Acknowledgments

I express my deepest gratitude to the late Gustavo Henningsen. The generous gifts of his time, guidance, and erudition were central to this book, and it was a great honor to be his læring. I extend my gratitude also to Dra. Marisa Rey Henningsen, from whom I learned much during my tenure in Sevilla.

I thank Erik Midelfort for his warm response to the note I sent to him in 2009, his encouragement to apply to study under the supervision of Tom Robisheaux, and his great advice to lean into the hanging toads. I hope my work will reflect positively on their academic legacies.

I am grateful for and honored by the funding from Duke University, the Fulbright Commission (Spain), the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation, and the American Association of University Women. These funding sources were crucial to the completion of this project.

There are so many wonderful people at Duke University to thank, among them Robin Ennis, Carson Holloway, Kelly Lawton, and Jehangir Malegam. Thanks to my cohort for their support, and especially Ashley Elrod. I deeply thank my mentors: Thomas Robisheaux for his constant reminder of the power of words and his attention to detail, his guidance in microhistorical methods, and his appreciation for the beautiful complexity of witchcraft beliefs; Pete Sigal for his appreciation of the peculiar, his affection for my toads, and his optimistic appraisal of the value of my work; and John Martin for his unwavering faith in me, ongoing support, and friendship.

I thank Allyson Creasman for providing succinct feedback and for kindly writing with me at the Pittsburgh public library. I am grateful to Kenneth Gowens for his mentorship and kindness, and to the anonymous readers who have provided me with invaluable feedback. I also thank Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, Michael Ostling, and Laurel Zwissler for sharing their professional guidance.

To my friends and colleagues in Spain, especially Jim Amelang, Victoria Ruiz, and Maria Tausiet, I give thanks for their support and kindness. To my friends from the “Witches and Animals: The Animal Turn in Witchcraft Studies?” conference (Weingarten, 2019), I extend my thanks for the conviviality and conversation, especially to Wolfgang Behringer, Anders Berrojalbiz, Maria Elleby, Tommy Kuusela, Jim Sharpe, and Rita Volmer, and the sponsors, the Akademie der Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart/Tagungshaus Weingarten (Oberschwaben).

I must thank so many people in Navarra, starting with the amazing historian Jesús María Usunáriz for his generosity and kindness. Thanks to the late Mikel Azurmendi, to the archivists at the Archivo Dioseno de Pamplona, and to Gontzal Rubinos Artolozaga from the website TurismoVasco for letting me use one of his images. At the Archivo General de Navarra, I acknowledge the labor of all the people behind the scenes, both now and over the past five centuries, and also Berta Elcano, Peio Monteano Sorbet, and Félix Segura. A super kaixo goes to Miriam Etxeberria for her superb archival prowess, for rediscovering Catalina Yrañeta and the other lost witches, for her dedication to the sorginak, and for her extraordinariness. I also thank Mikel, las txikis, the familia Lara, and Carol Romera Santander for teaching me so much about Euskal Herria.

At Cornell, the encouragement of Emily Andrews and Mahinder Kingra made this book possible, and I am so humbly grateful for their support. I thank Jason Glatz for his excellent maps and David Luljak for indexing. And to Heidi Giusto I owe extra thanks for her writing and editorial support. I also thank the Sixteenth Century Journal for allowing some of the material on toads to reappear in this book.

Thanks to all of my friends and colleagues at Kalamazoo College who have supported me and encouraged me in this process, and especially Sandino Vargas-Perez. I also thank my students for their inspiration and brilliance, and especially Leo Kaplan and Nico Lipton for their assistance.

Finally, I am so incredibly grateful for my family and friends: the legacy of Bolivia Barquero Rojas, Adolfo, Cindy, and Roger Rojas, Liana Rojas, Daniel, Adrian, and Elisa Moreno Rojas, Barry and Flo Nielsen, and Sharon Ornstein, among other loved ones. All my love and thanks to Felix, Reyna, and Silas who shaped this book. And lastly, I thank my partner and fellow historian, Matt, for his extraordinary support of me and the stories of the witches of early modern Navarra.