Witches

Satan & the sabbath: witchhunting in the Basque Country. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

HistoryExtra Academy witchcraft quiz – week four. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

HistoryExtra Academy video lecture: witches in popular culture, with Professor Marion Gibson. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

5 books about witchcraft, selected by Professor Marion Gibson. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Tituba of Salem, in a 19th-century illustration (Photo by The Granger Collection/Alamy)

General Early Modern

5 things you (probably) didn’t know about the history of witchcraft. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

HistoryExtra Academy witchcraft quiz – week three. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

HistoryExtra Academy video lecture: witch trials, with Professor Marion Gibson. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An 1866 painting imagines a suspected ‘witch’ being led away from a braying mob during the 17th century (Photo by WAVE: The Museums, Galleries and Archives of Wolverhampton/Getty Images)

Rough injustice: what really happened at a witch trial?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

HistoryExtra Academy witchcraft quiz – week two. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

HistoryExtra Academy video lecture: Demonology, with Professor Marion Gibson. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

HistoryExtra Academy witchcraft quiz – week one. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

HistoryExtra Academy video lecture: What is a witch? with Professor Marion Gibson. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A group of supposed witches being beaten in front of King James I and VI

Why was King James VI and I obsessed with witch hunts?

A statue of Alice Nutter, one of the 1612 Pendle Witches. The statue is in her home village on Blacko Bar Road, Roughlee. (Image by Alamy)

The Pendle witches: what happened in the infamous Lancashire witch trial?

Scotland’s last witch. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Elizabethan witchcraft: a trial that divided a community. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Witchcraft: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Haitians celebrate Kanaval, which takes place in the run-up to Lent. Later, over Easter, Haitian secret societies will use brooms to ‘sweep up’ zonbi spirits. (Photo by Jessica Obert/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Zombies of the Caribbean: your guide to zonbi spirits. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A 20th-century image depicts a ‘witch’ being burned alive in Munich. In reality, most suspects had already been killed before being set alight (Photo by Fototeca Gilardi/Getty Images)

8 popular misconceptions about the history of witchcraft in Europe. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

As well as practising Wicca, other traditions with Pagan roots – such as celebrating the summer solstice at Stonehenge – still remain popular. (Photo by Chris J Ratcliffe/AFP via Getty Images)

Wicca and modern witchcraft: a history

Suspected witch Mary Sutton is “swum” in a Bedfordshire millpond in 1612, as shown in a contemporary illustration. (Picture by Getty Images)

Witchfinding: what drove the hunters’ cruel crusade and what methods did they use?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Witch hunters: cynical persecutors or misguided zealots?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Malcolm GaskillThe Ruin of All Witches. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A forgotten witch hunt in New England. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

England’s last witches. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Harry, Ron and Hermione on the set of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Photo by Peter Mountain/Warner Bros. Pictures/THA)

The real magic of Harry Potter: 15 details the wizarding world borrows from history

A scene from the Salem witch trials, depicted in a 19th-century lithograph. How two girls’ accusations of witchcraft escalated into one of the darkest episodes in early American history has long puzzled historians. (Image by Alamy)

When the devil stalked Salem: the story of the Salem witch trials

Bewitched cars & mail-order charms: witchcraft in modern France. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Soldiers of the Third Reich surround a huge bonfire during a winter solstice festival in December 1936. The Nazis attempted to use elements of pagan beliefs to promote a Germanic ‘national religiosity’. (Photo by Getty Images)

Witches, werewolves and vampires: the Nazi's quest for the supernatural

Elizabeth Woodville with her husband, Edward IV. According to one medieval document, their marriage only came about “by Sorcerie and Wichecrafte, committed by the said Elizabeth, and her Moder Jaquett Duchess of Bedford”. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Medieval royal witches: from Elizabeth Woodville to Queen Joan of Navarre