Witchy Wednesday!

We’re all no doubt aware of the Pendle Witches (if you’re from the UK and interested in the paranormal at least), a collection of Women (and Men) from Lancashire who were tried for the crime of witchcraft in 1612.

Of the 11 people who went to trial, 10 were found guilty and executed by hanging. The curious thing about the Pendle witches is that, not only were they accused of using witchcraft to murder 10 people (a bit more serious than using “eye of newt” to give Jeremiah a bad case of Herpes), it’s the fact that for over 400 years their spirits apparently endure and people proclaim to have experienced and contacted the spirits of some of those who were tried and executed (many TV shows of various repute have filmed on location on, and around Pendle Hill – check them out for more information).

Pendle Hill and the surrounding area is certainly a very imposing landscape, and there is certainly “something” in the air but on some days, depending which way the wind blows, that could just be the scent of fresh sheep poo too! On a serious note though, could it be that the area itself is just naturally foreboding, leaving the mind to wander and the imagination to run wild?

The link between Witches and the paranormal certainly doesn’t start and finish with our friends in Lancashire; across the Atlantic, America has their own, possibly more famous (or infamous) Witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts (so fun to write and say!) where more than 200 people were accused of using “the devil’s magic” over a period of about 18 months – 20 were found guilty and much like their Lancastrian counterparts, were subsequently hanged until dead. These deaths, much like those in Lancashire, are equally connected to “weirdness”, with many reports of paranormal activity across Salem, from the ominously named “Gallows Hill” to “The House of The Seven Gables” all purportedly linked to those who fell foul of the law in the 17th Century.

The connection between witchcraft and the supernatural though, extends further back in time, beyond both Pendle and Salem. It must have been a common ideology for years, potentially decades beforehand, being featured on stage, possibly as early as 1606 in Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’. The Bard had a knack for utilising people’s knowledge of the common and everyday, pairing it with whimsical tales and flights of fancy to create his numerous tragedies and comedies.

Was the use of the witches in “The Scottish Play” purely to add to the drama, or was there an underlying belief in Elizabethan England (and perhaps before) that Witches were A: very real and B: heavily connected to the paranormal and supernatural?

We’ll let you decide.