Day in the Life of a Salem Puritan

Summary

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After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

Episode: Day in the Life of a Salem Puritan
Hosts: Anthony Delaney & Maddie Pelling
Date: January 8, 2026

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Overview

In this engaging “Day in the Life” episode, historians Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling immerse listeners in the fraught, fear-ridden world of a Salem Puritan during the infamous witch trials of 1692. With their signature wit and depth, they reconstruct a typical day, examining not only routines—from breakfast to bedtime—but the psychological, social, and spiritual pressures that made Salem a powder keg. The show explores paranoia, religious fanaticism, class divides, gender, and the mechanisms that led ordinary people to extraordinary acts of violence and fear.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Setting the Stage: Salem’s Unique Context

• Explaining Salem: The distinction between Salem Village (now Danvers) and Salem Town, and the misconception in popular memory (04:03–05:26).
  • Salem Village: Site of initial accusations and the more rural, extreme religious community.
  • Salem Town: More prosperous, urban, and the site of formal trials/executions.
• Colonial Trauma & Puritanism: Devastation of indigenous populations, driven by European disease and violence (06:32–07:14).
• Puritan Migration Motives: Persecution in England led religious extremists to form a theocratic enclave — “the city on the hill” (07:30–09:20).
  • “The basis of what we know in terms of American religiosity now comes from religious extremism. ... We are living with the repercussions and the legacy of that today.” — Anthony (07:34)

Social Hierarchies and Daily Realities

• Class, Snobbery, and Slavery:
  • Salem Village is less affluent, more religiously extreme, while Town has a budding mercantile class (23:45–25:20).
  • Slavery (domestic and involving Native Americans and people of African descent) was integral to Puritan daily life, exemplified by Tituba, the first accused woman (10:04–11:01).
• Rigid Gender Roles & Community Surveillance:
  • Men: Expected to labor outdoors, maintain constant “toiling.”
  • Women: Indoors, confined to household chores, sewing, raising children with no life outside the home (29:15–31:36).
  • Social pressure: Intense neighborly scrutiny and fear of gossip/accusation (31:04–31:47).
    • “You are being monitored…for gossip, for curses, for disrupting.” — Anthony (31:27)

Religion, Paranoia, and Worldview

• Daily Routine & Spiritual Warfare:
  • Wake before dawn (ideally before sunrise), pray, and eat a sparse breakfast—small beer, cornmeal, leftover stew or pottage (14:19–16:16).
  • Labor viewed as a defense against idleness and sin (22:58–23:12).
  • Lack of joy or “worldly” pleasures (even Christmas was banned): “They're in a constant state of spiritual warfare... and you live cheek by jowl with the devil.” — Anthony (20:53–21:05)
• Mindset and Hysteria:
  • The entire community lived in legitimate terror of witchcraft, with apotropaic marks (magical protective symbols) and beliefs that devilish forces lurked everywhere (21:22–22:23).
  • The mental toll: Hosts reflect on how hard it is for modern people to grasp this mind-state.
    • “It's so hard for us to actually get in the headspace of what it would mean to be genuinely frightened by this…” — Maddie (22:25)

Community Events: Meetings & Witchcraft Accusations

• Village Gathering Spaces:
  • Meeting House (also the “church”/town hall/courthouse), simple, cold, wooden, gender-segregated (41:12–42:35).
  • In crises, townsfolk summoned at a moment’s notice; daily routines disrupted by witchcraft scares (41:00–41:48).
• Key Historical Characters:
  • Reverend Samuel Parris: Charismatic, outsider from England and Barbados, whose sermons stoked fear and ultimately catalyzed the witch trials (26:09–34:13).
    • “The Lord hath been sorely displeased with this place... The devil is here among us, and his instruments walk in our midst.” — Samuel Parris, 1691 sermon (34:28)
  • Tituba: Enslaved woman of color, the first accused; expertly navigates life-saving confession under duress (36:32–37:41).
    • “She has to invent to survive. ... She begins to story-tell in order to save her own life, which is totally understandable.” — Anthony (11:01, 36:53)

How Hysteria Snowballed

• Social Dynamics of Accusation:
  • Outsiders, the poor (“Goody Goode”—Sarah Goode), marginalized women were targeted (40:01–40:33).
  • The structure was tailor-made for paranoia to spread: “The community you’re in are your survival mechanism…[but] they will also be your downfall.” — Maddie (31:47)
• The First Trials:
  • The process: Preliminary hearings in the village, later formal trials and executions in the town (41:00–43:10)
  • Public interrogations: Men, women, children all separated by gender in the audience; candlelit, oppressive atmosphere (41:48–43:32).
  • “What you're sitting there listening to is discussion of witches, marks of familiars, of deception, of spell casting.” — Anthony (43:10)
• Teenage Accusers & Mass Panic:
  • The infamous “afflicted girls” seen as both powerless and dangerous, sparking debate between hosts over their culpability (44:22–45:39).
    • Maddie: “There is something of them wanting power in this community where they have no real power… [but] it’s not comfortable.” (45:43)

CONSEQUENCES

• 200+ accused, 19 hanged, 25 dead in all—devastating impact on the social fabric (45:59–46:48).
  • “What’s within people is so much more petrifying…” — Anthony (46:33)
  • Later, moderating voices emerge (letter from Thomas Brattle, 1692), and Governor’s intervention halts proceedings, but only after irreparable damage (47:15–48:44).

The Puritan Evening: Anxiety & Fear

• Returning Home:
  • After hours of interrogation or vigilance, villagers retreat to their basic, cold, communal homes—lighting candles warily, watching one another (49:14–50:25).
  • “Are they going to knock on my door tonight?” — Anthony (49:25)
• The Final Fear:
  • Despite horror at accusations, the primary terror is spiritual—fear the devil may “touch” their lives, that evil has entered the village (49:50–50:48).
  • The emotional exhaustion and communal sleep are haunted by that day’s traumas.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Labour is a form of worship. Idleness, a pathway to sin.” — Anthony (00:37)
• “Donald Trump wouldn’t exist without this moment in time.” — Anthony (03:44)
• “Goody means good wife… It’s like Mrs., basically… It becomes so specific in our cultural memory to the Salem witch trial…” — Anthony & Maddie (05:38–06:13)
• “You are being monitored…for gossip, for curses, for disrupting.” — Anthony (31:27)
• “The irony, of course… is they will also be your downfall.” — Anthony (32:10)
• “The Lord hath been sorely displeased with this place, and if we do not reform, he will come amongst us with flaming vengeance.” — Samuel Parris (34:28)
• “She has to invent to survive.” (on Tituba’s confession) — Anthony (36:53)
• “What you’re sitting there listening to is discussion of witches, marks of familiars, of deception, of spell casting.” — Anthony (43:10)
• “What’s within people is so much more petrifying…” — Anthony (46:33)
• “Are they going to knock on my door tonight?” — Anthony (49:25)
• “I wouldn’t want to live it.” — Maddie (51:35)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Salem context, village vs. town: 04:03–05:26
• Colonial violence & Puritan worldview: 06:32–09:20
• Puritan daily routine, breakfast, clothing: 14:19–17:48
• Community paranoia, surveillance: 18:11–19:05; 31:04–31:47
• Class and gender differences: 23:45–25:20; 29:15–31:36
• Meeting house atmosphere / village gatherings: 41:12–43:32
• Emergence, escalation, and impact of witch trials: 34:28–48:44
• Evening routine and lingering fears: 49:14–50:48
• Summing up: why you wouldn’t want to live it: 51:34–51:36

