Witchcraft trials, witch beliefs, folk magic and associated traditions.
The Witches' Sabbat — a nocturnal gathering of witches presided over by the devil, at which the participants renounced God, feasted, danced, and engaged in sexual congress with demons — was the central image of the European witch trial era. It is the defining concept around which the persecution of witchcraft in early modern Europe was organised...
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"Witch mark" in historical usage covers two distinct — and frequently conflated — categories: first, the bodily witch's mark (also "devil's mark" or stigma diaboli) — a bodily feature on an accused witch, said to evidence a diabolical compact, insensitive to pain, and used to suckle familiar spirits; and second, apotropaic witch marks — symbol...
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A witch bottle is a container — typically a ceramic jar or glass bottle — filled with specific materials and buried, concealed within a building's structure, or submerged in water as a magical device for protection against witchcraft, or to torment a witch into withdrawing their curse. They are among the most archaeologically attested forms of a...
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The Salem witch trials of 1692–1693 were a series of prosecutions in colonial Massachusetts in which twenty people were executed (nineteen by hanging, one by pressing with stones) and approximately 150 more were imprisoned on charges of witchcraft following a period of social crisis in which members of the community accused one another of diabol...
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A poppet — also known as a magical effigy, image, voodoo doll (in popular Western usage), or by various culture-specific names — is a figurine or doll made to represent a specific person and used in sympathetic magic to affect that person, either harmfully (to cause illness, injury, or death) or beneficially (to heal, protect, or attract love). ...
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The Pendle witch trials of 1612 were a series of prosecutions held at Lancaster Assizes in which twelve people from the Pendle area of Lancashire were tried for witchcraft; ten were convicted and hanged, making it the largest single witchcraft prosecution in English history. The trials are notable for the exceptional contemporary documentation: ...
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The Malleus Maleficarum ("Hammer of Witches"), published in 1486–1487 and attributed to two Dominican inquisitors, Heinrich Kramer (Institoris) and James Sprenger, is the most infamous witch-hunting manual in Western history — a comprehensive theological and procedural guide to identifying, prosecuting, and executing witches. It is also one ...
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Hoodoo — also known as conjure, rootwork, or tricking — is an African American folk magical tradition that emerged in the American South from the 18th century onwards, synthesising elements from West and Central African magical and religious traditions, European folk magic (including elements of German American Pow-Wow and English folk magic),...
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A familiar spirit — or simply familiar — is a supernatural entity believed to assist a practitioner of magic, typically a witch or cunning person, in their magical work. In the English and Scottish witch trial tradition (roughly 1560–1720), familiar spirits most commonly took the form of small animals — cats, toads, dogs, hares, ferrets, moles —...
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Cunning folk — also known as wise men and wise women, white witches, charmers, blessers, healers, and pellars (in Cornwall) — were professional or semi-professional magical practitioners in early modern Britain and Europe who provided services including healing illness, finding lost or stolen goods, identifying thieves, lifting or countering mal...
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