most of us have heard or read about the Salem witch trial of 1692. but are you aware of the two dozen witches tried and executed in the colonies before Salem. Or of the estimated 40-80 thousand men and women accused and executed of witchcraft. in the '' old world'' from the 12 th century through the 18th.
first case, that of Joan cason, a poor woman in Kent, England accused of bewitching a thee year old child to death, in 1577. there were eight of her neighbors who testified against her. she denied the bewitching charge, but did admit to having a reddish mouse haunting her house. she was able to convince the jury of her innocence of bewitching. But was found guilty of invocating evil spirits. she was hung 4 days later.
please post a reply if you are interested in more witch trials
I think this is a great post! If you are a witch then one should know the history behind it, but I do have to correct you on one thing though. The proper word for someone dying by the noose is hanged....lol. Sorry! The Witch Queen of my coven always corrected me on that when she was alive and when I read that I heard her voice over my right shoulder saying "The correct word is hanged. A coat is hung on the rack a person who dies by hanging was hanged." Sorry....lol. Even in the summerlands she teaches me....lol.
I'm sorry if the information I'm about to share is not appreciated, but I think it should be shared anyways.
I think most people know, or at least assume, when they hear about witch trials that some Christian is/was behind it. However, what I have not seen mentioned anywhere on this site is the non-witches who were tried and murdered as well. You, wicca1955, mentioned one possible case with Joan Cason. Perhaps she wasn't really a witch at all, but she was killed simply for fear that she was one.
Other such cases include Christians being killed by Christians, which to my knowledge may or may not have been the case with Joan, but this could have been over the smallest things. In one case, a housewife was murdered for praying without speaking. The only evidence against her was that she believed she didn't have to speak for God to hear her prayers. So, you could say she was killed by Christians for having a stronger faith than they did. She was tried and labeled a witch.
My point in mentioning this is simply that, while there may have been thousands and maybe even hundreds of thousands of witch trials, not all of them and possibly even very few of them actually had a real witch involved. When I say "very few" I mean when comparing the large number of trials(most likely in the thousands) to the small number of genuine witches found(possibly as low as a couple hundred).
If this was not the place to post this information, forgive me, but I thought it might be relevant to the topic.
Khelek this was very appropriate to mention and you are exactly right, but even though they might not have been witches they were still the witch trials and those who were killed should still be remembered by us and honored. At the Salem Witch Trials I actually believe nobody that was killed were witches as at all. They were all Christian men and women who were killed because the hate and fear these people carried in their hearts. My husband looked at the woman next door so how do I take care of this. Accuse her of being a witch. Same thing in current times. Although now there are people dying who actually practice the magical arts, but at the same time those who are not also are dying. There was a woman that was known in our witch community in my neighborhood like years ago. Probably I would say like maybe fifteen to twenty years now. This woman got involved into drugs and I also believe wass walking the streets and she also made it quite public she was a witch. The police eneded up finding this woman dead after someone burned her alive. Headlines read local witch found burned alive! Not cool. This is why we as practioners of magic have to be responsible. Don't be drawing unwanted attention to the craft, don't flaunt it like the roleplayers do, be proud of what you are and you don't have to hide it.......just find that balance and carry yourself with respect so people know exactly how the craft is. This way we respect all those who have died and fought for us to be where we are now and we don't undo what they have worked for.
on another note...the thing thatsparked the witch triels of the burning times, was a tipo in the bible, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" was incorrectly translated, a more apropreit translation would be changeing witch to poisoner, or murderer
Well am sure most of you guys know this, but the trails ended when someone (forgot his name sorry but he was famous and had the rights to stop the trails in the area) wife was accused of being a witch. So to save his wife he stopped the trails in his area.
Salem Witch trials, even tho they were or won't a real witch, yes they should be honored. Most of them did it by fear, but mainly because of this fact am about to share. If a person says that someone is a witch and has placed a curse on them then they get their land and stuff when they are hanged. The family of the witch doesn't get the land back. So people got to greedy in those days and when they did hated someone or if someone had money that they dream of getting, all they need to do is say witch.
This isn't a Salem story, but something I been threw. My wicca and pagan friends wanted to do a rite in the park at night on Halloween (Hope I don't have to explain why...). Set up the large circle with candles, got everyone to sit at the table, Light the two main candles, and started to do the rite. Well about close to the end of the rite a cop showed up. One of my friends that isn't wicca or pagan wasn't doing the rite and he went to the cop and tried to explained what is going on. That didn't work and when we saw the cop walk into the circle without a care in the world we started to worry. Not because we were into trouble, but because he went into a circle when we were still doing the rite. Flashing his flashlight at us asking what we were doing and our ages, it was past 12:00 and the park closes at 10:00. Well, one of us that was in charge of the rite said the cop can't do anything if it was for a good reason. Well the cop didn't put us into jail, he just said "As long as you guys don't burn anything and clean up and leave when I do then you won't get into trouble." So we had to finish the rite fast and clean up.
That is my story of the time I almost got into trouble with the police when doing a rite with my friends lol.
I felt I should post even though I'm not wicca I had family That were killed at Salem,Mass I'm related to mot of the Corey's of the area in Salem of that era .
There was a religious group that was hunted by the inquisition in Europe. I don't know the English term (here they are called Katar/Katari). They were gnostic christians that refused to follow Catholic tradition. So members of the St. Dominic order hunted them. It ended when they burned 200 Katari on the plain near the Katari last outpost, a castle like place (southern France).
Many people got burned then. It really didn't matter if they were witches or not. In Spain they burned Jews, and many people got burned because of their wealth.
i'd like to check that out. i quite enjoy history and learning about this sort of thing. the thing that scares me is it still happens. i don't mean 'we found a witch, can we burn her', i mean 'witch, witch, you're a witch' resulting in harassment. [sometimes death]
in this day in age, where fear rules the world, and people are misinformed, i'm happy there hasn't been more attacks on witches [as they sacrifice unbaptized babies in the woods to Lucifer cackling over a boiling cauldron.]
[kidding, but many people think like that, misinformation, it's a terrible thing, that's why i reserve judgment until i hear both sides]
