Witch Craze

Summary

You’re Dead to Me (BBC Radio 4)

Episode: "Witch Craze"

Air Date: December 29, 2025
Host: Greg Jenner
Guests: Comedic voice actors, script consultant Professor Susannah Lipscomb

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Episode Overview

In this sharply witty and informative edition of "You’re Dead to Me," Greg Jenner tackles the "Witch Craze," a terrifying historical period when tens of thousands were accused and executed for witchcraft across Europe and America. Combining humor with expert insight, the episode unpacks why the witch hunts erupted when they did, whom they targeted, how "witches" were found, and the bizarre, tragic, and sometimes comically absurd processes by which they were prosecuted and punished.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Fascination — and Fear — of Witches

• Opening banter: Greg invites the audience to think about their favorite witches, contrasting public love for witches (like Elphaba from "Wicked," referenced at [01:30]) with the historical fear.
• Scale of the witch hunts:
  • 1450–1750: ~90,000 accused; ~45,000 executed ([01:34]–[02:23]).
  • Not just Salem: Spread across Europe with profound social implications.

2. Societal Drivers Behind the Witch Craze

• The period saw massive social, religious, and economic upheaval: wars, climate crisis, crop failures ([02:32]).
• Scapegoating: People blamed "witches" for misfortunes instead of recognizing broader issues ([02:53]).
  • Quote: “An innocent person who’s easy to blame for stuff. And if you believed in witches instead of saying something like ‘the socio-political situations left me economically vulnerable…’, instead people could just say that weird old woman cursed my turnips.” — Greg Jenner [02:53–03:16]

3. Manuals & Mania: Making Witch-Hunting Official

• Key texts:
  • Malleus Maleficarum (“The Hammer of Witches,” 1486) — turns witch-hunting into a how-to ([03:16])
  • King James I’s Demonology (early 1600s) — a royal bestseller, further fueling paranoia ([03:33–03:55])
• Satiric riff on “ghostwriting” and celebrity authorship ([03:48–04:00]).

4. How to Find a Witch: The Absurd ‘Evidence’

• Accumulation of suspicion:

  • Most accusations targeted older, often single women, especially if they owned pets or spoke to animals ([04:10–05:57]).
  • Stereotypes rapidly solidified.
  • Notable Case: Agnes Waterhouse (England, 1566) — executed for witchcraft; her cat’s name (Satan) and her daughter's testimony sealed her fate ([04:40–05:11]).
    • Quote: “Getting both your mum and auntie executed must have made Christmas dinner pretty awkward.” — Greg Jenner [05:02]

• Familiars: Both cats and the likes of frogs could be “evidence” ([05:57–06:06]).

  • Comic Interlude: “Did Janet say good morning to you at 0900 hours? Ribbit.” — Comedic Voices [06:06–06:12]

5. Gender, Geography, and the Problem of ‘Proof’

• Gendered targeting:

  • 75–85% of accused in Britain = women/girls (esp. over 45) ([06:53])
  • Exception: Iceland — 92% male accused ([07:11])
    • Quote: “At least Icelanders were ahead of their time when it came to gender inequality.” — Greg Jenner [07:16]

• Legal systems:

  • In theory: Two witnesses needed ([07:42])
  • In practice: “Double Witchcraft” — the devil hid the evidence, so torture and forced confession took over ([08:08–08:20])
    • Quote: “The authorities would get accused witches to, ahem, confess... by torturing them.” — Greg Jenner [08:20]

6. Torture, Trials, and Tragedy

• Torture methods: Stretching on racks, crushing limbs, burning on iron chairs ([08:20])

• Witch ‘swimming’ test:

  • Thumbs tied to toes, victim thrown in water — float: guilty, sink: innocent (and drowned) ([08:46–09:11])
    • Quote: “If a person floated, they said the water was rejecting them, so they were a witch. And if the lady sank, they were innocent.” — Greg Jenner [09:03]

• Body ‘evidence’: Moles, birthmarks as “devil’s marks” ([09:31])

  • “Beauty standards for women are bad enough these days. Back then, it was murder.” — Greg Jenner [09:31]

7. Witchfinder General and the Business of Witch Hunts

• Matthew Hopkins, self-styled “Witchfinder General” of the 1640s ([10:15–10:40])

  • Used sleep deprivation to extract ‘confessions’ ([10:44–11:00])
  • Exploited the chaos of the English Civil War, monetizing accusations ([11:00])

• Regional punishments:

  • England/Wales — hanging (secular crime)
  • Scotland — burning (religious heresy) ([11:31–11:53])
    • With the dark punchline: “In Scotland, they weren’t always burned alive. We’d strangle you first.” — Comedic Voice [11:55–12:03]

