Review
The slowly starving villagers of
Tierkinddorf are getting desperate. It is the middle
of a bitterly cold winter following the second
summer in which there has been no harvest. Elderly
Gude Muller, sinking into dementia, knows that her
position in the house she and her husband Hensel
built is precarious now that it is ruled by her
daughter-in-law, Irmeltrud, who sees her as an
unnecessary mouth to feed; but at least she still
has the love of her son, Jost, and the companionship
of her old friend Kunne, the local healer.
Things take a turn for the worse when a fat Friar
arrives clutching a well used copy of the medieval
guide to identifying witches,
The Witch's
Hammer, and quickly and insidiously turns the
villagers on one another...
Beyond the Book
About the Witchhunts
The period of the 'Great
European Witch-hunt's' started
around 1450. There are many
theories as to why the
witch-hunts started in the first
place (which are neatly outlined
at this
website - which, should be
noted, belongs to a Catholic
College); but the flames were
certainly fed by Pope Innocent VIII's 1484 papal bull, in which
he condemned an alleged outbreak
of witchcraft and heresy in the
Rhine River valley and deputized
the authors of
Malleus Maleficarum (a
judicial case-book for the...
