The culmination of a career researching the history of paganism, shamanism, witchcraft and magic (ancient to modern), Ronald Hutton's The witch is a true masterpiece which follows several intersecting strands of debate on these subjects to test if a global approach can illuminate the early modern witch hunts. It does, and Hutton takes the reader on a dizzying ride through studies on ancient beliefs through to modern anthropological research on witches and performers of magic or ‘service magicians’ around the world. He carefully dissects the evidence for each interpretation, finding, for example, that Norman Cohn's synthesis has worn very well, while speculation on the survival of an ancient fertility cult has not. Ancient civilisations provided the basic elements of the witch stereotype, but these did not start coming together until the high and late Middle Ages. From Persia came the concept of a dualistic cosmos where witches serve the evil divinity; from Mesopotamia, the fear of demons; from Egypt, ceremonial and ritual magic; from the Hebrews, an all-powerful God; from the Greeks, the stigmatising of magic as the opposite of religion; and from the Romans, the image of the witch as utterly evil and the first large-scale witchcraft executions. The medieval fusion of Roman and Germanic cultures combined the former's strix, a bird-like demoness that attacked children, with the latter's woman witch who drained the life force of adults. Even so, early medieval churchmen doubted the reality of such beings.

After his thorough, yet respectful dismantling of speculation over the folkloric origins of the witch stereotype, Hutton offers his chronological framework: church leaders began demonising ceremonial magic in the thirteenth century, which inquisitors then targeted in the following century, merging the image of heretics and magicians. This led to a widespread drive against magic in all forms beginning in the mid-1370s, culminating only in the 1420s with the first known trials of groups of alleged satanic witches, a hunt spurred by the preaching of observant friars who fused devil-worshipping heretics with ancient folkloric figures. Hutton argues that while shamanism shaped local variations of the witch in peripheral areas, in the core regions of the witch trials ‘the direct contribution of local popular motifs and traditions was minimal despite the existence of a flourishing and ample folklore concerning nocturnal spirit worlds’ (p. 284). His detailed examination of British fairies and familiars similarly reveals that the forms that these took in early modern witch trials can be traced back only to late medieval clerical activity, not to ancient survivals. Hutton's fascinating global overview reveals much about the beliefs and fears of humans across the globe, and the conditions and attitudes that encourage, and discourage, fear of magic and its human performers. Not only is it absolutely essential reading, but it is a thrilling ride.