Christian Demonology and Popular Mythology

(Demons, Spirits, Witches, Volume II)

Description
Table of contents
Reviews

This is the second volume of a series of three. The other two volumes in this set are Communicating with the Spirits, and Witchcraft Mythologies and Persecutions.

The authors—recognized historians, ethnologists, folklorists coming from four continents—present the latest research findings on the relationship, coexistence and conflicts of popular belief systems, Judeo-Christian mythology and demonology in medieval and modern Europe.
The present volume focuses on the divergence between Western and Eastern evolution, on the different relationship of learned demonology to popular belief systems in the two parts of Europe. It discusses the conflict of saints, healers, seers, shamans with the representatives of evil; the special function of escorting, protecting, possessing, harming and healing spirits; the role of the dead, the ghosts, of pre-Christian, Jewish and Christian spirit-world, the antagonism of the devil and the saint.

Demons, Spirits, Witches
Volume I Communicating with the Spirits 2005
Volume II Christian Demonology and Popular Mythology 2006
Volume III Witchcraft Mythologies and Persecutions 2008

List of Illustrations
Introduction by Gábor Klaniczay and Éva Pócs

Part I
Learned Demonology, Images of the Devil

Benedek Láng, Demons in Krakow, and Image Magic in a Magical Handbook
Anna Kuznetsova, "A Wall of Bronze" or Demons versus Saints: Whose Victory?
Erzsébet Tatai, An Iconographical Approach to Representations of the Devil in Medieval Hungary
György E. Szőnyi, Talking With Demons. Early Modern Theories and Practice
Éva Szacsvay, Protestant Devil Figures in Hungary
Ulrika Wolf-Knuts, The Devil and Birthgiving

Part II
Exchanges between Elite and Popular Concepts
Karen P. Smith, Serpent-damsels and Dragon-slayers: Overlapping Divinities in a Medieval Tradition
Wanda Wyporska, Jewish, Noble, German, or Peasant? - The Devil in Early Modern Poland
Jonas Liliequist, Sexual Encounters with Spirits and Demons in Early Modern Sweden: Popular and Learned Concepts in Conflict and Interaction
Soili-Maria Eklund, Church Demonology and Popular Beliefs in Early Modern Sweden

Part III
Evil Magic and Demons in East European and Asian Folklore
Ilana Rosen, Saintly and Sympathetic Magic in the Lore of the Jews of Carpatho-Russia Between the Two World Wars
Monika Kropej, Magic as Reflected in Slovenian Folk Tradition and Popular Healing Today
L’upcho S. Risteski, Categories of the “Evil Dead" in Macedonian Folk Religion
Anna Plotnikova, Balkan Demons’ Protecting Places
Vesna Petreska, Demons of Fate in Macedonian Folk Beliefs
Zmago Šmitek, Gog and Magog in the Slovenian Folk Tradition
Ágnes Birtalan, Systematization of the Concept of Demonic and Evil in Mongolian Folk Religion

Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft

"The focus is limited to central and eastern Europe and Scandinavia. This is quite valuable, insofar as there is no great surplus of scholarship on the topics of magic, witchcraft, and demonology from these lands - certainly not scholarship readily available to western European or North American academics generally limited to English, French, and German. Presenting a number of studies from these eastern (and northern) regions in English is a worthwhile service."