Anne Bodenham, The Wiltshire Witch
Bodenham summoning her familiars in magic circle. Anne Bodenham (1573 - 1653) The Wiltshire Witch was a cunning woman (practitioner of magic) and a student of John Lambe. She drew magic circles, saw visions of people in glass, possessed charms and incantations, and kept a magic book. She roused little antagonism in her community until she crossed paths with a maid servant of a Wiltshire family. The family had become involved in a quarrel amongst themselves. It was suggested by neighbors that some of the family had conspired to poison the mother in law. The maid was held responsible and was imprisoned for her part in the plot. The maid in order to detract from her own acts made a confession that she had been directed by Bodenham to sign a book of the Devil’s with her own blood. Bodenham was arrested, found guilty and condemned to death. When executed on March 19, 1653, she was said to be 80 years old. She made a will, giving gifts to thirty people declaring that she had been robbed by her maids in prison, lamenting over her husband’s sorrow, and requested that she be buried under the gallows.
Size: 3900px × 3454px
Location:
Photo credit: © Science History Images / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: &, -, 17th, anne, arts, black, bodenham, bw, century, circle, english, familiars, famous, historic, historical, history, important, influential, magic, notable, occult, occultism, personalities, personality, practitioner, seventeeth, white, wiltshire, witch, witchcraft, witchery, witches, woman, women, woodblock, woodcut
