Do people know about this. Apparently quite a few women were hanged after being 'convicted' of witchcraft.

A strange part of our history.

Link (http://www.hulford.co.uk/familiar.html)

Originally posted by slimsid2000
Do people know about this. Apparently quite a few women were hanged after being 'convicted' of witchcraft.

A strange part of our history.

Link (http://www.hulford.co.uk/familiar.html)

If you think that is strange...there was a news story a few years ago about a girl being prosecuted in some small american town for being a witch!! Unforutunatly I dont have a link :(

In America too - as Arthur Miller reminded us in his marvellous play about the Salem witch trials (The Crucible). Many have interpreted this as an allegorical critique of the Macarthyite witch hunts against communists in the 1950s. Every society probably has its heresies and its equivalent of witch hunts. We certainly have them in the UK, but thankfully we no longer burn people at the stake.

Originally posted by slimsid2000
Do people know about this. Apparently quite a few women were hanged after being 'convicted' of witchcraft.

A strange part of our history.

Link (http://www.hulford.co.uk/familiar.html)

There seems to have been a very strong strain of mysogeny in all of this. As far as I am aware, very few men were executed for being Wizzards. We even had a Witch-Finder General at one point, but not to the best of my knowledge a Wizzard Finder General. Perhaps it reflected a latent and subliminal fear of women, who at that time were expected to be submissive and cloistered in various ways.

again its down to that plague of mankind...........religion.

persecuting people for things they didnt understand.......and being nasty about it.

including such things as mental illness

also persecuting women ..........i believe there was issues with being unfaithful? and menstruation which made them treat women as witches????

Ah witch trials. There were plenty of people tried as witches, but few probably were. At the time of the trials in England it was not allowed to torture a confession - that was just made up for horror films. To get a confession they used sleep deprivation and tortures that would not be seen like making someone walk about naked all the time until they became exausted and humiliated enough to confess.

The actual instances of witch trials was maybe a couple of hundred until the witchfinder general - who was not a general, and definitely no witchfinder. Then they rose to about 600-800 before he was found to be a moron and the trials discontinued. Scotland and America went OTT on the trials.

No witches or those claiming to be witches were actually burnt in England. The general murder was by hanging.

And think - Dr Dee, advisor to the monarch of Britain, was also a 'witch'. Weird eh?

Dragon

I'm with Lord Chaverly on the misogyny. I guess you could blame religion in part but personally I'd say it's a more complex issue than that.

It still exists after all (back in the early 90s research showed that women were more likely to be diagnosed as suffering from a mental illness than a man suffering the same symptoms. Maybe this has changed but some how I doubt it).

You could parallel the branding of women as witches (with the stigma & fear that inferred) with the names people dub women today (eg slapper but there are so many more) which don't really get applied to men & if they are it's not in the same negative way. These days we just ostracise & villify women instead of hanging them.

It's a much bigger subject than it first appears & it's frightening how much of it we accept without questioning. It's amazing where blatant & subtle misogyny still rears its head - it's not consigned to 17th Century Witch Trials.

Originally posted by slimsid2000
Do people know about this. Apparently quite a few women were hanged after being 'convicted' of witchcraft.

A strange part of our history.

Link (http://www.hulford.co.uk/familiar.html)

it is quite a facinating and scary period.

Watch Witchfinder General (which is about £4 in HMV normally for a taster.

If you were any different from the norm of the villiage or didn't like you it was very easy for them to brand you a witch. You had no real defense unless you had the church on your side.

Obviously you had the "test" which was whether you drown or not and if you somehow survived that they'd burn or hang you.

Originally posted by robbie
it is quite a facinating and scary period.

Watch Witchfinder General (which is about £4 in HMV normally for a taster.

If you were any different from the norm of the villiage or didn't like you it was very easy for them to brand you a witch. You had no real defense unless you had the church on your side.

Obviously you had the "test" which was whether you drown or not and if you somehow survived that they'd burn or hang you.

prolly hang you as youd be too soggy to burn after all the dunkings

:D

The 'ducking school' did not come into being until much much later - about the period of history when the witch trials were fading away. It was usually enough to put you in chains and chuck you in the water - if they could be bothered.

