This talk will examine the history of these creatures – how they blended with the strangeness and darkness
Europe boasts an astonishing collection of Christmas witches who emerge from the winter shadows, beings like the Alpine witch Perchta, who goes house-to-house over the Christmas season and will slit open the bellies of any badly behaved children she encounters, pulling out their guts, stuffing them with straw and sewing them back up again with a ploughshare as a needle and a chain as thread. Her most recent book, The Dead of Winter, traced the origins and changing lore of the dark side of Christmas. Sarah has a PhD in ancient history from the University of Cambridge and works in publishing. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine.
Get a National Art Pass and explore The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History
You'll see more art and your membership will help museums across the UK
Visitor information
Address
The Last Tuesday Society, 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP
