Földessy Edina, Szűcs Alexandra, Wilhelm Gábor: Tabula 2/1 (Néprajzi Közlemények; Budapest, 1999)

TÓTH G. PÉTER: Szexháború? Avagy férfiak és nők konfliktusa a magyarországi boszorkányperekben

VA LENTIN USCH, HELFRIED, HRSG. 1987 Hexen und Zauberer. Die große Verfolgung - ein europäisches Phänomen in der Steiermark. Graz-Wien: Leykam-Verlag. WERBŐCZY ISTVÁN 1896 [1517] Werbőczy István Hármaskönyve. Magyar Törvénytár. Az eredetinek 1517-iki első kiadása után fordították, bevezetésekkel és utalásokkal ellátták dr. Kolosváry Sándor és dr. Óvári Kelemen. Budapest: Franklin-Társulat. PÉTER TÓTH G. Sex-war? Conflicts between men and women in the Hungarian witch trials In the present study, I try to design the different narrative-structures of the testimonies. The bases of differentiation are (I) whether the recited texts communicate self-assumed or attributed beliefs, or (2), whether they represent fictive or real narratives. Finally, I would like to put up a hypothetical question concerning the existence of a difference between male and female narrative structures. Male and female speakers adhered to roughly the same narrative strategies. The difference between them lay not in the structure of the narration, but. rather, in the extent to which the suspect conformed to the widely-accepted beliefs about witches. As a result, Hungarian witches were women not because the conflicts of the predominantly "female sphere of everyday life" led to witch-hunts, but because the dominant witch-beliefs were ultimately female-centered in this region. Our second conclusion is concerned with the stereotype of the "old widow", the notion rejected by many researchers, which, however, may have a certain role in the realization of witch-charges. From the perspective of the injured, one may have to accept the existence of a witch-stereotype independent of demonology that is, that the "witch-woman" is furthermore "lonely and old".