Book cover: "Witch Hammer"

• Title: Witch Hammer
• Original Czech title: Kladivo na čarodějnice (The Witches' Hammer)
• Author: Václav Kaplický (1895-1982)
• Original Czech publication date: 1963
• Publisher of this edition: Harbinger House, Tucson, Arizona. (Probably closed decades ago.)
• Year of this edition: 1990
• Pages: 401
• Format: Hardcover
• Cover illustration: Theresa Smith
• Dust jacket price: $17.95
• Translator: John A. Newton (stated first English translation)
• Excerpt from dust jacket: "The year is 1680. In the north Moravian hamlet of Wermsdorf (now in Czechoslovakia) the village midwife's cow is going dry. When a beggarwoman is caught stealing a communion wafer — to use in a folk remedy for dry cows — she touches off a witch-hunting frenzy that lasts nearly two decades. Based on court transcripts and other archival records, Witch Hammer is Václav Kaplický's harrowing dramatization of those dreadful years. But witch-hunting is just the framework for a far larger story. In deft strokes, Kaplický shows how easily opportunists can use ideology to twist fear and the drive for self-preservation to their own ends."
• Excerpt from Translator's Note: "I make no apologies for deviating from the author's usage in the translation of this book. It was his undoubted intention to make this a documentary work, and its authenticity was all the more powerful for his use of proper names which were recognized fro a modern Czech readership. But different rules apply for other readers."
• Excerpt #1: "The countess deplored the moral decay, coarse nature, and backwardness of her serfs without realizing who was mostly to blame."
• Excerpt #2: "What Zeidler said at the christening party was not true, of course, but merely a report of what the inquisitor had proclaimed all over the castle: that the women from Wermsdorf were witches, beyond the slightest doubt."
• Excerpt #3: "The arrests were in the surrounding countryside, so no one could tell whether there was any truth in the charges. But then the bailiffs began dragging away women from Gross Ullersdorf itself. The first to go was Agneta Kopp, a farmer's wife who for years had lived in peace and friendship with all her neighbors and whose herbal knowledge had been called upon and appreciated by everyone."
• Excerpt #4: "After this solemn statement, no one dared make any more remarks. Only after some time did the foregemaster ask whether this divine protection also extended to the members of the inquisitorial tribunal. 'It does indeed,' Boblig declared."
• Excerpt #5: "The inquisitor was selective, arresting only those he considered to be of especial consequence, because the new jail was still not yet finished. Even so, the number of detainees was rising fast."
• Excerpt #6: "Popular belief in the supernatural power of witches was vigorous and had never smoldered far below the surface; now it blazed into the open. This belief was forcefully heightened by Administrator Schmidt in his Sunday sermon, which was followed by a wave of hatred directed especially against Esther Rohmer."
• Excerpt #7: "Lautner was no longer able to put up any resistance. To all the nonsenses that Boblig had put into the mouths of the witnesses, Lautner confessed, for he was no longer responsible for his actions. He confessed to everything and anything."
• That's a lot of excerpts: I chose what I chose.
• Rating on Goodreads: 4.34 stars (out of 5). Many, perhaps most, of the reviews and ratings are for Kaplický's original text.
• Goodreads review excerpt: In 2011, Jana wrote: "I come from South Moravia but my grandfathers family comes from the city of Šumperk and every year I come to spend holiday with my family to a small village just under the mountains of Jeseniky. Village that is just behind the corner of the town Velké Losiny. ... Yet reading Kladivo na Čarodějnice (Witch Hammer) left me somehow dumbfounded. It was amazingly written and it left you aching for the characters. Because I knew that they are not some fictional characters that are going through unimaginable pain. These characters in the book were real people and even though the author could not possible know the detailed and accurate version of the story, one could be sure that if they didn't go through the events as he described them it was probably worse and certainly not better. Knowing all the places were the events occurred made it also that much real (if you know what I mean)."
• Amazon review excerpt: In 2020, Xoe_TN wrote: "I loved this book. The details were wonderful, and the translation excellent! This is the story of a little town in CZECHOSLOVAKIA in the 1900's that has been victim of the late witch hunts. It all starts with a rumour that a hag in town is using communion hosts to cast spells, this causes an amazing stir in the community. This is a great book, you find greed, lies, sex, and compassion all in the same book. The translation looses nothing of the original text." 
• Movie version: Kaplický's book was adapted for the 1970 Czech film Witchhammer, directed by Otakar Vávra (1911-2011). The movie has a rating of 7.7 (out of 10) on IMDb. It is available on blu-ray, and it was featured on an episode of The Projection Booth podcast in 2021.
• Related thought: I am reminded (by this book and often by contemporary events) of these words, which were first spoken in March 1960: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices ... to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill ... and suspicion can destroy ... and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own — for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is ... that these things cannot be confined ... to The Twilight Zone" (Rod Serling, "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street").