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Episode Tone

• Dynamic, irreverent, funny but thoughtful: The hosts balance dark analysis with modern analogies and humor (e.g., “I am a private goblin. The dogs witness it. … I would be burned at the bed!” — Maddie, 13:56), while never trivializing the historic suffering.
• Accessible and modern: Draws on contemporary experiences (deadlines, coffee, TikTok, RuPaul) to help listeners empathize with the alien mindset of 1692.
• Reflective: Thoughtful pauses on ethical dilemmas, the weight of history, and modern parallels.

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For Further Exploration

The hosts have previous, more detailed multi-part episodes (“two parter”) on the Salem Witch Trials and on Tituba’s story for listeners seeking deeper dives into the judicial processes and specific figures.

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Summary prepared for listeners new to the subject or seeking a comprehensive, timestamped overview.

Transcript

[Anthony]

Hey, Sal. Hank. What's going on? We haven't worked a case in years. I just bought my car at Carvana. And it was so easy.

[Ad Voice]

Too easy. Think something's up?

[Anthony]

You tell me. They got thousands of options, found a.

[Ad Voice]

Great car at a great price, and.

[Anthony]

It got delivered the next day. It sounds like Carvana. Just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right.

[Maddie]

Case closed. Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply.

[Anthony]

Salem, 1692. The village stirs beneath the pale sun. Smoke rises from low chimneys as families begin their morning prayers, uttering passages from scripture amidst the creaking of their wooden homes. In this village, every action measures itself against God's will. Labour is a form of worship. Idleness, a pathway to sin. Children gather kindling for the day's fire, while their fathers walk the fields, frost crunching beneath their boots. Mothers tend spinning wheels and loaves of coarse bread. Yet beneath the rhythm of prayer and duty, unease hangs in the air. As the bell rings, villagers lift their eyes to heaven, steady in devotion. Though within each of them lies a great fear that will soon wreak havoc amongst this small community. Salem paranoia, Penance. Piety. For the religious puritans of colonial America, this was everyday life. And for the residents of Salem, Massachusetts, it was all about to get so much worse as they found themselves embarking on a witch hunt that would leave 19 people dead. And a legacy lasting for over 300 years. But who are these Puritans? What was life like in Salem? And how terrified of the devil must they have been to let it go so far?

[Maddie]

Hello, everybody. I'm Maddie.

[Anthony]

And I'm Anthony.

[Maddie]

And today we are back with another Day in the Life episode. I always enjoy these because they go off the rails. And also we do the weirdest days in the life. It's never like Day in the life of a 1920s postman.

[Anthony]

No. Oh, I'd be interested in that.

[Maddie]

That might be fun to.

[Anthony]

What's that route? Yeah.

[Maddie]

Sounds like a game. What's that route? Time to play this week. As you may have gathered, if you've downloaded this episode and saw the title of it, we're going to be talking about the day in the life of a Salem Puritan. There is a lot told about the famous witch trials around Salem in this moment on this tiny little village in. Nope, I've gone a bit Donald Trump there. Let's not do that. This tiny little village on the east.

[Anthony]

Coast of America, when he's in good mood, when he's like actually go this.

[Maddie]

Was the most beautiful village that's ever existed. It's full of witches. Hate the witches. Okay, so we've heard all about the witch trials and we know Donald Trump loves a witch hunt. Is a witch hunt, ladies and gentlemen.

[Anthony]

Well, I would literally say Donald Trump. We'll come back to this. Could not exist without the 1692 sale of witch trials.

[Maddie]

Oh, I don't think it would. That's the headline up front. Nice. Well done. We know about the witches, the so called witches. We know about the accusers. But what do we know about the lives of the average people who lived in this village and it surrounds Anthony? Give us a little bit of context.

[Anthony]

Okay, so the first thing to say is in terms of naming. So Salem Village.

[Maddie]

Oh, he's made it boring already.

[Anthony]

Yeah, yeah. This is actual history, Maddie. Salem Town, Salem Village. We are dealing with Salem Village, which.

[Maddie]

Is now, I remember this from when we did. Did we do a two part episode on Salem? Maybe it was three. Yeah.

[Anthony]

Oh, I forgot about that. But we did.

[Maddie]

Okay, sorry.

[Anthony]

There's Salem Town and Salem Village and we're dealing with Salem mostly.

[Maddie]

And where are the initial witch trials held?

[Anthony]

Salem Village.

[Maddie]

Okay, so Salem Town is nearby.

[Anthony]

Very nearby. Like I think it's within six miles.

[Maddie]

That's classic. Like we've colonized this bit of land and we're going to call everything the.

[Anthony]

Same name and it's Danvers now. So Salem Village is now Danvers Town.

[Maddie]

Excellent.

[Anthony]

Yes. So if you go and visit Salem today, you want to go to Danvers.

[Maddie]

Yeah. Cool. Not to Salem. Is there a place called Salem though? Yeah. And you get there and it won't have any witches?

[Anthony]

No, it does have stuff, but it's not the location.

[Maddie]

Capitalized on it. Cool, cool, cool.

[Anthony]

So there's two different things at stake here. Right. When we're talking about this, you have the hearings in the village, but the trials take place in the town and the executions take place in the town. So the initial part of this investigation takes place in the village and then.

[Maddie]

It gets too big for the village.

[Anthony]

But the actual formalized trials.

[Maddie]

I'm with you.

[Anthony]

Are in the town.

[Maddie]

Okay, thank you for that. So that's that.

[Anthony]

And the next thing is we are going admin.

[Maddie]

Dunn.

[Anthony]

Admin. Well, almost. We're also gonna encounter this word that we come across an awful lot when we talk about Salem. And that word is goody.

[Maddie]

And people, I adore this.

[Anthony]

Well, goody Pelling as a witch.

[Maddie]

Oh, no.

[Anthony]

Oh no.

[Ad Voice]

Oh no.

[Anthony]

Goody means good wife. In case. I mean, I know you know this, but I didn't always know this, so I thought everyone was called Goodyear because.

[Maddie]

Yeah, yeah. It's like.

[Anthony]

Mrs. Basically.

[Maddie]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so specific. I mean, obviously it was used, I assume, across the 17th century elsewhere, but it becomes so specific in our cultural memory to the Salem witch trial that I'm thinking about the Crucible play. And, you know, it's so like. Yeah, Goody Proctor and all that. So. Goody good. Goody good.

[Anthony]

That's the one that always got me. Yeah.

[Maddie]

Is that a person in this? Goody good.

[Anthony]

Yeah.

[Maddie]

Anyway, was she good?

[Anthony]

Yes. Well, in that she wasn't a witch. None of them were.

[Maddie]

Yeah, well. Yeah, exactly. Spoiler alert. Give me some very serious 17th century historical context, please.

[Anthony]

Oh, God.

[Maddie]

Goody Delany.

[Anthony]

There is a lot to it, really, isn't there? Goody Goody Delaney. Yeah, there's a lot to. So European colonization has been happening in North America for well over a century now. We have. We can kind of take this back and look at how about 70%, some estimates say right. Up to 90% of the indigenous peoples in coastal Massachusetts regions succumbed to European illnesses like smallpox and hepatitis.

[Maddie]

Sorry. Up to 90% of indigenous populations.

[Anthony]

Thousands of people in Massachusetts now, this is losing their lives because of illnesses brought by European colonizers. So this is cataclysmic, as well as.

[Maddie]

Colonial violence, I guess, as well. On top of that.

[Anthony]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Maddie]

Wow.

[Anthony]

Land is claimed by Puritan settlers from England, and the reason they are over there is because they're being persecuted in England. And this is. I said this at the top of the episode, that Donald Trump wouldn't exist without this moment in time.

[Maddie]

These are extremists. Yeah.

[Anthony]

The basis of what we know in terms of American religiosity now comes from religious extremism. And we are seeing that in action in this trial. And we are living with the repercussions and the legacy of that today there can be no doubt, like, history feeds its way through. So this is what we're seeing there. And these Puritans are trying to purify the church, the clues in the name. We're having the most pure version of the Church of England as it was.

[Maddie]

And who gets to decide what's the most pure version of anything?

[Anthony]

Well, it's this idea of communing with God on one's own terms, that the intermediary. I mean, we have that in Protestantism anyway, but this takes it to a whole new level. You have that personal relationship with God.

[Maddie]

And then you get these Preachers who come into this and these leaders in these communities that feed off people's fear, people's anxiety, and they come in with their charisma. Sound familiar?

[Anthony]

Uniqueness, nerve and talent.

[Maddie]

Yes, yes, exactly.

[Anthony]

And RuPaul's Drag Race.

[Maddie]

Yes.

[Anthony]

Bringing that in.

[Maddie]

Amazing. We'll go with that.

[Anthony]

No, no. Yeah, yeah.

[Maddie]

But, you know, the kind of these. These people that people gravitate towards can really rise in these situations. And that's what we see in the witch trials. We see these individuals, particularly men, particularly accusers of these women and men who are accused as well, you know, but the accusers and particularly people in power are really rising through the ranks. And there's a very frightening level of power that is achieved very quickly within these communities once they get to America.

[Anthony]

When you're talking about them getting to America, we're talking about 1626, and this is when Salem is founded. It is founded on land belonging to the indigenous noun king. It is supposed to be this city on the hill. You hear this phrase a lot, don't you?

[Maddie]

It's the famous speech that's done at the time.

[Anthony]

Yeah. We are the pinnacle of Christian morality and we are building this new world for everybody to aspire to. We are the perfect people. But in reality, despite that bluster, it is rural, it is self contained, it is struggling, it is poor, it is intense.

[Maddie]

It's a new land. They have to. They don't have the indigenous knowledge of how to farm it, how to care for it, how to interact with it.

[Anthony]

Totally. They're on the brink a lot of the time. Constant tension with the more prosperous Salem town. The Salem village is outlying going, we don't have enough food. We need to have some kind of a link with them. But there's so many tensions. There's only about five or six hundred people here. So, you know, it's a small group.

[Maddie]

The thing to say in terms of hierarchy here is that slavery is part of everyday life here.

[Anthony]

It is. And it's a slavery we may not be as familiar with as we become in the end of the 17th into the 18th century, where we understand slavery in terms of plantation and the transatlantic slave trade. This is more domestic in iteration. It includes people that are Native American as well as black people, all of whom we know would have been in Salem at this time. Tituba, of course, is a very famous historical character. And then we talk about Arthur Miller's woman accused. She the first woman accused. And this idea of otherness and foreignness really feeds into her accusation and to why witchcraft may have spread through the village of Salem at this time. And of course, Tituba goes on to confess, doesn't she? And brings in this idea of what people want to hear. She begins to storytell in order to save her own life, which is totally understandable.

[Maddie]

Yeah. And this idea of otherness, you know, really, it's the puritans who are other in this situation coming into this land, but it's completely turned on its head and they are now like the normalized ver of this community on a very.

[Anthony]

Small scale because they're othered in England. They're othered in terms of the indigenous community. And yet they find this way to position themselves, literally the city on the.

[Maddie]

Hill, like they are the centre of the universe.

[Anthony]

Yeah. So it's actually quite. I find it really unsettling when you think about what's happening there.

[Maddie]

It's incredibly. You would not want to be living in this situation. This is one of those nightmare moments in history. You don't want to be anywhere near this. Absolutely. Okay. This is a day in the life episode, though, unfortunately. We are in this moment. We are living this moment. Talk me through the puritan morning routine, please.

[Anthony]

This is not for you or I. This is not for. This is for like the gym bros who do TikTok and all that stuff.

[Maddie]

Okay. Before you tell me this, so would have been. Yeah. Oh my God. Yes. Oh my God. That's a lot to unpack there.

[Anthony]

Yeah.

[Maddie]

What is your morning routine, first of all?

[Ad Voice]

Mine?

[Maddie]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

Oh, I will get up as late as I possibly can. Same like. Okay. Weekends there are no. What's it called? Alarms. Don't even know the names.

[Maddie]

What's that thing called when it makes the noise and it makes people they have to go to. What's it called? A job.

[Anthony]

Yeah, I have a job. I have multiple jobs. So do you. We tend to get up weekdays at seven.

[Maddie]

Okay.

[Anthony]

Shower, have breakfast, take all our supplements that probably do nothing. Walk the dogs.

[Maddie]

Creaking bones as you're reaching for these.

[Anthony]

Pills, Walk the dogs. Then Shane goes to work, leaves the house, goes to work. I go into my office. And then do the dogs come in.

[Maddie]

The office with you?

[Anthony]

Oh, yeah. Couldn't leave them out there. They'd be making too much noise.

[Maddie]

They'd be upset.

[Anthony]

Yeah. I feel like you have a looser regime than that in the morning, right?

[Maddie]

I have no regime. No, I like to get up as late as possible. I mean, it depends obviously, like today I had to come very early to come into the studio, which am Shit. So annoying. It was a little bit early in that usually Matt gets up. He's in the army, so he gets up and goes to work super early, which he's not a morning person.

[Anthony]

It's at. Is he getting up at night?

[Maddie]

It's not quite that early, but like, it's early and he deals with the dogs in the morning. Like he does dog stuff and I just pretend I'm asleep so I don't have to do it. And then the dogs will get back into bed with me and we sort.

[Anthony]

Of after their walk.

