Peter Dendle

Demon Possession in Anglo-Saxon and Early Modern England: Continuity and Evolution in Social Context

C ^^^ ometime between around 687 and 700, a distraught father brought his . ^^ raving son, in a wagon, to the island of Lindisfarne, where the holy relics ^^^ of Saint Cuthbert were kept. According to the author of the Life of Cuth bert, the boy, wearied by the torments of a demon, was prone to succumb to bouts of screaming, weeping, and self-mutilation. A priest named Tydi had been unable to put the demon to flight, so he advised the father to transport his son to the relics. At that point, Many people despaired of being able to secure any remedy for the miserable boy, but a certain man of good and pure faith who was moved to pity, placing his trust in God and entreating the help of St. Cuthbert, blessed some holy water and sprinkled in it some dirt from the ditch in which had been poured the bath water of the body of our holy bishop after his death. Once the boy tried the holy water, he desisted from his babbling that night.1 Almost a thousand years later, an Essex teenager named Katheren Malpas was likewise adjudged to be sorely afflicted by demons. According to the testimony her grandparents gave in Star Chamber, Katherens torments began on Candlemas Eve, 1621, presaged by several bouts of hideous screaming that left her lame. Over the subsequent months, Katheren often appeared to succumb to terrible fits that seemed all the more horrifying to those who saw her, by virtue of their violence and the fact that they rendered her corn

Cryptozoology in the Medieval and Modern Worlds

Popular interest in cryptozoology (the study of unconfirmed species, such as bigfoot and chupacabra) has been fuelled by a recent publishing frenzy of encyclopaedias, dictionaries, and guides devoted to the subject, as well as by unprecedented opportunities for enthusiasts to collect data and exchange stories via the Internet. The author situates the emotional commitment many exhibit toward cryptids (the creatures themselves) in a broad historical context. Unconfirmed species served as an implicit ground of conflict and dialogue between untutored masses and educated elite, even prior to the rise of academic science as a unified body of expert consensus. The psychological significance of cryptozoology in the modern world has new facets, however: it now serves to channel guilt over the decimation of species and destruction of the natural habitat; to recapture a sense of mysticism and danger in a world now perceived as fully charted and over-explored; and to articulate resentment of and defiance against a scientific community perceived as monopolising the pool of culturally acceptable beliefs. “Man, it is true, can, by combination, surmount all his real enemies, and become master of the whole of animal creation: But does he not immediately raise up to himself imaginary enemies, the dæmons of his fancy …?”—David Hume (Smith 1947, 195).