial of witches6,704 w.