[Maddie]

Oh, yeah, yeah, totally will. They'll have a little snuggle and then eventually I'll get up if I'm working from home. And then I will probably write in my pyjamas all day and shower about 10 minutes before Matt comes home and pretend I've been dressed all day and I'm a functioning adult.

[Anthony]

That makes sense. Sometimes I get voice notes from Matty going, I'm so behind. I am so. I'm just like.

[Maddie]

And also, I like, haven't spoken to any for the entire day. And I'm like, no, you're a chaos.

[Anthony]

Merchant when it comes to that kind of thing.

[Maddie]

Yeah, yeah. Like, I will show up on time for a job. I am showered and dressed and everything.

[Anthony]

If it's your deadline.

[Maddie]

But if it's my deadline and if I'm working from home and it's just a writing day. Yeah. Nobody see this goblin.

[Anthony]

Sure.

[Maddie]

Like, this is a private goblin situation. Like, the dogs witness it. They're on board. They understand it's a secret hazard. Oh, my God. They'd be like, she's so slovenly. I would be burned at the bed.

[Anthony]

You would have been accused 100%. Like, she stays in bed all day because you're supposed.

[Maddie]

Supposed to be with her. Two familiars.

[Anthony]

Yeah. You're supposed to be getting up at about 5. Well, you're supposed to be getting up before the sun.

[Maddie]

No.

[Anthony]

So depend. No, that's the worst thing for me. Before the sun. That's depressing. I can't cope. Although I did see something on TikTok recently that was like, if you have to get up before the sun, try doing it with candlelight. And I was like, oh.

[Maddie]

Because I know you have your Victorian night cap and gown.

[Anthony]

I don't have a cap, but I've got.

[Maddie]

We need to get you one. And I do have a Jane Austen from the actual Jane Austen house. Like, nighty situation. Like a white. It's quite see through. It's like you couldn't answer the door to the postman. And it's revealing.

[Anthony]

Are you just telling people now that you've stolen from the Jane?

[Maddie]

No, no, no, no, no, no. It's in the shop. You can buy them in the shop. They're relatively replicas.

[Anthony]

How do you sell underwear? Well, what is essentially underwear?

[Maddie]

Yeah, essentially underwear. So occasionally I will put that on to do my writing if I'm feeling like I want to be in the time period. But, yeah, definitely can't open the door to anyone. And it's like, it's not right in.

[Anthony]

My pyjamas or in my bed. Okay, so then you're expected to pray and to read scripture and to do your devotions.

[Maddie]

I just think before you've. Because. Right. I need. I need a cup of tea in the morning before I can talk like, nobody talked to me.

[Anthony]

You're not having that.

[Maddie]

And I. I have to then, like, lead up to breakfast. I can't eat straight away, but I'm not doing anything before I've eaten.

[Anthony]

Well, and when it comes to your eating, this is what you're having. I don't think you'd be happy with this either. You're having a small beer.

[Maddie]

I'd be fine with small beer for breakfast.

[Anthony]

Cornmeal, leftover stew.

[Maddie]

Oh, hell, that's disgusting.

[Anthony]

No, no.

[Ad Voice]

Or.

[Anthony]

Or pottage, which, you know, if you came to our live show. I have now tried Pott. It wasn't the worst of what I ate that day.

[Maddie]

Yeah. If anyone didn't come to the live show, we made Anthony eat different historical things while I looked on and laughed because being pregnant, I couldn't eat any of it, which was fantastic. I've never been happier to be pregnant. Literally never been happier. Only one of the things I could eat. What was the final thing that you had? Like a fish.

[Anthony]

Fish eye thing.

[Maddie]

Fish eye thing with, like, fish sauce.

[Anthony]

I couldn't finish that one because there was a bone in it crunched when I was.

[Maddie]

There was a sick bucket.

[Anthony]

Yeah. I didn't get sick, but I did spit it out.

[Maddie]

You did spit it out? Yeah. Okay, so no, thank you. To the pottage for breakfast.

[Anthony]

Now, you will have gotten dressed before this. And there's this really interesting idea of what puritans look like, how they've dressed. Right. And I've got an image here, but I will tell you, this is from 1878, so bear that in mind. So for the people, can you describe what these 19th century idea of a 17th century Puritan is looking like?

[Maddie]

Okay. In this very 19th century image. We have a group of puritans standing around chatting to each other. The men, and they're mostly men, apart from a little girl who is holding one of the men's hands. Are dressed exactly as you'd imagine. They've got the dark clothes on. Are they meant to be entirely black outfits?

[Anthony]

Well, that's what we're supposed to believe here, I think.

[Maddie]

Yeah. Certainly with the big white, crisp collar. Very kind of Oliver Cromwell. And then they have their famous sort of puritan hats and they've got beautiful calves dressed in tights, stockings, and quite sort of puffy trousers situation going on.

[Anthony]

And look at those. Like on the guy that's kind of. Not to the center, but to the center right of the image. His puffy, almost Tudor like trousers actually are.

[Maddie]

You can tell we're fashion historians.

[Anthony]

Are tied with silk bow. It looks like black silk around the game.

[Maddie]

Yeah. So, you know, they're puritan up to a point in like. Everything's very simple, but it's.

[Anthony]

It's quite rich.

[Maddie]

It's pretty fancy.

[Anthony]

In 1692 in Salem, you're not encountering these people. Like it is. It's a lot more rough and ready than that.

[Maddie]

There are no tassels.

[Anthony]

Yeah. It's not as silk stockingy. Put it that way.

[Maddie]

Yeah. So this is a very. Yeah. 19th century reimagining.

[Anthony]

Yes. Almost romanticizing of this kind of purity. And this is. It does represent something.

[Maddie]

And of course, the Victorians would be interested in that.

[Anthony]

Of course they would. But we have this, like, idea of them being, in reality, a very vigilant society. Give me another name for vigilant. Nosy as fuck. Like, they are, you know, watching everyone, everything. Where is this sin? They're actively.

[Maddie]

The writer in me really panicked them, by the way, when you were like, give me another word for this.

[Anthony]

I was like, oh, I wasn't actually gonna test you. No, I was gonna give you the word. It's fine. But it's like they're actively scouting for the devil.

[Maddie]

Yep.

[Anthony]

Can you imagine what a pain in the arse that is?

[Maddie]

I could not live like this. With the constant. Yeah. The hypervigilance, the kind of. The constant anxiety. The constant. Yeah. Like you say, kind of scanning. And they're scanning like people, neighbors, your own household, just constantly yourself.

[Anthony]

Yourself.

[Maddie]

Was I just tricked by the devil? Yes. What was that? Oh, my God. Was that just a goat that I saw or was it the devil?

[Anthony]

There's no idea.

[Maddie]

Peace. So boring. Like, leave me alone to be in my pyjamas and eat my biscuits in my 17 cups of tea. Yeah, well, to do my writing, just leave me.

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[Maddie]

That's a clicktastic inventory.

