LOC Visit

     The weekend before last, I took another trip to the LOC to look at some more books. I went to the Law Library to see the 3 books they had containing witch cases, but only got to see 2 as the third was a "rare book" and is only shown by appointment on weekdays (lame). Of the 2 I looked at, one looked more like something I wouldn't look at again until Grad School, but the other (A Calendar of Cases of Witchcraft in Scotland-- $15 on Amazon), seemed like a very good chronological breakdown (though quite brief) about the various cases and trials throughout the country. Could be something that might be very helpful when paired with the database.

      After the that I went back to the Main Reading Room across the street and looked at a few books that are rather expensive online: Scottish Fairy Belief (Henderson, monograph), Witchcraft and Belief in Early Modern Scotland (Goodare, compiled essays), and Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick Witches (Normand, annotated Demonology text + analysis). All three actually looked really excellent, but I needed more time with them. I did find out that they're all in the University of Stirling Library though. I figured I'd just check them out and look at them there, rather than ordering them through ILL, waiting a week and a half, and then only having a couple days to look at them before I leave.

First Post

      At the suggestion of my advisors, I'm starting this blog to help track my progress throughout my research project on witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland. Thus far, I have mainly spent time developing a decent background in the historiographical literature on the subject--though I'm still trying to get access to more secondary literature. I've also browsed the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft database (http://www.shc.ed.ac.uk/Research/witches/), which I'm anticipating will be greatly helpful.

      My upcoming focus, along with further expanding my historiographical knowledge, is going to be on determining my primary source collections. During my upcoming trip to Stirling, Scotland, I plan on looking through documents in the Stirling Archives and figuring out which printed sources will be most valuable for my project. I'm hoping that by the start of the Fall semester, I will have a good understanding of the applicable primary sources that support a general argument for this project.