Famine famine, and extreme famine. The number of deaths determines the magnitude designation, with under 1000 fatalities defining a "minor famine" and a "catastrophic famine" resulting in over 1,000,000 deaths. Famine personified as an allegory is found in some cultures, e.g. one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Christian tradition, the fear gorta of Irish folklore, or the Wendigo of Algonquian tradition. Famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, inflation, crop failure, population imbalance, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased
Great Famine (Ireland) for England". Mitchel later wrote one of the first widely circulated tracts on the famine, "The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps)", in 1861. It established the widespread view that the treatment of the famine by the British was a deliberate murder of the Irish, and it contained the famous phrase: "The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine." Mitchel was charged with sedition because of his writings, but this charge was dropped and he was convicted by a packed jury under the newly enacted Treason Felony Act and sentenced to 14 years transportation to Bermuda.