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[Anthony]

There is truth in this idea that they cancel Christmas, you know, or they. At least you know, they did in, I think it was 1647. That's a very puritan thing. Seen as pagan, because of course it is Pagan Christmas. Those are the origins.

[Maddie]

We have never done Origins of Christmas.

[Anthony]

Origins of Christmas.

[Maddie]

No, we should totally do that.

[Anthony]

Producer stew. That's one for the list. Write that one down. But they're in a constant. I love this phase. In a constant state of spiritual warfare.

[Maddie]

No.

[Anthony]

Right. It's just exhausting. And.

[Maddie]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

And you live cheek by jowl with the devil. This is a real presence. Now, I will point out, because I always do in these scenarios, doubt also exists.

[Maddie]

Yes. Yeah.

[Anthony]

And there are people, but I will say they're in the minority in this setting specifically.

[Maddie]

Well, exactly. In this, you know, you talked about them. This is an extremist group, essentially. And so. And what we see in Salem is this hysteria that occurs because everybody, or almost everyone, and like you say, there is, you know, varying levels of belief, but everyone in this community lives with this idea at least that the devil is real, that evil is real, that witchcraft is real and has a tangible effect on your world. And we often talk on this show, I think about how difficult it is to access those mindsets of the past and that we can't possibly know what it is to believe the witch could curse you or that you need to carve something above your fireplace in order to keep the devil from coming down your chimney. Like, it's. It seems quaint, a little bit fun to us now. And, you know, it's something that a lot of country house museums lean into and stuff around Halloween. This idea of, like, ooh, you know, we've got the apochropic witch marks to keep the evil out. And, hey, I love a bit of apochropic graffiti as much as the next person. I want to see it celebrate probably.

[Anthony]

More than the next person, let's be honest.

[Maddie]

Considerably more. I mean, I have it tattooed on me like I'm committed. But it is so hard for us to actually get in the headspace of what it would mean to be genuinely frightened by this and that this was a real possibility and that your life was governed not only by the routines of daily life and by the realities of having to milk the cow and get the stuff in from the field, the whatever, corn, whatever you're growing, to go to market, to go to church, but also these unseen forces that are at play constantly. And you have to be constantly vigilant against them, otherwise they. They're gonna get you.

[Anthony]

Yeah. And it is this idea of labor in order to counter idleness. And idleness leads to devilry. And this is how you need to. You know, you're talking about the cows, you're talking about.

[Maddie]

That's why you have to get up.

[Anthony]

At 6am, 5am, depending on when the sun is rising, you're getting up. Because if you allow those thoughts to come in, if you think the wrong thoughts, you need to be put like the control levels that we're imposing on this little society. It's making for a kind of a tinderbox. But also there's this idea. Despite this kind of grandiose devilry and witchcraft and God and all this kind of thing, there's also then the bricks and mortar idea of existing in a more rough and ready way than Salem Town was. So Salem Town is seeing as more elite.

[Maddie]

So talk to me about this snobbery then. So if so, we're in Salem Village.

[Anthony]

Yes.

[Maddie]

This day in the life. So. So how different are these two places? And you've spoken already about there being a tension between the people in both in a kind of one upmanship. And the village is kind of looking at the Town going, they've got quite a lot over there. We, we might need some more of this. You know, what does that look like on the ground? Are there different homes? Are there different households? Are there different levels of wealth? What is that disparity?

[Anthony]

So in. In its most basic form. And then I'll go into a little bit more detail. Salem Town is seen as more elite. Salem Village is, I would say more, I think it's fair to say, more religiously extreme. So there are even outliers of the outliers.

[Maddie]

Oh, I don't like it.

[Anthony]

Because in Salem Town we will have this idea of a mercantile class. We will have this idea of money actually shaping things. We will have more of this idea. And this comes into it when the trials happen later of disbelief going, this, stop this. This is too much. So Salem Town has that now.

[Maddie]

Don't get me wrong, I think things have got out of hand when your extremist community is like, that's too much. Let's dial this down a little bit.

[Anthony]

Don't get me wrong though. These are still puritans. There's still a very strong belief system in Salem Town, but it is more elite and it's seen as more urban's the wrong word. But more. More financially commercially driven than buzzing, mate. It's absolutely off its tits. Salem Town is coastal. It's got a growing economy and that economy is dominating Salem VI in turn.

[Maddie]

I can see like the right move entries like desirable coastal property if you're going to have to overlooking the ocean.

[Anthony]

Live in the town, don't live in the village. Because things are about to kick off as we know in the village. In 1670s, Salem village got permission to build a meeting house. Now when we're talking about meeting houses, these are churches, these are meeting places, these are courthouses if they need to be. And we will see that slightly. It's a town hall.

[Maddie]

And again that overlap of civic and state duty and religious duty as well in those spaces. It's entirely wrapped up together all the one to them.

[Anthony]

And there is a reconstructed version of that town hall on site in Danvers now so you can see what that might have formed.

[Maddie]

I know we said this last time we did these episodes, but we really need to go.

[Anthony]

I will not be happy unless I get there.

[Maddie]

We need to do it as a documentary. Historyhead TV. Please take us there.

[Anthony]

In 1692, Reverend Samuel Parris is appointed whose accusations then are the catalyst for the witch trials there. So he is a really key person. Do bear in mind that even he is living in a relatively small wooden house. There's very sparse furniture in there. It is the bare minimum. It is cold, Maddie. Like, it's impossible for us to know how cold it is immediately.

[Maddie]

No. When I'm working alone, they are.

[Anthony]

And he's struggling for income. Like, they're not as Flahoolic as we would say. They're not as affluent as their town counterparts. So there are b. There are no mirrors. There's very little insulation. You have the pewter bowls. You're keeping to this schedule. And it's backing onto vast arable land, by the way. So you are. What's behind you. We don't know. We're not actually even very familiar with this landscape.

[Maddie]

Well, it makes me think of Robert Eggers, the witch film, which obviously is set in this period, and the idea there of they have, you know, their small, very humble cottage that they're still building, and then there's the fields, and then it's just empty and horrible. And then the wood beyond. And this idea of not knowing the landscape because you've only just arrived and you haven't been there for generations, like you would have done in England. And you are not familiar with its, you know, valleys and gullies and trees and all of that. But also you're not familiar with its folklore and its spirits and the dangers that might be out there.

[Anthony]

But do bear in mind that by now, English people will have been born there, as opposed to. Will have sailed there.

[Maddie]

But, you know, still, they're not firm, rooted.

[Anthony]

No.

[Maddie]

Now, tell me this. How do you feel about the Puritan interior aesthetic?

[Anthony]

I kind of love it.

[Maddie]

See, I love a bit of carved furniture. I do. I have a marriage chest from the 17th century which is carved as someone's initials, and it's so beautiful. And I've put my wedding dress in it, which is. Yeah. Because I'm never going to wear it again. It's like. It's nice. I mean, it's slightly. A little bit creepy.

[Anthony]

Yeah, it is. I see it in my head and it's quite creepy. But in a nice. I like that.