8. Community and Counteraction

• German town Rothenburg ob der Tauber: Tortured not just the accused, but also accusers to discourage false claims, leading to lower prosecution rates ([12:04–12:34])
• Community support:
  • Dorset (1606): neighbors petition for accused witch Joan Guppy — evidence of resistance to witch hunts ([12:42–13:04])

9. Absurd Accusations & The End of the Craze

• Ridiculous charges: A woman blamed for English navy defeat, failed royal pregnancies, and an MP trampled by a bull—main ‘evidence’? “She was seen near some bouncing cats.” ([13:20–13:31])

• Final executions:

  • Anna Göldi, Switzerland, 1782, often cited as Europe’s last witchcraft execution ([13:42–14:53])
    • “That is just 126 years before they invented the Toblerone. Really makes you think.” — Greg Jenner [13:38]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [03:48]

  • Comedic Voice (on King James I): “So King James. Usually when a celeb pitches us a book idea, we get a ghost writer to do it.”
  • Comedic Voice: “You get a ghost to write it. Witchcraft. Burn this publishing house to the ground.”

• [06:47]

  • Comedic Voice, macabrely joking about crime stories: “His tongue was never found. Cool.”

• [11:55]

  • Comedic Voice (on Scottish execution methods): “In Scotland they weren’t always burned alive. We’d strangle you first.”
  • Other voice: “Thanks.”

• [13:38]

  • Greg Jenner (comparing end of witch craze & modern obsessions): “Much like Gangnam Style, thankfully, all bad things must come to an end.”

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:34] — Introduction to the scale and seriousness of the witch craze
• [03:16] — Manuals and the rise of witch-hunting guides
• [04:40] — Story of Agnes Waterhouse, early English witch trial
• [06:53] — The gender split in witch accusations
• [08:08] — On confessions, “double witchcraft,” and torture
• [09:03] — The “swimming” test explanation
• [10:15] — Matthew Hopkins and sleep deprivation
• [11:31] — Legal vs. religious crime: England/Wales vs. Scotland
• [12:04] — Rothenburg’s unique approach and lower witch trial rates
• [12:42] — Community defense: the case of Joan Guppy
• [13:42] — The last execution and end of the witch craze
• [14:27–14:56] — Quiz Recap: Key facts reviewed

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Episode Quiz Questions & Answers

• Q1: What was the name of Heinrich Kramer’s best selling handbook?
  A1: Malleus Maleficarum — “the hammer of witches.” ([14:27])

• Q2: How many people accused vs. executed?
  A2: 90,000 accused, 45,000 executed. ([14:33–14:42])

• Q3: Who was the last person in Europe executed for witchcraft (1782, Switzerland)?
  A3: Anna Göldi. ([14:53])

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Conclusion

"Witch Craze" delivers a rapid-fire, accessible yet thoughtful history lesson, balancing dark truths with constant comedic asides and modern-day comparisons. The episode elucidates the mechanisms and madness behind witch-hunting, all while skewering its absurdities—and highlighting the resilience and occasional rationality of communities amid the hysteria.

If you want more depth, the host recommends the full episode with Professor Susannah Lipscomb on "You’re Dead to Me."

Transcript

[Comedic Voice / Character]

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[Greg Jenner]

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[Greg Jenner]

But first.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

Ah, there, the last one.

[Greg Jenner]

Enjoy a Coca Cola for a pause that refreshes. Hello and welcome to Dead Funny History. I'm Greg Jenner. I'm a historian and I want to tell you about something a bit horrible actually. Do you have a favourite witch? Mildred Hubble Elphaba from Wicked.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

Everyone deserves the chance to fly.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, we love witches much more than wizards. I bet you can't even name me more than 37 Wizards. Go on. See, it's really hard. The idea of witches has been around for ages. But I want to talk about a time when people believed they were especially dangerous. Between the years 1450 and 1750, about 90,000 people were accused of witchcraft. And one of the most famous witch trials was at Salem in America, but all over Europe as well. Suspected witches could be put in shackles, put on trial, tortured and worse. Around 45,000 people were executed for witchcraft in those 300 years. But why? It's not as if people were suddenly flying around on broomsticks.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

I'll defy gravity because flying brooms aren't real. Ow, my bum.

[Greg Jenner]

But people really thought they were real. So why did people get especially worried about witches? Well, this was a period of huge social and religious change. There were huge wars, a mini climate crisis and and bad harvests. And during hard times, people often look for a scapegoat.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

An escaped goat?

[Greg Jenner]

No, a scapegoat. An innocent person who's easy to blame for stuff. And if you believed in witches instead of saying something like the socio political.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

Situations left me economically vulnerable to the weather ruining my crops and I'm powerless against it. Bother.

[Greg Jenner]

Instead people could just say that weird.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

Old woman cursed my turnips.

