Dispelling Some Myths: Witches

In an earlier article we used a common mistake made in dramatic reconstructions, this time in a BBC television documentary series “Lucy Worsley investigates…”, to explain the difference between pillories and stocks. Usefully for the present purpose, the first episode focused on “The Hunt for Witches” and followed the case of Scottish “wise woman” and healer Agnes Sampson.

The case of Agnes Sampson Two years after King James VI of Scotland’s mother, Mary Queen of Scots, had been executed another dramatic event deepened the King’s growing obsession with magic and witchcraft. In 1589 he was betrothed to Anne of Denmark, but she almost lost her life in a violent tempest on her voyage across the North Sea to meet her new husband. In an uncharacteristic show of chivalry, James resolved to sail to Denmark and collect her in person. On the royal couple’s return voyage, the Scottish fleet was battered by further storms sinking one of the ships. James immediately placed the blame on witches, claiming that they must have cast evil spells upon his fleet. As soon as he reached Scottish shores, he ordered a witch-hunt on a scale never seen before. No fewer than 70 suspects were rounded up in the coastal Scottish town of North Berwick on suspicion of raising a storm to destroy the King and his new bride. One of those suspects was Agnes Sampson.

So, in 1590, Holyrood Palace became the scene of a fateful meeting between Agnes and King James. The king desired to know if Agnes was a witch and if she had used diabolical powers to try and sink the ship as he and his queen sailed home to Scotland from Denmark. Agnes denied all charges put to her but after she was taken away and tortured, she confessed to meeting the Devil, accepting him as her master, and attended a witches’ sabbath. The King, who would later write his own witch-hunting guide “Daemonologie”, interrogated her again. This time Agnes reputedly told James that she knew what he had said to his wife on their wedding night. Clearly this was not something that Agnes could have known but it was all the evidence needed to prove her a witch. By royal order she was condemned to death. On 28 January 1591 Agnes Sampson was taken to a scaffold on Castlehill, part of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, where she was garrotted then burnt at the stake.

Myths Agnes Sampson’s part in the story of the North Berwick witch trials is significant as it highlights many popular myths about witches commonly found in European, and by extension North American, folklore. Asked to imagine a witch most people will probably picture a woman. More than that, she will most likely be old, wearing a pointy hat, riding a broomstick and accompanied by her familiar, a demonic spirit, who might assist her in casting spells. We know from the indictment against her that Agnes was a poor, elderly widow and mother who was respected as a healer within her local community. This article explores these notions to discover just how universal they are and whether there are any myths to be dispelled.

Women only? Of the 100 suspected witches in the North Berwick trials two are named as Robert Grierson and John Fian, a schoolmaster and scholar in Prestonpans, East Lothian. Although Grierson and Fian are but two examples, a significant minority of those put on trial for witchcraft - an estimated one in four - were indeed men. Those accused were sometimes the target of witch-hunts because they were related to accused women or romantically involved with them. One such example occurred in the Austrian town of Innsbrück in the mid-1480s when a potter was suspected largely because he was the lover of an accused witch, Barbara Selachin.

The aforementioned schoolmaster, John Fian, is an example of a man who fell under suspicion because they were thought to have turned their godly learning to bad ends. It was said that Fian had studied magical texts so he could unlock doors without a key and light candles with his breath. He was also accused of learning love spells and using his literacy skills to record the minutes of satanic meetings. John Fian’s eventual confession to having a compact with the Devil was extracted through torture. According to the English ambassador Robert Bowes, during his execution Fian recanted his confession saying he told those tales by fear of torture and to save his life. Sadly, it did not save him as, like Agnes Sampson, he was strangled and burnt at the stake on Castlehill on 27 January 1591. The cost of his execution was £5 18s 2d.

Old widows? The stereotypical image of a witch collapses when one discovers that many of those accused were frequently wives and mothers, fathers and sons, with large families. Many were also surprisingly young. A boy of nine, for example, was questioned in Suffolk in the 1640s on suspicion of witchcraft. His fate is unknown, but it is reported that his mother was executed as a witch. Similarly, some 50 years earlier, eighteen-year-old Joan Waterhouse had been tried alongside her mother and a woman who may have been her aunt in Essex in 1566. Joan had confessed to witchcraft but was acquitted possibly because of her age. Significantly, like the nine-year-old boy, these trials reveal the widely held belief that witchcraft was an inherited skill and that witches’ children could not escape indoctrination. In such cases, juries were more likely to show mercy for a first offence. However, in 1730s France, it took a popular outcry to save a young life. Such was the case for a young religious mystic named Marie-Catherine Cadiere sentenced to death for witchcraft against a Jesuit priest. The uproar that followed in her hometown of Toulon against the verdict drove the court to free her.