[Maddie]

Yeah. But I. Yeah, I do. I mean, I'm a Georgian gal through and through, but I do like a bit of heavy carved wood.

[Anthony]

Yeah. I can get on board with it. I don't necessarily want to live with it all the time, but aesthetically, I.

[Maddie]

Can get on board with it. Couldn't do all the pewter plates. Too much metal. Scrape on metal. It hurts my teeth. That's.

[Anthony]

No, I prefer a wooden bowl anyway. Look, they're not inviting us over and they won't be inviting us over.

[Maddie]

We would not do well.

[Anthony]

But yeah, no, it's. There's something aesthetically pleasing but not practically pleasing.

[Maddie]

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you've got your simple house, you got a little bit of competition with the town between the town and the village. If we're in 1692 at this point, we have a new reverend appointed. He's a little bit extreme even for the taste of the people in the village. Tell me though, if we've got up at 5:30 in our simple little house and we've done our prayers and we've had our beer and pottage for breakfast. Drunk. Yeah, we're just buzzing a little tiny bit. It's nice. What? All the activities the rest of the day. You mentioned this idea of idleness being the devil.

[Anthony]

Yes.

[Maddie]

So I assume there's gonna be lots of heavy lifting involved.

[Anthony]

Yeah, well, especially if you're a man. There will be. You are supposed to be outdoors. You are tending to the land, you are toiling, you are keeping yourself busy.

[Maddie]

Just generic toiling.

[Anthony]

Generic work.

[Maddie]

How was your day? Toiled. I just toiled.

[Anthony]

I could say that. Anyway. I tend to toil, generally speaking. Yes. So you're doing kind of outdoorsy, manly stuff. He says in adverse comments. If this is on a podcast and you can't see me rolling my eyes.

[Maddie]

Anthony's dead serious and extremely toxic at.

[Anthony]

All times, then women are indoors. Very stereotypical gender roles, as you might imagine.

[Maddie]

Also toiling.

[Anthony]

Also toiling. Mending clothing, keeping the house clean, doing all the domestic chores, making clothing.

[Maddie]

I'd honestly rather be outside doing the farm work than the sewing and the being. This is right, this, this is an issue for me. This is why I like my job, that there's variety. And sometimes I have to shower before midday because.

[Anthony]

And I'm glad you did. Thank you.

[Maddie]

Today I made the effort because I can't deal with being in the house working all day every day. If I do like two or three days of writing at home in a row, by the third day I am crawling up the walls.

[Anthony]

I could do it non stop.

[Maddie]

Yeah, well, you want to go and live on like the walls of.

[Anthony]

Yeah, that's true.

[Maddie]

Which I love the idea of. But I know in reality, I mean, maybe I just pushed through it and by like day 12, I'm like, oh, I do this now. This is fine. But the idea for most of human history and in many places in the world, still the case of being confined to your home as A woman. And that being your workspace, your domestic space, your everything, your entire world where you do not leave that you do not have a life outside of it. That is it. Those walls contain you. No.

[Anthony]

But also let me point out this is the worst bit for me because I want to, you know, talk about living in the middle of nowhere. I do want to do that, but I don't want to live near neighbours. But you are near neighbours here and they are watching. And that's the worst bit, to a certain extent, hate a neighbour, particularly if you're a woman, because they are watching you for gossip, they're watching you for curses, they're watching you for disrupting.

[Maddie]

They're watching you if you give a bit of your disgusting breakfast pottage to the cat and they're like, oh, the.

[Anthony]

Cat died or whatever, two days later. So you are being monitored and very purposefully so. And it's this real tension between the claustrophobia of that living space and I don't just mean house, I mean the village. And then the vastness of the landscape that's behind you.

[Maddie]

The people around you are all you've got. And they are your safety net as well. Because if a big bear comes out of the forest, you're gonna have to team up. Or if another village comes to try and kill you or some indigenous people decide that they want to attack you because you deserve it. Get out of my world. Yes, yeah, absolutely. That. The community you're in are your survival mechanism, whether you like it or not, and you are stuck with them.

[Anthony]

And the irony, of course, in this story is they will also be your downfall. They also can be your down. So let's concentrate for a moment on Reverend Samuel Parris. So this is one of the names that comes out most strongly from the witch trials because it's within Paris's household that this chaos begins. And if we were to look at him just for his background, he is actually born in London. So he is one of those people that has just traveled over. As you were mentioning earlier, he was a merchant in Barbados before. Undertaking ministry didn't go particularly well. His move towards ministry is interesting because it was seen, it was a way for him to try and get a more stable lifestyle, income wise.

[Maddie]

Power as well. If you can't get power through money as a merchant, this is the alternative.

[Anthony]

Well, he was very frustrated because he, he thought he would be getting more money. And then when he arrives in Salem, he's not. The money's not coming in because it has to come from the villagers. And they're, they're really not happy about having to hand over very hard earned money. So it's, it's a income stream for.

[Maddie]

Him, especially for puritans, because again, we've talked about how this is a religion or religious sect that strips back those middlemen between you, the worshipper and God. And so having a reverend who's now like, you need to pay me my fee is going to be a problem maybe in that community that is so far extreme already. And so down a different road in terms of how they commune with God and how they understand their religious experience, their spiritual life coming into that. He sort of has, I mean, he has a lot of power, but then he's also disrupting that in some ways.

[Anthony]

And he depends on them as well. It's this strange position he finds himself in and that you're talking about. It depends on their credulity, them giving him credence.

[Maddie]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

Oh, yeah.

[Maddie]

His position, his livelihood is based on whether or not they believe.

[Anthony]

Yes.

[Maddie]

And so it's in his interest to maintain that and shape it.

[Anthony]

The tension, of course, is that Puritan. At the absolute heart of puritanism is that you don't need a leader because you have access to God, you know, in terms of your spiritual leadership.

[Maddie]

So he has to. What I'm saying is that he has to convince them, therefore, that he has something to offer.

[Anthony]

And this is how he does it. This is from one of his sermons in 1691. He says, the Lord hath been sorely displeased with this place, and if we do not reform, he will come amongst us with flaming vengeance. The devil is here among us, and his instruments walk in our midst.

[Maddie]

This idea of, you know, sowing these seeds of dissent and fear mongering and turning people against each other and saying, this community, this society is rotten to the core. Who's gonna fix it?

[Anthony]

Me. This guy. Cut to a year later. Not even a year later, actually, but in the following year, 1692. This is where the accusations from his household come from his daughter and niece. And they make the first accus towards Tituba, the enslaved woman that lives in their house of witchcraft. This is the spark that leads to absolute devastation.

[Maddie]

And it's interesting, isn't it, that it's someone who comes into this community relatively late as an outsider who sparks this off, but he finds the perfect tinderbox already here and realizes this is his opportunity to really ingratiate himself into the people.

[Anthony]

Yeah. And it's the perfect storm. That initial thing isn't it. It's this outsider who's demanding reverence, as you were saying. It's also this. Then children who, you know, what position do they occupy in this society? And then, of course, it's Tituba. It's the outsider. It's the person of a different color than the other.

