WITCHES AND WARLOCKS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 397, 31 January 1947, Page 5

WITCHES AND WARLOCKS

Sir,-There are two points in your commehtator’s paragraph "Aroint Thee Witch" to which I should like to reply. I can assure your commentator that I have come to "no easy conclusion that witchcraft no longer exists," and in my first talk (I know it is impossible for him to listen to them all) I quoted an extract from Bernard Newman’s book

Balkan Background showing that beliet in witchcraft was still in existence in those parts as late as 1933-and no doubt still lingers on in this year of grace 1947. I confined my talks in the main to England, Scotland, and the United States, where companies — of witches-to the best of my knowledge --no longer meet in the depths of the forest at midnight, although here again I mentioned individual cases of witencraft and black magic existing up to the present time. * I can also assure your commentator that I should dearly have liked to have made my talk more "meaty" and to have muttered dark imprécations to the accompaniment of bubbling cauldrons with their brew of eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog. but unfortunately I do not govern the hour of my talk, and I felt these "horrid fascinations" and the darker side of witchcraft generally were more suitable to the aftermath of an evening meal than to the sipping of morning tea at 11.0 a.m,

NORMA R.

COOPER

(Paekakariki).