Dreams in the Witch-House: Prologue

Dreams in the Witch-House is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft, where a young student spends a few nightmare plagued nights in the old house of the long dead witch Keziah Mason in New England. Needless to say the witch is a leading actor in those dreams along with her grotesque familiar, Brown Jenkin.
A few years ago I developed an interest in Early Modern European Witchcraft ( roughly 1500-1800), which has finally left me with a passable collection of contemporary texts and several historical and analytical works on the subject. The notion of Witchcraft, Demonology and the early modern witch in general has been documented, explained and analysed extremely well in several works. The subject's unique aura has captivated the imagination of many scientists, scholars and artists. The articles that will follow this prologue, do not pretend to add anything to the existing knowledge, or even offer a unique perspective.
On the contrary, like the young student Walter Gilman in Lovecraft's tale, I merely wish to unload the thoughts, nightmares and dreams, that this endeavour has inspired.
Even well meant and exact accounts of events cannot be used as proof of anything. The very act of recounting a story, even with the most honest clarity, can never be unbiased, as it is diluted, at least, by the speaker's perception of what constitutes an actual event and the limits of the language he uses. Thus, in the texts that will follow the focus will be on the elements of contemporary documents (reports of actual events or imaginary pieces of literature), and not on the events themselves, in an attempt to experience the superstitious atmosphere of the era.
Walking into the Gingerbread house will get you eaten, but it takes a lot of gingerbread to built a house. These are my bricks.