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History of Witchcraft Early-European Witchcraft The earliest historical records of witchcraft in Europe [such as law codes, poems, heroic tales] reveal that it was divided into two distinct traditions of magical belief. In the far north, from Iceland eastward to the Baltic lands and Russia, magic was the preserve of specialists, the shamans, who drummed, danced, and chanted their way into trances in which their spirits left their bodies to accomplish the necessary work. Every tribe or clan needed to have one, and misfortune was blamed on hostile shamans. Most were male, but a female shaman was acceptable if no man with the necessary gift was available. Across the rest of Europe, among the Greeks, Romans, Germans, and Celts alike, a different system prevailed. Men were regarded as able to learn magic, and to read omens, explain unusual events, and work sorcery. Women, by contrast, were treated as repositories of powerful and primeval...

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