Familiar story Along with the pointy hat and broomstick, witches are accompanied by a familiar, a demonic animal or spirit that assists in casting spells. In the popular imagination, the animals are commonly cats and dogs but those accused of practising magic might call upon a whole menagerie of creatures. For example, in 1582 Elizabeth Bennet from Essex confessed she had two familiars: “one called Suckin, being blacke like a Dogge, the other called Lierd, beeing red like a Lion or hare.” Whether we believe that Bennet meant she had both a dog and a cat familiar is uncertain, but some sixty years later when Margaret Wyard was accused of witchcraft in Suffolk, she claimed to have seven imps, including flies, dores, mice and a spider. “Dores” in this instance is short for “dumbledores” or, as we might know them, bumblebees. During examination, purported witches were kept under constant surveillance to see if demonic spirits visited them, and the accused were often “walked” to deny them sleep for days and nights. Sleep deprivation of this sort undoubtedly led to “confessions” during interrogation and the frequent citing of these smaller creatures as familiars. Moreover, any tiny creature venturing near the exhausted prisoner could be identified as a demonic spirit and the tortured suspect could be forcibly encouraged to agree they were devils.

Witch-hunting Margaret Wyard was one of 68 witches who were hanged in Bury St Edmunds in 1645, all victims of the witch-hunting zeal of Matthew Hopkins and his associate, John Stearne, a similarly fanatical Puritan. Hopkins was the son of the vicar of Great Wenham in Suffolk but chose not to become a minister like his father and brothers. During the English Civil War, he undoubtedly capitalised on the chaos and the genuine fear of devilry at that time to become England's most notorious witch-hunter. Styling himself the “Witchfinder General” - never a formal title - between 1644 and 1646 Hopkins instigated a fourteen month reign of terror, roving the countryside to root out “witches” in exchange for exorbitant fees. His and Stearne’s actions resulted in the execution of some 300 people, and the ruin of many others. About one in ten of his victims were male, and many others were poor widows living on Parish Relief. The pair used unscrupulous methods to extract confessions. Victims were thoroughly searched for witch's marks, said to be supernumerary teats from which imps suckled. Such examinations were a humiliating ordeal for women, since the “marks” were usually found in or on the genitals. It is said Stearne was particularly fond of seeking witch's marks and boasted that 18 of the Bury St. Edmonds witches:

“[A]ll were found by the searchers to have teats or dugs which their imps used to suck…And of these witches some confessed that they have had carnal copulation with the Devil, one of which said that she had conceived twice by him, but as soon as she was delivered of them, they ran away in most horrid, long and ugly shapes.”

According to surviving records, at least 124 men and women in Suffolk were charged with witchcraft, all of whom were tried in Bury St. Edmonds in August of 1645. Most of the “confessions” concerned possession by evil imps, the making of compacts with the Devil, and having carnal relations with the same, the latter being guaranteed to inflame Puritan outrage. Some of these “witches” were even charged with the murder of livestock and people. As for Margaret Wyard, at her trial she confessed the Devil had appeared to her seven years earlier in the likeness of a calf, saying he was her husband. She claimed she would not submit sexually to him until the Devil returned as “a handsome young gentleman” – most likely an example of a victim saying what they thought their accusers wanted to hear to stop further torture.

Denounce your neighbour In 1582 fourteen women from St Osyth were put on trial in Chelmsford, Essex suspected of witchcraft. The first to be accused was Ursula Kempe, once again a poor woman who struggled to make a living on this occasion as a nursemaid and midwife. Ursula’s tale begins after she had cured the young son of Grace Thurlowe of convulsions by holding his hand and muttering incantations. Grace was suspicious of witchcraft and thereafter refused to let Ursula nurse her newborn daughter. When later Grace's daughter fell out of bed and broke her neck, suspicion fell upon Ursula. Thurlowe and Kempe quarrelled fiercely, whereupon it is alleged that Ursula threatened Grace Thurlowe with lameness. As it is with such cases, shortly afterward Grace was severely crippled with arthritis and again suspicion fell on Ursula. Interestingly, an alternative account suggests Ursula had treated Grace for her arthritis, but that the latter had refused to pay Ursula’s fee of 12 pence. Presumably Ursula then refused Garce further help, and Grace’s arthritis flared up again. The “bad blood” between the two women was most likely the catalyst for Ursula Kempe being denounced to the authorities and sent for trial in Chelmsford accused of witchcraft.

At the trial the judge, Bryan Darcy, persuaded Ursula 's eight year old son to testify against her. Using children to denounce one or both of their parents was a common tactic employed by the authorities in witch trials. Darcy also persuaded Ursula that he would show clemency if she confessed. She duly did and admitted to having four familiars: two cats, a toad and a lamb. The latter was blamed for the death of the Garce Thurlowe’s baby.