The films available are generally hyped up with about as much truth to them as winnie the pooh. They are created for shock value. Half the uproar about the witch trials would not have existed if it had been just a story about some ugly male or female getting hanged so the creators of the movies soup them up. Same goes for books.

And the actual truth was not if you survived or drowned. It was, I am led to believe by the books I have read on the topic, a question of whether the person floated or sank. I could be wrong about that but as I was not arround at the time I can only go on what is written by historians.

Dragon

Originally posted by Dragon
The 'ducking school' did not come into being until much much later - about the period of history when the witch trials were fading away. It was usually enough to put you in chains and chuck you in the water - if they could be bothered.

The films available are generally hyped up with about as much truth to them as winnie the pooh. They are created for shock value. Half the uproar about the witch trials would not have existed if it had been just a story about some ugly male or female getting hanged so the creators of the movies soup them up. Same goes for books.

And the actual truth was not if you survived or drowned. It was, I am led to believe by the books I have read on the topic, a question of whether the person floated or sank. I could be wrong about that but as I was not arround at the time I can only go on what is written by historians.

Dragon

you mean winnie the poohs not real?

*falls off stool in shock*

LOL. Just a case of doing research due to the fact I own an occult shop.

Winnie the pooh is real but not in this reality unless you are smoking very strong weed.

The history of Witchcraft and the trials is interesting, but not interesting enough for high box office turnover.

Dragon

It was usually some old woman living alone at the edge of the village. She would be the type to keep herself to herself and not really fit in. Often people would vist such 'wise women' instead of doctors to cure their ailments.

The part abouit 'familiars' interests me. For some reason it was assumed that any animal such a woman had was really a familiar rather than jus a pet.

Originally posted by Dragon
The 'ducking school' did not come into being until much much later - about the period of history when the witch trials were fading away. It was usually enough to put you in chains and chuck you in the water - if they could be bothered.

The films available are generally hyped up with about as much truth to them as winnie the pooh. They are created for shock value. Half the uproar about the witch trials would not have existed if it had been just a story about some ugly male or female getting hanged so the creators of the movies soup them up. Same goes for books.

And the actual truth was not if you survived or drowned. It was, I am led to believe by the books I have read on the topic, a question of whether the person floated or sank. I could be wrong about that but as I was not arround at the time I can only go on what is written by historians.

Dragon

yep, it was floating or sinking. However, afaik sinking meant drowning.

Originally posted by Dragon
LOL. Just a case of doing research due to the fact I own an occult shop.

Winnie the pooh is real but not in this reality unless you are smoking very strong weed.

The history of Witchcraft and the trials is interesting, but not interesting enough for high box office turnover.

Dragon

you own an occult shop in Sheffield? if so where abouts?

actually i have a book here i found in a charity shop

"the devils dominion - magic and religion in new england"
appendix A at the back has a list of results of with trials, titled " witchcraft trials in seventeenth centuary new england)excluding persons accused during the salem witch hunt).....lists womens names, town they lived in and the verdict ie:- convicted, aquited etc, also has a letter down the side (E = executed, * = confession, , R=verdict reversed, ?=probably not certainly, [] a trial, probably, not certainly took place

strange seeing all these womens names and seeing quite a lot were executed

at the end theres a total = 61 people accused, 28 different communities, 16 convictions, at least 4 confessions, at least 14 (perhaps 16 executions)

theres a few blokes names, not many, theres 2 john godfreys (different towns beggining with H) both aquitted, 3 years apart?? hmmmmmm

Originally posted by robbie
you own an occult shop in Sheffield? if so where abouts?

you have to utter the magic text from a long lost scroll for it to appear

Not sure if I am allowed to say cos it may be seen as advertising, but it is on Langsett Road very near morrisons.

Sinking did not usually mean drowning. They had people with long poles to lift the person out of the water. If they sank three times then they were freed or something to that effect.

