Witchcraft and the truth behind on the basis of Haunt Me Still by Jennifer Lee Carrell

This paper discusses the witch belief in Shakespeare’s time and today with a little retrospection to the origin of Pagan belief. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth people in the Protestant England could accept the existence of witches. At the same time in Scotland during the reign of Queen Mary the persecution of witches had started earlier as the reigning family was Catholic. The situation changed in England a lot when James I., the son of Queen Mary, became the king of England and Scotland. James was known to be scared of witches and to have the belief that all the bad things happened to him was caused by witches. William Shakespeare might have written the play of Macbeth in honour of the king, however he showed the witches and their ritual to the audience quite bravely in details. On the other hand his description completely met the expectations and beliefs of people of that age in connection with witches in the respect that they were depicted as ugly and wicked creatures. Jennifer Lee Carrell also stands Shakespeare’s Macbeth in the centre of her novel Haunt Me Still but approaches witchcraft issue from a different point of view. Through her novel the reader can take part in a „time travel” as with the interlude parts we can fly back into Shakespeare’s time and then return to present. As the writer allows to examine Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the ancient Pagan belief and modern witchcraft known as Wicca at the same time with true historical facts, I found it perfect to show that witchcraft itself could not always be identified with Shakespeare’s „weird sisters” or simply with wise-women. The truth is probably somewhere between the two.