Spain🇪🇸 Here's everything I found, organized by my favorites…
No 1. Netflix movie Akelarre - Coven (2020) Great and beautiful film, loads of history here⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (see my previous post about the real history behind this film)
No 2. Witches Mountain🏔El Monte de las Brujas (1972) could be a great movie, but the execution is so poor that it ruins the experience. A photographer takes an assignment in the Pyrenees just across the Spanish border, but soon has supernatural encounters (witches). Waiting for the re-make!
No 3. Witching & Bitching - Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi (2013) has received a controversial reception, I think it was fun and entertaining. The Caves of Zugarramurdi have a historical connection to the Basque witch trials in Navarra. Zugarramurdi is near what is now the French-Spanish border, where there is also a water stream (Olabidea or Infernuko erreka, "Hell's stream") was said to be the meeting place of the witches.
Perhaps here the most interesting seems to be the story of LaCelestina (1499) and I noticed that it was translated into Finnish in 2019 (going to get the book) 📖 The trials of the Basque witches conducted during the 16th and early 17th centuries had a significant effect on the development of Golden Age Spanish Literature.
Often considered the first European novel, La Celestina was profoundly influential in the development of European prose fiction and is valued by critics today as much for its greatness as literature as for its historical significance. No 4. La Celestina (1996) with Penelope Cruz is good - and very romantic- but not a great movie. I haven’t seen the older versions ( poster below).
No 5. I tried to watch 1984 film Akelarre- mixed documentary & fiction - but I found only few parts with translation, its content did not seem very science-based, but otherwise interesting.
Few witch trials facts from the area of 🇪🇸 :
TheSpanish inquisition rescued countless of ’witches’ from local legal witch processes (Henningsen 1980; Ankarloo & Clark 2002).
Yes, burning at the stake was used as a method of execution in Spain, unlike in most other countries (Levack 1987).
In Catalonia, the Inquisition was less respected and more people died (Ankarloo & Clark 2002).
The general discourse emphasizes the number of women as victims, but there are large regional differences. In Castile 70 % was women, but in in Aragón 70 % was men. (Schulte 2009)
Navarra is famous for the huge number of defendants, but the number of victims sentenced to death remained low due to the Inquisition.
From Zugarramurdi 6 people were burned alive, 4 women & 2 men, 13 died in prison during The Basque Witch Trials (Henningsen 1980)
*Places to see in Zugarramurdi: River Infernuko Erreka, Caves, Museum
