Halloween

A woman on a medieval ducking stool

Q&A Were ducking stools ever used as punishment for crimes other than witchcraft during the Middle Ages?

This 16th-century woodcut depicts King James VI at the North Berwick witch trials, the case that first sparked his obsession with hunting. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

James VI and I: the king who hunted witches

Helen Duncan, a 20th-century medium and spiritualist, allegedly summoned spirits draped in ‘ectoplasm’ – organic matter emitted from her body. In the 1930s she was denounced as a fraud, and in 1944 prosecuted under the 1735 Witchcra Act, which forbade conjuring spirits. (Photo courtesy of Ashmolean Museum/University of London)

Conjuring up the dead: Helen Duncan and her ectoplasm spirits

This Halloween postcard, which features a witch, a black cat, and lots of little spirits, was printed mid-1900s in New York City. (Photo by Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images)

10 things you didn’t know about the history (and mystery) of Halloween

Trick photograph. (Photo by LM Melander and Brothers) entitled 'The Haunted Lane,' depicts a pair of men terrified by a female ghost, mid-to-late 19th century. (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

5 historic hauntings for Halloween

Glamis Castle is said to be the most-haunted castle in Scotland. (Photo by mpalis via Getty Images)

A royal ghost tour: 5 haunted sites around Britain

A depiction of a witch on a broomstick. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

History quiz – Halloween

An illustration of a group of supposed witches being beaten in front of King James VI and I, the most notorious royal witch-hunter of all time, c1610. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A brief history of witches by Suzannah Lipscomb

A view of the Reculver Towers, Reculver, England. (Photo by Loop Images/UIG via Getty Images)

8 of Britain’s most mysterious ruins

A view of a calander showing the date, Friday the 13th. (Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

10 historical superstitions we carry on today

An illustration of a group of supposed witches being beaten in front of King James VI and I, c1610. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Shakespeare’s Macbeth and King James’s witch hunts

In this painting from c1650, a witch wields a broomstick as demons and 'familiars' (helpers of witches) congregate before her. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)

History quiz – witchcraft and superstition

Portrait of black cat – unlucky for some? (Photo by Getty Images)

Q&A Why are black cats unlucky?

Old Wardour Castle

Britain’s 7 most amazing ruins

An engraving from Ulrich Molitor’s ‘On witches and female soothsayers’, depicting witches bringing down the rain. Germany, 15th century. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

General ancient history

A spell-binding history of witches