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- You had made enemies: In many cases, people were accused of being witches by neighbors bearing grudges and seeking revenge. Sometimes – quite often, in fact – men or women did nothing to give the impression they might be witches.
- You had a reputation for being argumentative: Nobody liked or trusted an assertive woman back in the 16 and 17 centuries. If being an independent woman was enough to set tongues wagging at the height of ‘witch hysteria’ in the 16 and 17 centuries, then being assertive and argumentative was almost guaranteed to get you labelled a witch.
- You forgot to throw out old dairy products: Believe it or not, curdled milk was offered up as evidence that women were witches. Quite where the idea that witches caused milk to curdle has never been firmly established.
- You were illiterate: Even if you were dyslexic or just hated speaking in public, failure to quote fluently from the Bible might be seen as a sign of being possessed by evil.
Sep 12, 2017 · Witches were perceived as evil beings by early Christians in Europe, inspiring the iconic Halloween figure. Images of witches have appeared in various forms throughout history—from evil,...
By the 1500s, organised Christian religion had decided that witchcraft and magic were evil and that witchcraft involved making a pact with the Devil. In Christian countries like Scotland, the...
Oct 31, 2015 · Witch hunts spread like wildfire across Europe, the worst of which occurred in France and Germany. Würzburg, Germany was home to the worst instance of witch hunting: the magistrates of the time determined that most of the town was possessed by the Devil, and condemned hundreds of innocent women to death.
- Leah Silverman
Oct 23, 2019 · Powerful men often proclaim baseless accusations to be a ‘witch hunt.’ But American witch trials have always targeted a persecuted minority: women.
- Bridget Marshall
From the Salem Witch Trials to the witches of Macbeth, the figure of the witch is embedded in our culture. The problem is that most of what we think we know is wrong. Professor Diane Purkiss debunks eight of the most common myths about witchcraft. In England witches were hanged, not burned.
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Oct 27, 2020 · We examine the way that torture – though illegal in England – was employed in late 16th-century Scotland and during the upheaval of the Civil War. We explore the role of the witchfinder, but also the willing collaboration of ordinary people in ridding the land of witches.