[Maddie]

Yeah. There are so many motives coming from so many different people here. Like, it's not simply the Reverend himself, but the household. Those dynamics, those layers of power are just so fascinating. And he and his family really capitalize on them.

[Anthony]

It does feel like that. I mean, ultimately, there seems to be a capitalizing. I totally agree. That's my instinct on it, too. Tituba, of course, is then put into this, you know, and you can hear, if you're talking about the discovery and the trials, go back to our other two parter.

[Maddie]

Yeah. We did this in a lot of detail.

[Anthony]

So look at that. But she denies this initially, and she's like, I don't know what you're talking about. This is insane.

[Maddie]

And rightly so.

[Anthony]

Yes. But then also rightly so. She goes, hold on here. I think this is so savvy of Tituba, actually, because she goes, I'm gonna need to play their game. I'm not gonna be able to win them by being adversarial. I'm gonna have to feed into this narrative, too. And actually, if you think about the ways in which, yes, it endangers other people's lives, well, this is the problem.

[Maddie]

That it snowballs, right?

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[Anthony]

But she has to invent to survive. And she does so by bringing in ideas of witchcraft that she. Well, the way they sell it is that she's familiar with these ideas of witchcraft because of her otherness, because of her colour.

[Maddie]

And it's interesting that she understands that she needs to do that because she is an outsider in this community in every sense, racially, in terms of her position, she's an enslaved woman, all of that, but she sees it for what it is, and she plays the game. It is canny.

[Anthony]

Yeah. No, it is.

[Maddie]

It's also horrific. And she has no power, and she takes the only opportunity she can to try and, I suppose, prolong her own life and to keep herself safe.

[Anthony]

Like, you know, I ain't judge Antigipa for wanting to survive.

[Maddie]

Exactly.

[Anthony]

You know what I mean?

[Maddie]

Yeah, absolutely. It's not like she holds the cards here, but what I'm saying is that she. I suppose she is aware of the thought process and the belief system of the people around her who have enslaved her, who are in charge of her who are now accusing her of things and she makes the decision for better or worse us to lean into it. She understands the game cuz she can't argue against it because these people are too far gone. This is Paige desorbo from Giggly Squad. Boost Mobile gives you the same network coverage, speed and service you're used to, just at a more affordable price price. Why pay more if you don't have to? Offering reliable nationwide coverage backed by a 30 day money back guarantee. Love your service or get your money back, no questions asked. Visit your nearest Boost Mobile store or head to boostmobile.com to learn more. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers who cancel within 30 days of activation will have Boost service fees refunded, activation fees if applicable, and phone payments will not be refunded.

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[Anthony]

As you're saying, this starts to snowball. More people are accused, one of them being Goody Goode, Sarah Goode. And she, as we see so often in these cases, she is an outsider herself. She is white. She is a Puritan, or you know, a wayward puritan as they would have seen her. But she is poor. She is at times homeless. She begs. So she is. She's another problem in the society and Tigiba knows that. Actually, if she points there, it'll be believed. Yeah, because as you say, she's a problem.

[Maddie]

So this is a day in the life. And as we said, we have covered the witch trials in a lot more detail before. So do go and find those episodes. But thinking about the next activities in our day. We've had our disgusting breakfast. We probably had some lunch at this point as well. We have done our cookery and our sewing and our tending to the lambs our labour, etc. We've done our toiling. Are we gonna go off to a witch trial now? That seems like the likely afternoon activity.

[Anthony]

We are. And we're going to be made to go, we're going to be called to the. Well, not so much the trial yet because we're still in the village. So the drum is going to go. We're all going to go to the meeting house church. This is the multi purpose space.

[Maddie]

Yeah. I would also not enjoy this being summoned to places like at a moment's notice.

[Anthony]

Now again, remember this, this is specific thing that there is a witchcraft accusation blowing up in the village. So this isn't happening every day, but it's happening right now every day. So this is making all of this belief and all of this tension even more acute at this moment.

[Maddie]

And it's also this idea of witchcraft seeping into their community. It's now disrupting this daily routine as well. So it's becoming more and more powerful in their minds because life is becoming distorted for them.

[Anthony]

Absolutely. And now you're inside, let's go into. You're inside this essentially wooden box. There are no steeples, there are no pews. The reverend's not up on a big stage thing. This is very simple. This is a bare basic room, wooden. It's being lit by candlelight. We are in a dark time of year. We are all now together as a community to come to see the men are kept separate from the women and children. So when we're together, we're still apart, we're showing that gendered thing. And sometimes it's also we won't necessarily congregate in the meeting house, will go to Ingersoll's tavern. So again, we know this, you know, in the 18th century this is even happening in the 17th century this is even happening in England too. These taverns fulfill legal functions, social functions beyond the God.

[Maddie]

I mean they're auction houses, they're meeting places, they're places to plot, they're places to make journalistic connections. They're all kinds of things in this period.

[Anthony]

On this particular day, let's say we're on the 4th of April 1692, Elizabeth Goody Proctor is being questioned and she's among the first and most prominent people in the village to be accused. And so it starts around midday. We're in the meeting house. There is a preliminary interrogation from a local magistrate. But the trial itself, remember, is in Salem town. These are these.

[Maddie]

So interesting how it spreads and catches fire so quickly.

[Anthony]

And we're in this crowd. Imagine it, we're in this crowd. It's echoing around this. This wooden structure. And what you're sitting there listening to is discussion of witches, marks of familiars, of deception, of spell casting.

[Maddie]

And you're watching in real time judging this woman, looking for the little cracks in her performance. Is she lying? Is she a witch? Because you really think there's a possibility that she might be.

[Anthony]

And here's the thing. If. If you're hearing constantly, the devil's amongst us, the devil's amongst us, the devil's amongst us. And even if you have a little bit of a doubt going. But is he, though? Here he is. Here he is in people.

[Maddie]

You know, he must be here because look at how everyone else is reacting. Look at the effects of.

[Anthony]

The girls are writhing. They are screaming in pain. My vitriol in history doesn't get much more anchored than towards those girls. Sometimes I really struggle with what's going on there because. Because the. It's more nuanced than this. Of course it is. But my instinct is to always just see them as bratty.

[Maddie]

Yeah, see, I slightly disagree and I completely see what you mean. And I think if you were on the receiving end of an accusation like that and it was coming from these girls, you would feel so angry and horrified by their behavior. And I think there is an element of that, and I think as well, it's this thing of. Of we now have a sense of, like, teenagehood and what that looks like and what that experience is like. And that is really not a concept in this moment. And that is something that's overlooked. And I think the key thing here is that these girls are overlooked. They are stifled. They have no outlet for anything for, you know, they're. They're changing bodies. They're, you know, growing up into womanhood. Their understanding of sexuality or their lack of understanding of it, all of this stuff, there's no outlet for it as there is, you know, for most people in the modern day. That's the release for them is to, I suppose, crash out in this weird and horrifying way. And it's their way of pushing back against the society they live in whilst not getting bollocked for it, essentially.

