{"product_id":"deadly-words-9780521297875","title":"Deadly Words","description":"This 1980 book examines witchcraft beliefs and experiences in the Bocage, a rural area of western France. It also introduced a powerful theoretical attitude towards the progress of the ethnographer's enquiries, suggesting that a full knowledge of witchcraft involves being 'caught up' in it oneself. In the Bocage, being bewitched is to be 'caught' in a sequence of misfortunes. According to those who are bewitched, the culprit is someone in the neighbourhood: the witch, who can cast a spell with a word, a touch or a look, and whose 'power' comes from a book of spells inherited from an ancestor. Only a professional magician, an 'unwitcher', has any chance of breaking the succession of misfortunes which befall those who have been bewitched. He undertakes a battle of magic with the suspected witch, a battle which is eventually fatal.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Cambridge University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50325068284178,"sku":"9780521297875","price":53.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_171a1a2a-0df5-494f-a9a1-4fe88204ec15.jpg?v=1727679865","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/deadly-words-9780521297875","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}