Episode 200: The Long Arc of Witch Hunts—From Connecticut to a Global Crisis

The Thing About Witch Hunts: We mark episode 200 by tracing the full arc of witch hunts from ancient prosecutions to early modern demonology, colonial New England, and today’s escalating global violence. We begin with Connecticut’s executions—starting with Alice Young in 1647—and the 2023 resolution absolving the indicted victims, then widen out through England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the Basque country, Sweden, and Salem, emphasizing how courts, texts, and laws shaped prosecutions and how “hysteria” does not accurately describe these bureaucratic trials. We connect historic concepts like the diabolical pact, the sabbath, and “crimen exceptum” to modern accusations, banishment, torture, and killings across at least sixty nations, citing UN-documented violence, Ghana’s Akua Denteh, and contradictory legal responses. We center survivors and the accused as people, invite action, and point listeners to endwitchhunts.org and World Day Against Witch Hunts (August 10).Thank you to the 175 guests who have appeared on the podcast and to all who have viewed or listened to The Thing About Witch Hunts. And we aren't stopping with 200 episodes. Subscribe today and watch the amazing episodes coming up.

End Witch Hunts endwitchhunts.org

About Witch Hunts aboutwitchhunts.com

Salem Witch Trials History YouTube: https://youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts

00:00 Episode 200 Mission

02:53 Ancient Roots

05:14 Church Turns to Heresy

09:58 Malleus and Sexism

11:36 England Goes Secular

12:23 Pamphlets and Skeptics

18:12 Laws Across Colonies

25:02 Europe Scale and Stress

27:17 England Local Panics

31:02 Scotland Burning Regime

34:50 Wales and Healing Magic

37:25 Ireland Rare Trials

40:11 Basque Hunt Split Courts

43:16 Sweden Blockula to Salem

44:40 Connecticut Before Salem

46:20 Massachusetts and Salem

51:22 After Trials Vigilantes

53:45 Modern Global Crisis

58:59 Law Patchwork Today

01:01:07 Memorials and World Day

01:03:20 What You Can Do

01:05:22 Final Call to Action

What was a witch's familiar, and why did these animal spirits sit at the heart of English witch trials? Returning guest Dr. Holly Bamford joins hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack to explain the witch's familiar, the witch's mark, and the overlooked history of male witches in early modern England. Learn what the familiar meant, how the witch's mark was used as evidence, why the witch-familiar bond mirrored motherhood, and why men accused of witchcraft were not simply feminized. Featuring Agnes Waterhouse and her cat Satan, John Bysack and his six snails, and John Palmer's familiar named Jezebel.

• What a witch's familiar was in English witchcraft

• Why the familiar mattered so much in witch trials

• How the witch's mark was used as evidence

• Who was accused of being a male witch

• Why men accused of witchcraft were not feminized

• How the witch-familiar bond mirrored motherhood

• Why Agnes Waterhouse and her cat Satan became a foundational case

• What John Palmer's familiar Jezebel reveals about marriage

00:00 Familiars in Trials

01:01 Meet Dr Bamford

02:08 Conference Paper Idea

04:14 What Is a Familiar

07:51 Pamphlets and Audiences

11:47 Counting Trials Limits

15:03 Agnes Waterhouse Case

19:21 Marks and Teats

22:56 Motherhood and Familiars

31:52 Male Witches and Snails

41:49 Humanoid Familiar Jezebel

46:27 Further Reading Wrap

48:53 Modern Meaning Outro

#WitchTrials #Witchcraft #WitchsFamiliar #WitchesMark #MaleWitches #WitchcraftHistory #EarlyModernEngland #Familiars #Folklore #AgnesWaterhouse #HistoryPodcast #WitchHunts #EndWitchHunts

Buy: Witchcraft, the Devil, and Emotions in Early Modern England by Charlotte-Rose Millar https://bookshop.org/a/90227/9780367204549

Buy the book Cunning-Folk and Familiar Spirits by Emma Wilby https://bookshop.org/a/90227/9781845190798

Register for the Magic and Witchcraft Conference June 24-25 Online & In Person

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/magic-and-witchcraft-conference-2026-nature-and-the-supernatural-tickets-1989231567166

End Witch Hunts: https://www.endwitchhunts.org

The Thing About Witch Hunts: https://aboutwitchhunts.com

Metacom’s Resistance, Puritan Mythology, and King Philip’s War with Sarah Stewart (Partnership of Historic Bostons)

We speak with Sarah Stewart, president of the Partnership of Historic Bostons, a public history organization focused on 17th-century New England, to confront Puritan mythology and widen the lens beyond Salem to Indigenous history, enslaved Africans, and displaced peoples. We dig into why King Philip’s War, which is often skipped in schools and told through colonial monuments, Increase Mather, and captivity narratives, was a turning point that devastated Native sovereignty, reshaped New England, and fed the fear that later influenced the Salem witch trials. Sarah breaks down PHB’s “Metacom’s Resistance” series, the need for reframing the war through Indigenous voices, and the realities of enslavement, land commodification, and legal encroachment on sovereignty. 

00:00 Meet Sarah Stewart

00:50 Origins of the Partnership

01:51 Broadening the 17th Century Lens

03:21 Programs and Events

04:58 Puritans Beyond the Myths

06:51 Building Community Feedback

08:06 Why King Philip's War Matters

10:53 How the Story Got Distorted

13:22 Metacom's Resistance Series

17:49 Indigenous Voices Center Stage

20:50 Violence and Witch Trial Fear

23:59 Captivity and Enslavement

25:53 Land Commodification Clash

28:50 Land And Equality

29:31 Amplifying Indigenous Voices

33:08 Powerful Panels And Future Events

37:08 Puritans Fear And Ongoing Wars

39:11 Courts Sovereignty And Punishment

42:23 Thomas Morton And Other Paths

45:29 War Choices And Modern Parallels

46:55 Audience Reflections And Truth

52:01 Keep Learning Stay Connected

Partnership of Historic Bostons

“The Unknown War: King Philip's War, 1675-1678” (video)

“The Past is Now: An Inter-Tribal Panel Discussion of King Philp's War” (video)

“Surviving Slavery: Indigenous Enslavement in King Philip's War” (video)

“Erasure: History, Memory and King Philip's War” (video)

“What Really Happened at Turners Falls?” (video)

“The Long Legacy: The Cost and Consequences of King Philip's War” (video)

“The Slews and Hoars of Beverly: From Witchcraft to Slavery” (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GEspMnY9-o

“The Other: Understanding Witch Hunts, Part I, with Emerson Baker, Sarah Jack, and Josh Hutchinson” (video)

“Resistance: Stopping Witch Hunts, Part II” (video)

Jenny Hale Pulsipher, Subjects unto the Same King: Indians, English, and the Contest for Authority in Colonial New England

Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity

Peter C. Mancall, The Trials of Thomas Morton

We turn the mic on each other for a fast, personal Q&A spanning Salem and global witch hunts, from the infamous Salem witch cake to pop-culture “broom” upgrades and the accused people we can’t stop thinking about, including Samuel Wardwell, Katherine Harrison, Mary Esty, and Rebecca Nurse. We dig into why confessions didn’t always save lives, how spectral evidence shaped cases, and how banishment could be a brutal alternative to execution. We break down our three podcast formats—Salem Witch Trials Daily, The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials, and The Thing About Witch Hunts—and share what listeners most ask about innocence, “real” witchcraft, and the reality that accusations still occur in at least 60 countries. We close with how End Witch Hunts grows through volunteering, donations, subscriptions, and petitions for exonerations.

00:00 Welcome And Guests

01:18 Witch Cake Debate

02:23 Flying On Appliances

03:52 Accused Who Haunt Us

08:17 Banishment And Survival

09:20 Three Podcasts Explained

10:57 Questions We Get Asked

13:32 Research Methods Shift

15:21 Growing Reach Staying Grounded

19:10 What Makes Our Show Different

24:15 Devil Nicknames And Laughs

26:58 Witch Trials Ice Cream

29:38 Descendant Emotions And Ancestors

35:31 Understanding Accusers And Fear

43:43 Why The Accused Were Innocent

45:31 June Trials And Daily Plug

46:24 How To Support End Witch Hunts

51:36 Final Thanks And Call To Action 

Links

Support The Thing About Witch Hunts: https://endwitchhunts.org/donate

The Thing About Witch Hunts Website: https://aboutwitchhunts.com

The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials: https://aboutsalem.com

Salem Witch Trials Daily: https://aboutsalem.com/salem-witch-trials-daily/

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts

Salem Witch Hunt Facebook Page: https://facebook.com/salemwitchhunt

Divination folklore, folk magic history, and the practice of reading omens, cards, and natural signs are at the heart of this conversation with Icy Sedgwick, author of Fate or Fortune: The Art and Folklore of Divination, folklorist, and host of the Fabulous Folklore Podcast. From ancient liver divination in Mesopotamia to love divination games played by young women in early modern England, this episode traces the deep folk roots of divinatory practice across centuries and cultures.

Icy Sedgwick is a writer, researcher, and diviner specializing in folklore, plant lore, and folk magic. Her book Fate or Fortune: The Art of Divination explores the history, folklore, and practice of divination from a folklore studies perspective. She is the creator and host of the Fabulous Folklore Podcast, based in Newcastle, England.

Divination is one of the oldest and most universal human impulses, and its fingerprints are all over witch trial history. In this episode, Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack sit down with Icy Sedgwick to explore what folk magic tradition tells us about the people who practiced divination, why they sought answers through omens and tools and rituals, and what those practices reveal about the communities that preserved them. The conversation is wide-ranging, deeply grounded in folklore scholarship, and endlessly surprising.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

• What separates divination from fortune telling, and why has that distinction mattered throughout history?

• How did cunning women turn ordinary household objects into powerful folk magic tools?

• What do love divination rituals reveal about the real lives of women in early modern communities?

• Why did playing cards become so deeply entangled with the devil in folk tradition?

• What ancient civilizations left behind physical records of their divination practices, and what did those records reveal?

• How has dowsing been used for purposes far stranger than finding water?

• What does folklore say about omens you never asked for but receive anyway?

• Which forms of divination are experiencing a genuine resurgence right now, and which trend is Icy warning practitioners to avoid?

Pick up Icy Sedgwick's book Fate or Fortune: The Art and Folklore of Divination through our affiliate bookshop at bookshop.org/shop/endwitchhunts

icysedgwick.com

#divination #folklore #folkmagic #witchtrials #salemwitchtrials #fortunetelling #cunningfolk #omens #tarot #cartomancy #dowsing #folklorePodcast #witchhunts #occulthistory #historicalpodcast #folklorestudies #divinationhistory #witchcraft #palmistry #scapulamancy

Alice Young was the first person executed for witchcraft in the American colonies, in Windsor, Connecticut, in 1647, before the Salem witch trials. Award-winning author Beth Caruso and playwright Lauren Cavanaugh join Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack to explore her story and the new play Windsor's Daughter that is bringing her life back into the light.

This conversation moves between historical research and present-day resonance, asking what it means to memorialize people whose graves were never marked, whose names faded from community memory, and whose persecution mirrors patterns still unfolding today.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• Why Alice Young's 1647 execution changed American history

• Why her name nearly vanished from history

• What made Windsor, Connecticut, a powder keg

• How a play brings her execution to the stage without showing it

• Why there is no grave to visit

• What the 2023 exoneration meant for her descendants

• How her story connects to persecution happening today

• Where to follow Windsor's Daughter as it finds its stage

Links

Author Beth Caruso at OneofWindsor.com https://www.oneofwindsor.com/

Playwright Lauren Cavanaugh https://hartford.culturalyst.com/CavanaughLMC

Connecticutwitchtrials.org https://connecticutwitchtrials.org/

Listen to more CT Witch Trials Podcast Episodes https://connecticutwitchtrials.org/witch-hunt-podcast/

Support the Podcast Buy a Witch Trial History Book! https://bookshop.org/lists/connecticut-witch-trials

Elizabeth Bathory is one of pop culture's favorite monsters. Accused of torturing and killing hundreds of young women, she's inspired everything from Snow White's evil stepmother to Lady Gaga. But the actual historical record shows almost none of it happened.

Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack sit down with Shelley Puhak, author of The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster, to trace the documented history behind one of history's most sensationalized witch trial-adjacent cases. From the fractured Kingdom of Hungary to a Lutheran minister's invisible demonic cat army, this episode connects the Bathory case to the broader European witch trials and the religious and political warfare driving them.

What You'll Learn

• What the preserved record actually shows

• The witchcraft and magic accusations woven into the case

• The political war that made Bathory a target

• What the Palatine of Hungary stood to gain from her downfall

• The one minister behind the witchcraft accusations

• Why no bodies were ever found

• What her own letters reveal about who she really was

• The role of ointments, alchemy, and antimony

• Why widowed noblewomen were especially vulnerable to accusation

• The tension between a pop culture monster and a real historical victim

• What justice could look like 

About Shelley Puhak

Shelley Puhak is a poet, essayist, and historian from Maryland. Her previous nonfiction book, The Dark Queens (Bloomsbury, 2022), was a national bestseller and Goodreads Choice Awards finalist. Her essays have appeared in The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, and Virginia Quarterly Review.

Links

Buy the book: Blood Countess by Shelley Puhak https://bookshop.org/a/90227/9781639732159

Learn about the Author on ShelleyPuhak.com https://shelleypuhak.com/

End Witch Hunts endwitchhunts.org

About Witch Hunts aboutwitchhunts.com

Salem Witch Trials History YouTube: https://youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts

What does 1692 have to do with 1775? More than you might think.

The families of 1692 did not vanish from history. One to two generations after the Salem witch trials, descendants of both the accused and the accusers were drilling on village training fields, defying British soldiers, and dying on the same battlefields. Israel Putnam, one of the Revolution's boldest generals, was born in Salem Village, raised in a family at the center of 1692, and though he moved to Connecticut, he answered the call when Massachusetts needed him most.

From Leslie's Retreat in Salem to the Battle of Menotomy, Bunker Hill, the siege of Boston, Long Island, and Saratoga, the men of Essex County were present from the first confrontation to the wider war. And Benjamin Franklin's tie to the Salem witch trials runs closer than most people know.

This episode connects two of American history's most significant chapters and asks: what did the witch trial era leave behind, and how did it shape the people who built this country?

Danvers and Salem historian Dan Gagnon, author of A Salem Witch: A Biography of Rebecca Nurse, returns to The Thing About Witch Hunts to tell stories of the North Shore's role in the American Revolution as part of America 250. From a standoff at a toll bridge to the bloodiest stretch of road on Patriots Day 1775, the story of Essex County and the Lexington Alarm is one most Americans were never taught.

Hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack trace the thread from the Salem witch trials through Lexington and Concord, from the Rebecca Nurse Homestead to the halls of the Continental Congress, and from the accused of 1692 to the soldiers of 1775.

What You Will Learn:

• The through-line between 1692 and 1775 that changes how you understand both

• Why Leslie's Retreat in Salem months before Lexington and Concord matters more than you have been told

• What happened when Salem witch trial family names started showing up on revolutionary muster rolls

• Israel Putnam: the founding-era general with Salem Village roots whose story was nearly erased from history, and why

• A founding father with a direct family tie to the Salem witch trials, and what that connection reveals

• What one brutal day at the Battle of Menotomy cost a single Massachusetts town, and why they brought their dead home

• What you can see at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead today that quietly holds the story of two centuries

Dan Gagnon leads walking tours in Danvers and the Rebecca Nurse Homestead is open seasonally. 

