Witches

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?

In 1733, as part of a plot to blow up a Protestant church, a group of Catholics claimed they were being terrorised by a poltergeist… or so the story went. (Illustration by Ben Jones for BBC History Magazine)

5 Georgian ghost hoaxes

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

A painting depicting George Washington with British soldiers at Yorktown. In the final battle of the war at the siege of Yorktown, writes Jem Duducu, there were nearlyas many French soldiers and sailors as American rebels fighting for colonial independence. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

American history myths: 7 things people get wrong

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

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

Podcast Website large Tracy Borman

Historical fact and fiction

Suzannah Lipscomb.

History Weekends 2018: 5 minutes with Suzannah Lipscomb

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?

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11 shocking moments in history

Woodcut of a meal shared at a witches' Sabbath. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

Ronald Hutton on the Witch