During the trial Ursula named four other St Osyth women as witches: the aforementioned Elizabeth Bennet together with Alice Newman, Alice Hunt and her sister Margery Sammon. Hunt and Sammon were the daughters of “old mother Barnes”, an alleged witch of notorious repute who had bequeathed to them her familiars: “two spirites like Toades, the one called Tom and the other robbyn.” Hoping for mercy from the court the accused in turn named a further nine women: Cicely Celles, Elizabeth Eustace, Agnes Glascock, Margaret Grevell, Annis Herd, Alice Manfield, Joan Pechey, Anne Swallow and Joan Turner. Of the fourteen purported witches, two women were not indicted at all. Somewhat oddly one of these was Margery Sammon who had actually confessed to witchcraft. Two others were imprisoned but after denying the charges of bewitching cattle and two people to death were not indicted and released. Four women were sent to trial, three of whom on charges of bewitching people to death. All four pleaded not guilty and were acquitted. Four others who pleaded not guilty, were tried and convicted, and then reprieved. One of them was Alice Newman, who had been charged with bewitching to death four people plus her husband. Agnes Glascock and Cicely Celles similarly were charged with bewitchment to death. Joan Turner was charged with “bewitchment by over-looking” (using the “evil eye” [1]) and spent a year in prison. The only two hanged were Elizabeth Bennet, charged with killing a man and his wife, and Ursula Kempe. The latter was charged with and confessed to the crimes of bewitching three people to death between 1580 and 1582. Despite his promises, Judge Darcy showed Ursula Kempe no mercy whatsoever.

In league with the Devil? In contrast to the many Wiccans or those who identify as witches today and follow modern notions of an earlier, supposed pagan religion, Mediæval and Early Modern “witches” were very often fervent churchgoers. This should hardly be surprising given that they lived in a Europe dominated by the Christian church and where belief in God was integral to everyday life. During interrogations many of the accused explained they used prayers in healing spells calling on the help of God, the saints and the Holy Ghost. Some suspects belonged to fundamentalist Christian sects. Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey convicted of witchcraft in 1692 were among the most pious worshippers at the Congregational Church in Salem, Massachusetts. Somewhat bizarrely, or so it may seem, two Christian ministers, one in Salem and the other, thousands of miles away across the Atlantic Ocean in the English village of Brandeston in Suffolk, were both accused of witchcraft. In the latter case, the vicar John Lowe had been deemed insufficiently puritanical and was charged with only reading state-approved lessons in church. Fortunately (or not) he was able to recite his own burial service before being hanged. While in Salem, the Reverand George Burroughs repeated the Lord’s Prayer – thought impossible for witches – before he too was hanged. It seems that accusations against such good Christians were largely concerned with them not adhering to the same religious teachings as those who suspected them.

Fear and prejudice One of the most famous witch-hunts in history took place in the aforementioned Salem which, at the time (1692-93) was a small coastal town in colonial Massachusetts. Not all of those accused of witchcraft, however, were colonists. Most famously was Tituba, a native South American woman who had been enslaved in Barbados and transported to Massachusetts by one Samuel Parris, who became minister of Salem village church. While working in the minister’s house she was embroiled in the accusations of witchcraft. It is almost certain that Tituba conformed to her master’s faith yet doubts lingered in the wider community that she was not wholly Christian. Imprisoned for more than a year, she never faced trial. This one instance exemplifies how European settlers associated Native American religion, and that of enslaved Africans, with witchcraft because it did not conform to Christian beliefs. Such prejudices almost certainly were a factor in the accusations of witchcraft levelled against several Sami people - migratory herders living in the Arctic circle - by their Norwegian neighbours. One such Sami woman was Kari Edisdatter who, in 1620, having confessed to meeting the devil in the form of a ghost was burned at the stake.

To conclude So, there we have it. Contrary to popular belief the heyday for witch-hunts was largely not in the Mediæval period but in the religiously charged atmosphere of 16th- and 17th-century Europe (and North America). Witch-hunts and the resulting interrogations, trials and executions were driven by a genuine fear of devilry during this period. By far women were the majority of victims in a patriarchal society, although men were not immune to accusations. Purported witches were often the poorest in society or marginalised members of a community. Mostly ill-educated they had very little influence over the authorities prosecuting them. Some were clearly the victims of personal rivalries, ignorance and fear, but by the 18th-century rationalism was beginning to hold sway over superstition. Prosecutions and executions for the crime of witchcraft declined in all European countries, and their respective overseas colonies, where previously witch-hunts had taken place. The decline was marked by an increasing reluctance to prosecute witches, the acquittal of many who were tried, the reversal of convictions on appeal, and eventually the repeal of the laws that had authorized prosecutions. Finally, in the UK at least, the Witchcraft Act of 1735 introduced prosecution for fraud rather than for witchcraft since many no longer believed individuals possessed supernatural powers or had genuine traffic with the Devil. Bon appétit!

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References:

Borman, T., (2016), “Why was King James VI and I obsessed with witch hunts?”, BBC History Magazine: History Extra, available online (accessed 28 March 2025).

Ferre, L., (2017), “Bury St Edmunds Witches”, Occult World, available online (accessed 26 March 2025).

Ferre, L., (2017), “St Osyth Witches”, Occult World, available online (accessed 27 March 2025).

Gibson, M. (2024), “Five things you (probably) didn’t know about…the history of witchcraft”, BBC History Magazine (May edition), pp. 46-47.

St Oswyth Museum, (2025), “1579 - St Osyth Witches & Witch Trials - St Osyth Museum”, available online (accessed 27 March 2025).

Endnotes:

1. The evil eye is a supernatural belief in a curse brought about by a malevolent glare. ▲

2. Coincidently, radio and television presenter Sian Eleri investigated Helen Duncan’s story in a four part BBC mini-series “Paranormal: Britain’s Last Witch”. It is available on BBC iPlayer. ▲