While researching “The Magic Within Us,” I ended up going down a few rabbit holes as I researched: meaning, I started out looking up something, and ended up doing several really long, late deep-dives. The story that got the most research was the “My Favorite Story” segments. "My Favorite Story" is about a book that becomes whatever you would like it to be, to lure you in with beautiful imagery, and a storyline you feel like you must read.
As Helena told her friends in the staff room when they asked her about it, “From what I was told, it…changes itself. It can become any book you want it to be. If you loved Egyptology, it would be the most amazing, beautiful book on Egyptology you’d ever seen. If you loved romance stories, it would be the best one you’d ever read. No matter what the subject, to you, the cover would be exquisite. The characters and everything about it is meant to draw you in; to make you want to be part of the book.”
Outside of the book, it’s the current day; here and now. What the book becomes is determined by the person who picks it up. By the fourth and final segment, a powerful witch is lured into the book, and the glamour that changes the book into literally anything fails, and you see the inside of the book from the perspective of Evelyn, the modern-day witch, who sees it in the same way that those trapped within it see it. It is a powerful glamour of 15th century Fribourg, Switzerland, which was the last time the protagonist, Rodrick, saw it with his own eyes.
This meant I did quite a bit of research on 15th century Switzerland; particularly the Cantons of Valais and Fribourg.
There’s a reason that Rodrick is from when and where he is. Switzerland is where the witch trials as we know them first occurred. Prior to Valais and Fribourg, there were towns throughout Europe where witches might have got themselves into a jam, but the Church mostly saw it as individual beliefs that needed to be corrected. It didn’t always end in a witch burning on a pyre.
That’s where Valais and Fribourg come in. In Valais, in the year 1428, there was an actual ‘witch-hunt.’ It was the original witch hunt, meaning a systematic campaign and Inquisition by and through the Church to find witches. To set our scene, in the years prior to the first Swiss witch trials, there had been a great deal of political upheaval in this part of Switzerland. In the ten years before, people you used to be friends with and knew might very well not be friendly anymore, sitting instead on the opposite side of a political divide. Peace came eventually, but trust took a lot longer: the man who sold you bread today might have been someone who burned down your house ten years before. In the midst of the mistrust, soon every bad thing that occurred needed someone to blame it on. Soon, neighbors were charging neighbors of sorcery and witchcraft, as well as murder, heresy, and being in pact with the devil.
When an Inquisitor came to a town, all the residents were given a 40-day grace period to get right with God and Church. At the end of the 40 days, every person in town was called in and interviewed, about themselves, and about others that might be heretics. If accused, a person was to be put in jail, and their goods confiscated. According to the official proclamation, all it took for a person to be arrested and imprisoned was the talk of three or four neighbors. To be tortured, only five to ten neighbors were required to speak against a person, or by as few as three people if they had already been tried and sentenced to death. As in other parts of Europe that would happen later, the accusations leveled against others ran the gamut of all the ills that could likely befall the people of a town. Neighbors accused one another of everything from causing lameness, blindness, madness, miscarriage, impotence and infertility, to even killing and turning babies into “newborn juice”, reputed to give you all the knowledge of witchcraft, instantly. Some were even accused of being werewolves or shapeshifters in addition to being witches.
For a hundred years, life was turned on its’ head in Switzerland. If a person was married to someone accused of witchcraft, they had to swear an oath that they had no knowledge of it, or their property would be confiscated. If the accused was a vassal to a noble, the noble had to pay for the imprisonment, but if the person burned, the noble was awarded the property in question. Fribourg was one of the first places where the secular government and the church were in cahoots, and prosecuted witches jointly. Not so surprisingly, usually either the local government or the church ended up with the property of those who were tortured. In the early days of the witch trials in Switzerland, it was possible to admit guilt, recant and go back to life as usual. By the end, that wasn’t possible. At some point, it became a moneymaking venture, and the powers-that-be realized prosecuting witches (whether they really were witches or not) was profitable; if a person confessed, they were burned as a heretic. If they didn’t confess, they were tortured until they did. Whether a person confessed or not, they lost everything, and met their end either in a dark, dank cell, were tortured to death, burned or crucified.
Something did separate these witch trials from their counterparts that occurred elsewhere later in Europe. Curiously enough, half to two-thirds of those accused/executed in Switzerland were men. Later on, throughout Europe, but particularly England, France and Scotland, the targets would be women who didn’t fit in so well, who lived on the edges and margins of society, or made a habit of speaking their minds.
Writing this, I realized something funny. "The Magic Within Us" included a series of four stories whose protagonist was current to the first of the witch trials in Switzerland. One of the stories in my upcoming book “The Magic Around Us” has me now researching the Bideford witch trials, where some of the last witches were put to death in England. I guess I’m not through with witch trials yet.
The exact amount of how many were killed as witches is unknown. Low-end guesses are 40,000-50,000. Others say maybe as high a number as 1 to 2 million. Others say higher still. Whether you go with the higher numbers or the lower numbers, someone will argue it. I try not to think so much on how many people were accused and died. I try to remember that while we know the names of some of the men and women who died, there were many, many more who are nameless, faceless, and lost to history. Many likely weren’t witches, and were probably guilty of nothing other than being female, outspoken, old, or unpopular. May we remember those who died, even as we are free to embrace who we are today. May we never take that freedom for granted.
Final thoughts:
I’ve included reference sources for those of you interested. Also, there was considerably more to the story of Roderick and the Fribourg witches. Be on the lookout toward the end of 2020 for a novella that includes the original four “My Favorite Book” stories, with the extra material I didn’t have room for added back in, and another novella featuring vampires! We're working on an Audible version of "The Magic Within Us," for those of you who were asking for it!
Lastly, my sister and I are planning on opening a virtual “Treasure Trove” here, which should be opening soon! We're so excited! There’s lots of interesting stuff happening. Thanks for reading, be well, and stay tuned for updates!
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