Witchcraft and Superstitious Record in the South-Western District of Scotland (Annotated)

Witchcraft and Superstitious Record in the South-Western District of Scotland is a careful antiquarian survey of beliefs, trials, charms, omens, apparitions, and popular customs preserved in Galloway and the neighbouring south-west. Written in a documentary yet evocative prose, it gathers court records, parish memories, oral tradition, and local anecdote into a regional history of the supernatural. The book belongs to the late Victorian and Edwardian flowering of folklore studies, when scholars sought to rescue vernacular belief from oblivion while interpreting it through historical evidence. J. Maxwell Wood, a physician and local scholar deeply rooted in Dumfries and Galloway, brought to the subject both empirical habits and sympathy for rural tradition. His medical training sharpened his attention to testimony, diagnosis, and social circumstance, while his antiquarian interests led him to trace how fear, religion, illness, and communal suspicion shaped witchcraft accusations and superstitious practice in Scottish life. This volume is recommended to readers of folklore, Scottish history, and the cultural history of belief. It is especially valuable for those who wish to understand witchcraft not merely as persecution, but as a dense web of local memory, law, religion, and everyday imagination.This enriched edition has been carefully crafted to add value to your reading experience.- Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance.- Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.