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A review by jonfaith
Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath by Carlo Ginzburg
What we have tried to analyze here is not one narrative among many, but the matrix of all possible narratives.
So concludes this Triumph of the Weird. What a Borgesian proclamation! My head spins with the density and erudition displayed in this ethnohistory of an idea, the Sabbath. This was a perfect book to roll around with for two days, discouraged from leaving the house by winter break and true winter weather. So Dr. Ginzburg ponders why Witch Trials all sounded similar across three centuries and throughout Europe. He pokes and ponders, parses and sifts until he finds that mushrooms are the answer. Sorry for the spoiler. Such was disseminated thousands of years ago by the Scythians and their travels both east and west. Throughout which such totems found themselves everywhere in folklore: all ceremony and symbolism trace back to that Eurasian jaunt. I suspect [b:The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth|820465|The White Goddess A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth|Robert Graves|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1311971301s/820465.jpg|219413] is a similar wormhole. One could grow fat and die on the footnotes alone. The elegance of the etymology is worth the price of admission.
So concludes this Triumph of the Weird. What a Borgesian proclamation! My head spins with the density and erudition displayed in this ethnohistory of an idea, the Sabbath. This was a perfect book to roll around with for two days, discouraged from leaving the house by winter break and true winter weather. So Dr. Ginzburg ponders why Witch Trials all sounded similar across three centuries and throughout Europe. He pokes and ponders, parses and sifts until he finds that mushrooms are the answer. Sorry for the spoiler. Such was disseminated thousands of years ago by the Scythians and their travels both east and west. Throughout which such totems found themselves everywhere in folklore: all ceremony and symbolism trace back to that Eurasian jaunt. I suspect [b:The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth|820465|The White Goddess A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth|Robert Graves|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1311971301s/820465.jpg|219413] is a similar wormhole. One could grow fat and die on the footnotes alone. The elegance of the etymology is worth the price of admission.