[Anthony]

I'm gonna. Yes. And you. Because. Yes, entirely. Yes. And their religious zealot brats as well. Well, you know.

[Maddie]

Well, exactly. They are in that community. They are. That is their context.

[Anthony]

But I think you're right to point that out because clearly that is the nuance and that is the context, and.

[Maddie]

There is something of them Wanting to have a bit of power in this community where they have no real power within the structure of their families and that, but they have power over the enslaved people around them, the lower class women who are being accused. It's not comfortable.

[Anthony]

No, God, no, no, no, no, no. But what it does lead to is too 200 plus people being accused of witchcraft. It leads to, I think 30 people are found guilty. There are 25 deaths, 19 of which are hangings, which is, I mean, obviously.

[Maddie]

Horrendous in any scenario. But in a community that's relatively small and relatively new, I mean, this is catastrophic. This is. You spoke earlier about these people destroying themselves, that they don't need these external forces of landscape or other enemies within this place. They're doing it to themselves. They're just, they're literally killing their own.

[Anthony]

I think that's possibly the most scary thing of all of this, right? That this is the evil within or the. We talk about the scariness of the devil, we talk about the scariness of witches, but actually what's within people is.

[Maddie]

So much more petrifying if your rhetoric includes saying that the enemy is all around us. It's in your neighbour, it's in the person you live in your household with. It's this person, it's that person, it's this person over there. Cause they're different. Eventually that rhetoric turns into reality for people and they start to believe it and the consequences are people get hurt and people die. We see it repeated in cycles throughout human history and it's happening again.

[Anthony]

It is also interesting, I think we're talking about this idea of we cannot know how much they believed in this and it's so true. But again, I'll always come back to this idea of other people don't believe that and they believe this is. So we have a letter here from Thomas Brattle In 1692, the year of the initial accusations.

[Maddie]

Who is Thomas Brattle?

[Anthony]

So Thomas is hearing about these, he's witnessing this unfold and he says he's.

[Maddie]

A chronicler from the time.

[Anthony]

Yes, exactly. And he is saying it is certain that many innocent persons, this is 1692, remember, are accused of witchcraft and imprisoned and that many guilty ones are not brought forth. Now, what he means by guilty ones, does he mean other people are guilty of witchcraft or does he mean there.

[Maddie]

Are people who deserve to be punished for accusing people of punishment? See? Yeah, I mean, it leaves a lot to be interpreted, doesn't it? But I think that's so interesting what you say about innocent people are Being accused. And I'm so interested in this idea of people's belief, the credulity or incredulity at certain times of history. And, you know, that's a lot of what my new book is about. And I think this is so fascinating that here, even in this moment, there are people looking in on this community and going, ooh, cup onto yourselves. Yeah, like we can see what's. This is quite clearly not good.

[Anthony]

The governor intervenes in 1693 and halts the proceedings. But as I said, by then, we have, you know, hundreds of people out of five to 600 people in the village. We've got about 200 lives have been destroyed for generations.

[Maddie]

Ended in some cases, but certainly in.

[Anthony]

Terms of poverty or dispossession.

[Maddie]

Yeah, the structure, the fabric of society has completely been torn asunder.

[Anthony]

That's a really good place, actually, to then pivot back to you and I going to the meeting house. The two to five hours of interrogation is over, depending of this. Again, remember, we're not a trial here, we're still in the village at the moment. Then we just go back. You've heard about the devil amongst you familiars, you've heard about flying on brooms. And then you go back to your.

[Maddie]

House, you all watch each other, walk back through your front doors and you're looking at your neighbour.

[Anthony]

It's dark now, by the way.

[Maddie]

Closing their doors slowly, looking at you. What are you doing? Are you gonna light the candle in the window? Are we gonna be able to see what you're up to tonight?

[Anthony]

And who's next?

[Maddie]

And who is this?

[Anthony]

Is it coming? Are they gonna knock on my door tonight? And so therefore, you're in that little basic house that you have. You're praying fervently, you're begging for it not to be you, but also you're begging for it not for the devil not to come and harm your family or whatever it is. So it's this desperation over your supper. You're having a bit of bread, you're having a bit of leftover pottage or stew, potentially.

[Maddie]

And I wonder, what was the biggest fear the. For these people? Was it, is the devil coming for me tonight? Are the witches conspiring against me? Are we gonna be the victims? Or is it. Am I gonna be accused? Because I bet it's that they're more afraid of the devil in this moment because we're not at the height of the hysteria at this point.

[Anthony]

Yeah, no, I think at this point, yeah. Before it has really snowballed. But Also bear in mind this, if you are a believer and you're seeing this unfold in front of you in the meeting house with Goody Proctor, you have now had a firsthand encounter with the devil. Devil that day. You have crossed paths.

[Maddie]

You've seen that. Yeah, that is. It's world changing. Yes.

[Anthony]

You're touched by him now. So what does that mean for me? He's amongst us. So it's, you know, you can see why this. If you are in this mindset of a religious extremist, which these people are, and they're even seen at this at the time, remember that.

[Maddie]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

It's ripe for what happens next.

[Maddie]

And then you blow out your candle, you go to sleep and everything is fine.

[Anthony]

Yeah. And you're sleeping, you know, you're kind of communally sleeping as well. Like the adults and children might be separate.

[Maddie]

Well, sometimes you'd have the servants on the floor by your bed as well.

[Anthony]

Or by the front door or whatever it is. You're not on your own. But I would imagine there is kind of loneliness in those nighttimes.

[Maddie]

Someone shifts in the bed and something.

[Anthony]

Creaks, you think, and they're creaking like it's a wooden house with rope beds and you know, it's. And rats and what's going on outside, you know, Was that the wind?

[Maddie]

Was that.

[Anthony]

Now it's April, so it's gonna be raining. Like it's atmosphere.

[Maddie]

I've enjoyed this day in the life.

[Anthony]

Yeah. It's grim though, isn't it?

[Maddie]

I wouldn't want to live it.

[Anthony]

Exactly.

[Maddie]

That's what I mean. It's interesting to walk in those shoes for 12 hours or whatever we've done. But I'm glad to come back to.

[Anthony]

Real life that we're not having to. I'm glad to be able to go next door and get some lunch now. Yes, I'm glad to go to a meeting house.

[Maddie]

Do you want me to wrap up?

[Anthony]

Go on, please.

[Maddie]

If you have suggestions for other Day in the Life topics, let us know.

[Anthony]

What are you not to do, though?

[Maddie]

You're not to DM us. No, we don't because. Not because we're not friendly. We just never see them. We miss them. We don't get to pass them on. Anthony's very unfriendly. You need to eat. [e-mail] and one of our producers. We have a brilliant team of producers. They will pick up your suggestions. They may even reply to you. Leave us a five star review wherever you get your podcasts and leave us likes subscriptions, comments, whatever you like on YouTube. See you next time.