Book Review: The Ruin of all Witches

In this climate, the idea festered that adversaries, naturally powerless and forbidden to use violence, might resort to magic to get their own way

As someone who is very into witches, the gothic, myths and legends - I figured that this book would be right up my alley. And I was right. As someone who has binge-watched Netflix’s ‘Sabrina’ and ‘Wednesday’ multiple times, I have wanted to read a nonfiction history book on witches for a while. This book by Malcom Gaskill came highly recommended; the witch trials of New England and Salem are legendary, to say the least. It is the general consensus of everyone that witch trials are the product of mass hysteria, but according to Gaskill, it runs deeper than that - there is so much more to the story.

Gaskill has a really unique way of storytelling. I have always been a little reserved about history books as the narrative can be too analytical and very black and white. Gaskill allows for the grey. He does acknowledge that all he can access is what has been archived; there is what exists, and then there are the parts we have to guess. Some parts of the story, due to time, have been lost forever. For example, in the epilogue, when he visits the town of Springfield where Mary and Hugh Parsons were accused of witchcraft, the early buildings, homelots and landmarks are mostly gone - fallen apart from storms or replaced to update the city's infrastructure. It somewhat goes to show how much time changes everything.

But if we think about the events of the book, Hugh and Mary Parsons were your regular Puritan colonists coming to the ‘New World’ in search of a better life than the one they had in England. They both moved into the town of Springfield, which was a small Tighnit community battling the landscape, weather, native Americans and oftentimes each other. Resentments often built in hard and trying times, and it wasn’t long before Hugh and Mary Parson brought ire into the minds of their neighbours. To be fair to the Parsons, the Puritains were a suspicious lot. They hated that they had to rely on the natives, whom they deemed as ‘savages’, to survive harsh winters and to help with their harvests. Not to mention all the wars that were happening at the same time - England seemed to be at war with Spain most of the time, and if it wasn’t Spain, it was France until one day it was neither, and England was at war with itself, and King Charles I was beheaded. Yeah. A lot was happening.

I think one of the most shining reasons as to why the land descended into suspicions of witchcraft was partly due to a misunderstanding of mental health and religious zealousness. Gaskill marks the downfall of Hugh and Mary Parsons at the birth of one of their children - Mary Parsons is exhausted both physically and mentally. Taking care of a child and the house is taxing. If you tie in a world that is relentless, unforgiving and unknown, then you have all the ingredients for discontent. Hugh Parsons needs help; his wife is his rock, but what happens in a puritanical marriage when the very foundations start to shake and collapse? For one, gossip, then rumours and assumptions - people jumping to conclusions. All of a sudden, the world around Mary and Hugh seems claustrophobic, small, tight and venemous. Mary and Hugh didn’t stand a chance.

All in all, I am very glad I am not a woman in early America - I’m glad I'm not a woman in America, period. But it seems like attitudes to women's health and wellbeing were vastly misunderstood then as it is undervalued and dismissed today. If the witch trials are anything to go by, don’t make women, or indeed the men who do not fit into the ‘norm, ’ the scapegoats for your discontent.