You wrote: >>Another author, John Demos, analyzed the social and psychological >>characteristics of the participants. He found that the accused were mostly >>married women between the ages 40 and 60 with some kind of personal >>eccentricity. I haven't read Mary Beth Norton's book, but I saw her presentation on CSPAN II. I think she contradicts this notion, at least if you look outside Salem, and considering that at least half the accused were from outside Salem, I think one should look at the accused from outside Salem. >The accusers were divided into two categories- those that experienced fits who ended up being mostly single girls between the ages of 8 and 20, and those people who had experienced some misfortune that they attributed to witchcraft. This second group had no unifiying characteristic except that they tended to be neighbors of the accused! I believe that the neighborly connection between accused and accusers is one of the main points of Demos' book, _Entertaining Satan_, which is generally considered a "classic" on the subject and well worth reading. It was something that immediately struck me when I started researching Elizabeth Morse, and it's something that I think merits even more research (if I ever can manage it!). Does Enders Robinson explore this aspect, too? And there's a book on Mary Easty and her relatives that emphasizes the role of neighborly feuds, isn't there? It seems to me that neighborly feuds play a signficant roles in moat cases of witchcraft, especially since in most cases, one neighjbor is accusing another of doing harm to person or property. When I was reading the accusations againsty Elixabeth Morse, it struck me just how angry the accusers were. The young men who accused her were just as angry about the fact that she didn't speak to them with the respect they thought they should receive from a woman as they were about sheep dying. Francine Nicholson _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail