50 Fun Facts About Witch

The Salem witch trials took place in which years?

The Salem trials ran from 1692 to 1693: the first accusations came in February 1692 and the last acquittals in May 1693; they began in Salem Village, today the town of Danvers, Massachusetts.

How many people were executed by hanging at Salem?

Nineteen people were hanged at Salem between June and September of the trial year, fourteen women and five men; a further man died under judicial torture and at least five others died in jail.

How did Giles Corey die during the Salem trials?

Giles Corey, aged about 81, refused to enter a plea and was pressed to death under stones, the peine forte et dure, over two days ending on September 19; legend has him answering only 'more weight'.

Who was the first person tried and executed at Salem?

Bridget Bishop, a thrice-married Salem woman with a long reputation for quarrelling, was tried on June 2 and hanged on June 10, the first of the Salem executions.

In what year was the last convicted Salem witch, Elizabeth Johnson Jr., formally exonerated?

Elizabeth Johnson Jr., convicted but never executed, was formally exonerated in 2022 by a clause in the Massachusetts state budget, after an eighth-grade civics class in North Andover campaigned for it.

What did the 'witch cake' baked at Salem to detect witchcraft contain?

Neighbour Mary Sibley had a cake of rye meal and the urine of the afflicted girls baked and fed to a dog, hoping the witch would be revealed; the minister Samuel Parris later denounced the 'diabolical' remedy.

The Malleus Maleficarum, the notorious witch-hunting manual of 1486, was written by which inquisitor?

Heinrich Kramer, a Dominican inquisitor from Alsace, wrote the Malleus Maleficarum after the Innsbruck church authorities threw out his 1485 witch prosecutions; it was printed at Speyer in 1486 and ran through many editions.

Which 1953 Arthur Miller play dramatised the Salem trials as a McCarthy-era allegory?

Arthur Miller's The Crucible opened on Broadway in January 1953, using the Salem trials as an allegory for the hunt for communists; Miller himself was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956.

Which pope issued the 1484 bull Summis desiderantes affectibus against devil-worshippers?

Innocent VIII, pope from 1484 to 1492, issued Summis desiderantes affectibus on 5 December 1484, confirming the inquisitors' authority in Germany; the authors of the Malleus later printed it as the book's preface.

Modern historians estimate how many people were executed for witchcraft in Europe?

Estimates since the 1990s put it at 35,000 to 60,000. Around three-quarters or more were women, and central and southern Germany saw the heaviest persecution.

Which self-styled 'Witchfinder General' drove England's witch-hunting peak in 1644-47?

Matthew Hopkins, a Suffolk clergyman's son based at Manningtree, toured East Anglia with John Stearne from 1644 to 1647, charging towns for his services; his methods included sleep deprivation, pricking for the Devil's mark and the swimming test.

Which king attended witch trials after storms hit his bridal voyage and wrote the manual Daemonologie?

The North Berwick trials saw more than 70 accused; James later became James I of England, Shakespeare's patron.

The Pendle witches were tried in 1612 in which English county?

Lancashire's Pendle Hill families, the Demdikes and the Chattoxes, were tried at Lancaster Assizes in August 1612; ten were hanged, and clerk Thomas Potts published the proceedings as The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches.

Anna Göldi, often called Europe's last person executed for witchcraft, died in 1782 in which country?

Anna Göldi, a maidservant accused of bewitching her employer's daughter, was beheaded in Glarus, Switzerland, in June 1782; the Glarus parliament exonerated her in 2008.

Which French historian's 1862 book La Sorcière portrayed the witch as a rebel against feudal oppression?

Jules Michelet's La Sorcière (1862) recast the medieval witch as a peasant woman driven to rebellion by feudal lords and the Church, a romantic reading that influenced later writers on witchcraft.

Which country executed a man for practising witchcraft and sorcery in 2014?

Saudi Arabia beheaded a man for sorcery in 2014. Witchcraft accusations have also led to violence in parts of Africa, South Asia and Papua New Guinea in the 2010s and 2020s.

In English folk belief, what is a 'familiar'?

A familiar was a demon in animal form, typically a cat, toad or hare, that a witch was said to feed with her blood; English trial records from the 1560s onward are full of them.

Which modern religion, made public by Gerald Gardner in 1954, is the main form of contemporary witchcraft?

Wicca took shape in Gerald Gardner's New Forest coven and his 1954 book Witchcraft Today; a retired colonial civil servant, Gardner had his High Priestess Doreen Valiente rewrite much of the ritual liturgy.

Wicca is typically duotheistic, honouring a Triple Goddess and which male deity?

The Horned God, lord of the hunt, the wild and the dying year, is the Wiccan counterpart to the Goddess; his antlered image draws on figures such as the Celtic Cernunnos and the Greek Pan.

What is the traditional Wiccan word for practising rituals in the nude?

Skyclad, meaning clothed only by the sky, is the Wiccan term for ritual nudity, a word Gardner borrowed from India's Digambara ('sky-clad') Jain monks, who renounce clothing.

The concept of a witch's 'flying ointment' first appears in records from about which year?

The Bavarian court physician Johannes Hartlieb described the ointment in his 1456 Book of All Forbidden Arts; the plants in later recipes, such as henbane and belladonna, contain skin-absorbable tropane alkaloids.

What older English word for a broom names the twiggy version witches ride?

Besom, from Old English besma, was the ordinary word for a broom before 'broom', named for the shrub, replaced it; the witch's besom is a bundle of birch twigs lashed to a hazel or ash handle.

Baba Yaga, the witch of Slavic folklore, lives in a hut that stands on what?

Baba Yaga's hut stands on chicken legs and turns to face whoever knows the rhyme to command it; she herself rides in a mortar, steering with a pestle and sweeping her tracks away with a broom.

In Macbeth, which goddess scolds the three witches for meddling with Macbeth without her?

Many scholars believe the Hecate scenes were added by another writer, possibly Thomas Middleton.

Holinshed describes Macbeth and Banquo meeting three women 'resembling creatures of' what?

Holinshed's Chronicles (1577) describe the three women as 'in strange and wild apparel, resembling creatures of elder world'; Shakespeare turned them into the Weird Sisters, from wyrd, Old English for fate.

Which actress played the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film?

Margaret Hamilton, a former kindergarten teacher, played the Wicked Witch of the West after first choice Gale Sondergaard withdrew when the role changed from glamorous to ugly; her green copper-based makeup took hours to apply.

How does Dorothy accidentally destroy the Wicked Witch of the West?

Dorothy ends the witch by accident: she splashes her with a bucket of water meant to douse the burning Scarecrow, and the witch melts away ('I'm melting!'); her guards, the Winkies, then hail Dorothy.

In the 1939 film, how does Glinda the Good Witch arrive?

Glinda, played by Billie Burke, arrives in a bubble, a shimmering orb that floats into Munchkinland, grows and bursts to reveal her; she leaves the same way.

In Hocus Pocus, what is the surname of the three witches?

The Sanderson sisters, Winifred, Sarah and Mary, played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy, are hanged in colonial Salem and revived on Halloween 1993 by a lit black-flame candle.

What punishment do the Hocus Pocus witches inflict on Thackery Binx?

They turn him into an immortal black cat: Thackery Binx, cursed after failing to save his sister Emily, cannot die, and the spell lifts only when the witches are destroyed.

Which streaming service released Hocus Pocus 2 in September 2022?

Anne Fletcher directed it, and a third film has been announced.

How does Samantha cast spells on Bewitched?

Samantha casts spells by twitching her nose; Elizabeth Montgomery actually wiggled her upper lip, and the results appeared through a locked-camera cut while a sound effect played.

Who played Samantha's mother Endora on Bewitched?

Agnes Moorehead, a Mercury Theatre veteran with four Oscar nominations, played the witch Endora from 1964 to 1972 and earned six Emmy nominations for the role.

In the musical Wicked, what is the green-skinned future Wicked Witch of the West called?

Elphaba, a name built from the initials of Oz author L. Frank Baum, was originated on Broadway by Idina Menzel in 2003 and played by Cynthia Erivo in the 2024 film.

Wicked premiered on Broadway in October 2003 at which venue?

Wicked opened at the Gershwin Theatre, Broadway's largest house with about 1,900 seats, on 30 October 2003; it won three Tonys in 2004 and passed $1 billion in Broadway grosses in 2016.

Where do the two future witches meet as students in Wicked?

The two girls meet as students at Shiz University, where headmistress Madame Morrible makes them unwilling roommates and the goat Doctor Dillamond is the last Animal on the faculty.

In Roald Dahl's The Witches, what does the Grand High Witch plan to turn all of England's children into?

The Grand High Witch's Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker is meant to turn all of England's children into mice; the boy and Bruno Jenkins are transformed first, and the boy turns the potion on the witches.

The Witches is set partly in England and partly in which other country, home of the boy's grandmother?

The grandmother's home is Norway, where Roald Dahl's own parents came from and where he spent childhood summers; the book opens there before the pair move to England.

In Sabrina the Teenage Witch, what is the family's talking cat Salem's backstory?

Salem Saberhagen is a warlock doing 100 years as a cat as punishment, sentenced by the Witches' Council for plotting to take over the world; Nick Bakay voiced him throughout the 1996-2003 series.

At what age does Melissa Joan Hart's Sabrina learn she has magical powers?

Sabrina discovers her powers on her sixteenth birthday in the 1996 pilot, a departure from the Archie Comics, where she knew from childhood; the show moved from ABC to The WB in 2000.

From the 1920s, Margaret Murray popularised which now-rejected theory about people persecuted as witches?

Murray's The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921) argued that they were followers of a surviving pagan religion, an organised fertility cult; Norman Cohn and Keith Thomas demolished the idea in the 1970s.

What term did English villagers use for local practitioners of helpful magic, as opposed to witches?

Cunning folk, cunning men and cunning women, found lost goods, healed and lifted curses for a fee and were usually tolerated; they were also called wise men, blessers or white witches.

Which governor's arrival with a new charter created the special court for the Salem cases?

Sir William Phips landed in Boston with the new Massachusetts charter and within weeks set up the Court of Oyer and Terminer; after his own wife was named as a witch he dissolved it in October.

Which Basque witch trial saw six accused burned at Logroño in 1610?

The Witches of Zugarramurdi were investigated by the Spanish Inquisition from 1609; a Logroño auto-da-fé in November 1610 burned six of the accused alive, and inquisitor Alonso de Salazar Frías later discredited the whole affair.

In what year did an Act put an end to witchcraft as a traditional legal offence in Britain?

The Witchcraft Act 1735 replaced prosecutions for real witchcraft with penalties for pretending to have magical powers.

How was Grace Sherwood of Virginia tried for witchcraft in 1706?

Grace Sherwood, the 'Witch of Pungo', was tried by ducking in water: dropped into the Lynnhaven River in July 1706, she floated, which counted as guilt, and was jailed for years before Governor Tim Kaine cleared her name in 2006.

In which country did the Torsåker trials execute 71 people for witchcraft in one day?

The Torsåker trials in Sweden's Ångermanland province ended on 1 June 1675 with 71 people beheaded and burned in a single day, the deadliest episode of the Swedish 'Great Noise' witch panic.

Who was executed for witchcraft in Scotland in 1727, the last such execution there?

Janet Horne was burned at Dornoch in Sutherland in 1727, condemned for riding her daughter, whose hands and feet were deformed, as a pony for the Devil; she was the last person executed for witchcraft in the British Isles.

Which Alpine region saw early witch trials begin in 1428, lasting six to eight years?

The Valais trials started in the French-speaking lower Valais and spread to German-speaking areas, coinciding with the Council of Basel.

Which American folklorist published Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches in 1899?

Leland claimed the manuscript came from a woman in a Tuscan group of witches worshipping Lucifer and Diana.