Styrian Witches in European Perspective

Mirjam Mencej is Professor of Folkloristics at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. She has published numerous papers and six monographs on folklore and vernacular religion.

• Introduction.- 1. Contemporary European Witchcraft.- 2. Witchcraft in the Region under Research.- 3. Social Witchcraft: Neighbourhood Witches.- 4. Social Witchcraft: Countermeasures.- 5. Social History: Specialists.- 6. Social Witchcraft: Village Witches.- 7. Night Witches.- Conclusion.

“I would like to emphasise this as being particularly valuable – the today’s stage of belief in witch phenomena and has already been particularly well-received by the profession – especially as regards folkloristics, ethnology and cultural anthropology, not only among Slovenian scholars, but also in the broad region of the former-Yugoslav countries … .” (Suzana Marjanić, FABULA - Zeitschrift für Erzählforschung, Vol. 60 (1-2), 2019)“Mencej’s study combines discussion of these broad, theoretical issues with the concrete level of everyday perceptions of magical harm described by her interviewees. … Thorough, learned and surprising at many turns, this is an important work on the persistence of traditional, even archaic, magical and witch beliefs into the present.” (Mary R. O’Neil, europenowjournal.org, July, 2018)