Fantasies of Witches and Soldiers' Wives in Baroque Germany

The chapter questions the extent to which stereotypes of both witches and soldiers' wives current in early modern Germany were culturally valid at the level of ordinary people rather than the demonologists, pamphleteers, artists and their patrons who traded off of them. It argues that there was a tension between myths about certain marginalised groups of women and how they might be viewed by their immediate neighbours. The available evidence suggests that these neighbours may not always, or even usually, have projected their fears onto alleged witches and real soldiers' wives through the utilisation of established stereotypes and the myths attendant on them.