It was also rarely just an old lady on the edge of a village. Most of those accused of witchcraft were neighbours who you did not like, and their families. If you did not like someone - anyone - you just came out with claims of having witchcraft used against you by this person.

Most of the old tales are just stories and nothing more. Amazing how people can be misled.

Dragon

Originally posted by Dragon


Sinking did not usually mean drowning. They had people with long poles to lift the person out of the water. If they sank three times then they were freed or something to that effect.



i have a long pole, if any of you ladies are in danger of drowning i could always lop it out.....errm i mean go get it :)

The Witchfinder General (http://www.stanningtonplayers.supanet.com/spO309-11-full.jpg) gets ready to go about his ghoolish work.

Originally posted by slimsid2000
The Witchfinder General (http://www.stanningtonplayers.supanet.com/spO309-11-full.jpg) gets ready to go about his ghoolish work.

hmmmmmmm he scarpered pretty sharpish too

I was always under the impression that it was normally women but occasionally men who could heal with herbs etc or use them in other practical ways. Also, sometimes midwives and similar, if they happened to attend 2 still births for example they were classed as cohorts of the devil.
I've recently been to Cornwall and went to the rebuilt Witch Museum which was a plesant re-education.
I always felt that people being accused of being witches was due to lack of education and hysteria. Some people have a wisdom about the world and share it but are accused.
Some just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I'm led to understand that 'witches' were doomed no matter what, if they drowned they were innocant (but dead) and if they survived they were burnt as heretics.
I'm sure I'd be regarded as a witch 500 years ago, but only because I grow herbs and use essential oils.

"The specific crime of "witchcraft" has led to the installment of a huge legislation, courts and jurisdiction and consequently the execution of about half a million witches in Europe in the period of 1400 - 1792, the majority of whom were female, some male or even children, and the majority of whom were burned at the stake or hanged after being extensively tortured, an event unparalleled in human history."

And here's some documented witch killings.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/burning.htm

Perhaps we need more witches, some healing and hexes could be useful :D

In the case of the Lancashire witches, some of those tried and hung were men. All except one were exceedingly poor. The one who was not was Alice Nutter, and it is not clear what her wish for involvement with these people was.

The whole case began as a feud between two families which escalated. Together with this, the people in each family were very poor and went about the district begging work or money. You can imagine that they met with much derision due to this and it seems that one way they managed to 'scare' money out of people was to claim they had 'magical powers' and threaten them. One of the young women from one of the families, Jennet Device, threatened someone in this way and it was her poor luck that this man went on to die. As you can imagine things escalated from here and two families got involved in cross-accusations and others also became involved.

I think about 20 were eventually tried. There was talk at the time that they were holding 'sabbats' - and it seems true that they did meet, though whether they really were having coven meets or just trying to scare people is unknown.

So certainly in that case, poverty was the major factor in the witchcraft trials.

It was actually Alizon Device who cursed a man (John Law) who had rebuffed her begging. He immediately collapsed (similar to a stroke) but did not die.
Jennet Device was only 9 at the time and her involvement was as a prosecution witness against her relatives.

This website will give you some of the history of The Lancashire Witches:
http://www.pendlewitches.co.uk/

2 men and 8 women hanged at Lancaster in August 1612
1 woman died awaiting trial
1 woman (Jennet Preston) tried and hanged at York a month earlier (albeit by the same judges)
1 woman sentenced to 1 year imprisonment after being pilloried at 4 markets.

The website also includes some of the confessions given/extracted at the time.

Although somewhat hard work, the book The Lancashire Witches by William Harrison Ainsworth (1848) gives a romanticised, fictional story based around this episode.

I do not want to particularly diss a good site Zebra but have you read the threads in there? Lets just say they leave alot to be desired fat wise. Great for discussion but hardly something to bet your life on being accurate.

I believe someone did an article on the witch trials on one of the old sites I used to visit beneath the shades, but whether its stillon there I aint sure.

Scouting through this forum there have been other mentions of the witch trials.

Dragon