Historian Mikki Brock joins WIRED to answer the internet's bubbling cauldron of questions about witches, witchcraft, and witch hunting through the ages.
Can men be witches or only women? Do witches really cast spells and create potions? Who came up with the concept of witches flying on brooms and why? Why do cartoon witches always have such a pointy nose? Why do we associate black cats with witches? Why did the Salem Witch trials start? Answers to these questions and an entire coven more await on Witchcraft Support.
- 0:00 Witchcraft Support
- 0:17 Boy Witches
- 2:11 Witch torture in old Scotland
- 3:59 Whoever is in charge of marketing over at the Salem Witch Trials, amazing job
- 5:14 Burned in the USA
- 5:49 Witch Tests
- 7:01 Concurrent witch trials worldwide?
- 7:35 Spells? Potions?
- 8:44 Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?
- 10:57 Brooms: Why?
- 12:51 Malleus Maleficarum
- 15:18 Mass hysteria
- 16:32 Why are you booing me I’m right
- 18:02 Witch noses
- 20:04 Cats and witches through history
- 21:39 How to spot a witch
- 22:38 Why did The Salem Witch Trials start?
- 26:09 Actual witches or ergot poisoning?
- 27:27 Five-fingered Anne Boleyn
- 28:56 How does one avoid being accused of witchcraft?
- 30:52 Regretfully we have not beaten the witch charges
- 32:41 The witch slander must end
- 33:33 Blessed to report that we have beaten the witch charges
- 34:14 Witches: Origins
- 36:57 Witch hunting never ends
- 37:43 “Come, we fly!”
Correction: An edit in this episode makes out that Elizabeth I was the first queen of England. In fact, she was the first unmarried queen of England; the first queen was actually her half-sister, Mary I.