#AmericanRevolution #America250 #IsraelPutnam #LesliesRetreat #BattleOfMemotomy #BattleOfBunkerHill #SiegeOfBoston #LexingtonAndConcord #LexingtonAlarm #PatriotsDay1775 #BattleOfLongIsland #FrenchAndIndianWar #BostonTeaParty #GeneralGage #GeorgeWashington #BenjaminFranklin #RebeccaNurse #RebeccaNurseHomestead #DanversAlarmList #Minutemen #ContinentalCongress #CoerciveActs #Marblehead #Menotomy #Arlington #EssexCounty #NorthShore #ColonialHistory #AmericanHistory #FoundingFathers #RevolutionaryWar

Links 

Rebecca Nurse Homestead: rebeccanurse.org

A Salem Witch: A Biography of Rebecca Nurse by Dan Gagnon: www.bookshop.org/Shop/endwitchhunts

End Witch Hunts endwitchhunts.org

About Witch Hunts aboutwitchhunts.com

Salem Witch Trials History YouTube: https://youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts

Fairy history, folklore, and belief across two thousand years of European culture: that is what we are diving into today with historian of religion and belief Dr. Francis Young, author of the new book Fairies: A History

Dr. Young holds a doctorate in History from Cambridge University, is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a folklorist, a Balticist, a lay canon of St Edmundsbury Cathedral, and a series editor for Cambridge University Press. He teaches for Oxford University's Department for Continuing Education and broadcasts regularly for BBC Radio on history, religion, and folklore. He is the author, editor, or co-author of over two dozen books.

Fairies: A History is a complete survey of fairy belief from prehistoric animism through the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and into the present day. In this episode, Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack ask Dr. Young the big questions: What are fairies? Where do they come from? How do fairy beliefs vary across Europe? What is the relationship between fairy folklore and witch trial testimony? And why is fairy belief still very much alive today?

In this episode you will learn:

In this episode you will learn:

• What exactly is a fairy?

• What do fairies want from humans?

• How is a fairy different from a ghost, a witch, or an angel?

• Why should you never eat food in fairy land?

• Where did the fairy godmother really come from?

• Have fairies always had wings?

• Why do children seem more attuned to fairy belief than adults?

• Could fairies be a feature of human consciousness itself?

• Are people still seeing fairies today?

Links:

drfrancisyoung.com

Fairies: A History is available for pre-order in our online bookstore

Learn more about witchcraft accusations past and present at endwitchhunts.org and aboutwitchhunts.com

The Thing About Witch Hunts is hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack.

#fairyhistory #fairyfolklore #fairybelief #witchtrials #folklore #folklorehistory #witchcraft #fairies #changeling #fairytales #historypodcast #folklorepodcast

What did the scholars who studied witchcraft most seriously actually believe? And why did their conclusions so often cut against prosecution?

Professor Darren Oldridge of the University of Worcester joins Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack to examine the intellectual world that produced English demonology and shaped witch trials on both sides of the Atlantic.

In this episode:

• Why the devil mattered far more than witches to learned English Protestants

• The demonological writers whose work traveled directly to colonial New England

• What Reginald Scott and George Gifford argued, and why it surprised their contemporaries

• The specific figure whose writing brought popular and learned ideas into dangerous alignment

• Why the demonic pact was central to prosecution and nearly impossible to prove

• What the Massachusetts law code of the 1640s reveals about biblical influence on colonial legal thinking

• How Increase Mather's skepticism at Salem connected to a century of English Protestant thought

• Why the "good witch" was considered more dangerous than the harmful one

Learn more at endwitchhunts.org and aboutwitchhunts.com.

#WitchTrials #SalemWitchTrials #Demonology #WitchHunts #DevilHistory #WitchcraftHistory #EnglishHistory #HistoryPodcast #EarlyModernHistory #WitchcraftPodcast #EndWitchHunts #ProtestantHistory #ColonialHistory #SalemHistory

Links

Professor Darren Oldridge https://www.worcester.ac.uk/about/profiles/professor-darren-oldridge

Buy Books by Darren Oldridge https://bookshop.org/lists/guests-of-the-thing-about-witch-hunts-podcast

Learn more at endwitchhunts.org and aboutwitchhunts.com

Sign the Boston Exoneration Petition change.org/witchtrials

We're on Youtube too! www.youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts