What was the 'Witch Hunt' really like?

Question

I'm thinking of writing a story that involves witch burning, probably the British Witch hunts, of the Salem Witch trials? (or any really signifigant one) Any good websites for that or just write the advice here. And how should I go about writing it, so I be trying to convey fear, how would the 'witches and warlocks' really felt? Thanks!

Answer 1

There were no witches burned at Salem. Witches in the American colonies, as in England, were hanged, not burnt.



Most witch hunts were local affairs, people were generally accused by their own neighbours, and the courts were dragged in only reluctantly. Courts were generally not keen to try witches because of the difficulty of obtaining proof. overall, about 50% of accused witches were acquitted. Women, who were considered to be spiritually weaker than men and therefore more susceptibel to demonic influence, tended to be more likely to be accused than men, overall about 75% of those executed for witchcraft were female. The accusers were also much more likely to be women.



Salem was unusal in that the evidence against those accused of witchcraft seems to have been accepted uncritically by the judges, which was not usual practice. Another unusual feature of the Salem trials is that those who confessed to being witches were spared, only those who continued to deny that they were witches were sentenced to death. This was very unusual and not at all typical of witch trials in general.



Some of your accused witches would probably have been afraid, but some would have been angry and defiant. At Salem, for instance, a minister urged Sarah Good, one of the accused, to confess and save herself, to which she cried back scornfully: "I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink!"



80-year-old Giles Cory, who was accused of withcraft, refused to enter a plea (that is, he would not say if he was guilty or not guilty). He was therefore subject to having stones piled up on his chest (intended to force him to speak) until his chest was crushed and he died. Another 80-year-old man, George Jacobs, was accused by one of his servants. "You tax me for a wizard, you might as well tax me for a buzzard" he said to the men who came to arrest him.

Answer 2

Witches tried and found guilty in England were never burnt at the stake, but in Scotland they were. The only reason for burning in England would have been for heresy, treason or petty treason (murder of a spouse) and if you were a woman who has murdered your husband, then there was a good chance you would have used the 'black arts' to do that, which is why the East Anglia witches were burnt. The torture of witches in Britain was an horrendous ordeal for the women and men involved. It included 'walking' of the accused for hours, constant questions and accusations and use of the 'pricker', a sharp spike, sometimes concealed in a pen like piece of wood. The idea was to find the mark of the devil....a part of the body that showed no pain when pricked with the spike...after various stabs at the body of the accused with the spike, and the woman screaming in pain, the spike would be inserted back up into the body of the wood and then the wood jabbed in, and as the pain would be so much less and the woman would not cry out, it would be announced that the devils mark had been found. Thus the woman was a witch. From there, she would have been take to a body of water, bound and thrown in. This was called 'swimming', and actually is a pagan custom. If the water rejects you and you float and live, then you are not pure or worthy, if you drown, the water god accepts you, therefore you are pure and worthy. From the accused point of view, damned if you do, damned if you don't! If you did survive that, you were hanged. Matthew Hopkins, the most famous witch hunter in England, self proclaimmed Witch Finder General (never a title bestowed on him by Parliament) used all of the above methods. During Matthew Hopkins reign of terror of two years, England was in the midst of Civil War, and puritan ideals were common and he himself was the son of a Puritan clergyman.

Local women who were once respected as midwives and herbal healers became suspects, mass hysteria fuelled doubt and suspicion of their abilities, and at times, every local death was her doing, every disease that plagued the town was the fault of witches. Some did defend the accused, but fear of being branded as a witch was enough to put most off. You should look up the North Berwick Witch Trials, King James VI was involved on a personnal level and makes for quite interesting reading.

As for expressing fear on the part of the accused.....imagine a time when the common woman had no voice, no defense, to plead innocence was to be in denial and un-repenting and to plead guilt (after torture) was a true confession. When the educated could use words and their power to convince the masses of a wrongdoing, when all attended Church and the sermons were of fire and brimstone (eternal damnation for those who don't repent), and dire warnings of the proximaty of the devil. A desperate time for all those who were innocent.

Answer 3

If you want to include witch burning, you can't use any British witch hunts as British witches were hanged, not burned. Burning wasn't actually a punishment for witchcraft - it was the punishment for heresy. As the witch craze got under way in the late 15th-early 16th century, on the Continent it became customary to assume that making a pact with the Devil to do witchcraft entailed heresy, and therefore to punish it by burning, but this was not done in Britain.



if youw ant to write even a short story about the time of the witch hunts you're going to have to do some in-depth research. There is no way that asking a few questions on Yahoo will enable you to write a half-ways decent story about it.

Answer 4

The "withes" that were burned at the salem with trials were mortified. Terrified. Once they were convicted everyone turned on them. There was no possible way to survive. They were either tortured until they said they were a witch and if they did say they were a witch they were burned to death. Either way it was a lose lose situation. Practically impossible to come out alive. They also sometimes tied thing to a person and dropped them into a rive if you float you are a witch. if you drowned well you were telling the truth and you died. But the accusations stopped when someone accused the govenors wife.

Answer 5

Just to begin, no witches were burned at Salem. Most of those who were executed were killed by hanging. You might find this interesting: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/salem/ For a more scholarly resource http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salem.htm