This story is excerpted and adapted from Kristen J. Sollée’s Witch Hunt: A Traveler’s Guide to the Power and Persecution of the Witch, published in October 2020 by Red Wheel Weiser. To German witches—hexen—the Harz highlands of northern Germany is home, a mountain range steeped in pagan lore. Here, Quedlinburg, a dazzling medieval town untouched by World War II, is a place of whimsical winding streets and more than a thousand fully preserved half-timbered homes. The town has a rather feminist bent to its history, as women wielded great political…
