Today someone shared with me a wonderful resource that I wanted to pass along to all of you, Cornell Library’s Witchcraft Collection. They have over 3,000 titles available at the University Library. If you live near the University you can go in and request access. They have been working hard to make the collection available online and to date have over one hundred books that have been scanned and are available for you online.
For those of you who love old books you are in for a treat. Most of the collection was acquired in the 1880’s from Andrew Dickson, Cornell’s first President and the first librarian for Cornell, George Lincoln Burr. The collection focuses on the history of witchcraft in Europe. You will find that many of the books are from incredibly early when theories on witchcraft were still being worked on in the 1400’s and 1500’s. It’s an incredible resource if you are interested in learning about the persecution of witches in Europe.
On this page you will find the home of the Digital Witchcraft Collection. This is the same page that you see in the picture above. If you look to the second paragraph you will find an option to browse by title. This is a great way to get into the collection and start looking around. For those of you interested in the Salem trials you will find a letter from William Good in the year 1710 on that first page. If you are looking for ancient spells this may not be where you wish to look. Most of the books and documents contained are society’s attempt to understand or make sense of the witchcraft hysteria going on around the world. For those of you interested in the hysteria and the trials this is a treasure trove of ancient information.
There is another section that has papers from students from Cornell. Mary Beth Norton was a teacher at Cornell of a 400 Level course called Witchcraft in Early Modern England and America. The course was meant to take advantage of the extensive collection of documents they have in the collection. She published some of the best student papers from that course to the collection online as well. I know many of you who have an interest in the trials will enjoy these. You can find that page here: Student Research and Papers.
I hope that you have a magickal day!
Much Love and Many Blessings,
Jasmeine Moonsong