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Common Knowledge

Birthdate: 1896
Date of death: 1985-11-24
Gender: female
Nationality: UK
Country (for map): England, UK
Birthplace: Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, England, UK
Places of residence: Iffley, Oxfordshire, England, UK
Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, England, UK
Education: convent school
Occupations: folklorist
author
scholar
Organizations: Folklore Society
Short biography: Christina Hole was born in Rickmansworth, England and raised in Kingston-on-Thames by her grandmother. She attended St. Bernard's Convent in Slough from age 12 and finished her education in France. Before World War II, she worked in Cheshire as an organizer and speaker for the Conservative Party. It was during this time that she started to study and collect folklore seriously as she traveled around the country. Her first book was Traditions and Customs of Cheshire (1937), and she wrote many others on English folklore, customs and usage. In 1941, she joined the Folklore Society, and in 1956 was invited to become the honorary editor of its journal, Folklore, a position she held until 1979. Her most popular book was Witchcraft in England (1945).

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Reviews

Witchcraft in Britain by Christina Hole

An interesting little book which suffers rather from the author's decision to organise the material into topics. The same cases are therefore revisited at different points in the book, the author attempting to discuss them without being repetitive, but it has the effect of making it rather bitty. There were probably some good insights here and there, but the author was a little too credulous in stating that a good number of people probably were witches in the sense of being poisoners etc. and seemed to lack some of the social awareness which these days is brought to this subject.

A curiosity of the book, apart from its rather creepy cover, are the illustrations by Mervyn Peake which don't always stick to the brief, e.g a cat is shown being thrown into a pond whereas in the narrative it was clearly tossed into the sea. All in all, would rate this a middling 3 star effort.… (more)

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kitsune_reader | 2 other reviews | Nov 23, 2023 |

Witchcraft in Britain by Christina Hole

Fascinating history, full of sympathy and understatement. The illustrations by Peake are lively, human and strange.

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allyshaw | 2 other reviews | Apr 4, 2013 |

Witchcraft in Britain by Christina Hole

A very interesting and nicely written history of British witchcraft. The book does not assume a modern day scientific world-view and is, therefore, quite thought-provoking. Although the author does a good job describing how witchcraft was perceived in its day, she does not probe deeply into the question of whether real witchcraft is actually possible. But why should she? This is, after all, a history book.

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alex_beta | 2 other reviews | Nov 20, 2006 |

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