Hunt the Witch Down!: Twelve Real Life Stories of Witches and Witchcraft

by Margaret Ronan

Sometimes ill-favored and bad-tempered, usually sharp-tongued--they were people who scared the living daylights out of ordinary folk because of their weird ways, or aroused their envy because of their strange powers. Powers that seemed to come from the devil. People called them witches!

And what did they have in common, these witches? They were women. Women who used all their wit and wile to survive in an oftime hostile world. Desperately unhappy housewives, young women and girls, a little crazy maybe, poor usually, but hunted down and tortured by the law, even put to death. Their greatest crime: being born female.

Twelve true and exciting stories of twelve women whose neighbors were sure they were witches.

Genres: History

122 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Fishface · Rating 3 out of 5]

I approached this one cautiously, fearing it would be fiction dressed up as true stories -- there were no citations or anything to make the stories look kosher -- but as it turned out they were all easy to find using Google, and many of them were very well documented indeed, including cases like Joan of Arc and the insanity of the Salem witch trials. Every chapter was well written and intriguing. Quite a few were totally new to me. All were tragic in the extreme. This book is well worth your time.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

What you see is what you get—it’s a short little book with 12 tales of witches, pretty faithfully told and from a few different eras. I liked it.

[Amanda Coffey]

This was a great book from beginning to end. The stories were short but had great details so you were able to instantly get attached to the characters. Would recommend for anyone who wants some short stories to break up the more time consuming books that you might have on your TBR list.

[Katherine Basto · Rating 5 out of 5]

This very well-written, interesting and captivating book features 12 tales of women accused of being a witch; in many cases they were either hanged or burned at the stake.
Although the chapters are short, Margaret Rowan chooses her words and phrases wisely. Less is more is true with this book. Through her colorful and succinct descriptive style, she brings the history and the characters to life.
I liked the way each chapter was uniquely titled. "The Witch Who Wore Red" about Salem's Bridget Bishop was a saucy and sad tale. Other titles include, "The Jilted Witch" and "The Queen of Hell." Although many of the stories take place during the Puritan time in our country, there are some gems from Scotland, as well as Joan of Arc. Rowan even has a few contemporary examples of "witches" in the 20th century and how they fared.
Although the author didn't have a bibliography or notes at the end of the book, and since I knew of some of the stories to begin with, I realized she did take advantage of filling in descriptions that we perhaps will never know that did enhance the story. Overall, it worked. I enjoyed this book, I learned a lot, it kept my interest, and I can see why Scholastic Books chose to publish this years ago. Well done.