[Greg Jenner]

In 1486, a book was published by the German monk Heinrich Kramer called the Malleus Maleficarum. That means the hammer of witches. It was basically a witch hunting guide for dummies. A century later, even the poshest man in Britain was obsessed with witches. King James I of England, who was also King James VI of Scotland, even wrote his own book about them called Demonology, another best seller. But then again, he was a celebrity author. At least he wrote it himself. Probably.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

So King James. Usually when a celeb pitches us a book idea, we get a ghost writer to do it.

You get a ghost to write it. Witchcraft. Burn this publishing house to the ground.

[Greg Jenner]

So then how, according to these official witch finding guides, did you actually find a witch? Well, mostly it boiled down to this.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

You have reached 1-800-snitch on a witch, dial 1. If you got sick and there's an old woman you hate. Dial 2. If your cow died and there's an old woman you hate. Four, Dial three. If there's an old woman who talks to herself or to animals and you hate her. For any other old woman you hate, based incidents press the star key.

[Greg Jenner]

One of the first women in England to be executed for witchcraft was agnes Waterhouse in 1566. Her daughter Joan Waterhouse was also accused, but her testimony saved her by condemning both Agnes and Agnes's sister Elizabeth. Getting both your mum and auntie executed must have made Christmas dinner pretty awkward.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

Jo, see if your mum and auntie want more gravy. Oh, wait, you can't. You got them killed.

[Greg Jenner]

One reason the English authorities killed Agnes was because she said that she had a cat called Satan who would apparently do anything for milk or a drop of blood. But pets will do anything for a treat. I know a cat that jumps up and down for salami. And if she called her cat Satan, so what if your pet's name summoned that person to be on your side in a fight? I'd get a cat named Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Hey, little Dwayne, here's a bit of salami for you. From the start, there was a stereotype that witches were older, often unmarried or widows. And heaven help someone if they talked to animals like I just did. So called witch hunters could claim any nearby animal was a witch's familiar. And they weren't just black cats.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

I'm going to ask you one last time. Did Janet say good morning to you at l900 hours?

Ribbit.

Witness is refusing to cooperate. Get him, lads.

Ribbit, Ribbit.

[Greg Jenner]

Ribbit. Ribbit. Ribbit, Ribbit.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

Oh, Ribbit, ribbit.

[Greg Jenner]

People thought witches got their powers through a diabolic pact, or with demons, or even with the devil himself. The boss level, demon. Although it was generally accepted that witches could be any Age or gender. It was believed that women were more susceptible to evil influences. Of course, today we know that this is nonsense. Although it might explain why I know so many women who love true crime podcasts.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

His tongue was never found cool.

[Greg Jenner]

In the British Isles, between 75 and 85% of people accused of witchcraft were women and girls, especially women over 45. Thank goodness that group doesn't get carted off anymore whenever there's bad weather. Otherwise, Oliver Bonas would go straight out of business. However, over in Iceland, 92% of accused witches were men. At least Icelanders were ahead of their time when it came to gender inequality.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

What do we want to be born at the stike? When do we want it?

[Shopify Advertiser]

Now.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

Hashtag, you're welcome.

[Greg Jenner]

Because witchcraft was often made a criminal offence, witch trials became official legal proceedings requiring, you know, like, actual evidence. Generally, European courts needed at least two witnesses to prove a crime had been committed. Sounds fair, right? Yeah, you can't be found guilty of witchcraft unless two people witness you doing magic. Except people often said.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

But you see, the only reason nobody witnessed it is the devil covers up these witches crimes using more witchcraft, double witchcraft.

[Greg Jenner]

So instead, the authorities would get accused witches to, ahem, confess to these accusations by torturing them. Accused witches were stretched on the rack or had their limbs crushed or were burnt on iron chairs. It was horrible. But King James Book demonology suggested a different approach to proving someone was a witch.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

Welcome back to Witch or Woman, the game show where we find out if a woman is a witch by making them swim. Oh, that sounds nice. By throwing them into a river with their thumbs tied to their toes.

Wait, what?

[Greg Jenner]

Yep, If a person floated, they said the water was rejecting them, so they were a witch. And if the lady sank, they were innocent.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

The bad news is she drowned. The good news is she was innocent. Wahee. Another normal woman. Wow, we are on a 100% winning streak here.

Wow, what was my mom?

[Greg Jenner]

Prosecutors would also claim that marks on the body could be from the devil's touch. Even a mole or skin tag or freckle. Impossible. Beauty standards for women are bad enough these days. Back then, it was murder.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

Hey, today on Beauty Blog, I'm gonna show you how to hide all those unsightly blemishes before an angry mob of your neighbors ties you up and kills you. So you take this handy stack and you poke another woman with it. Chatting. I got the witch right here. And then hopefully they kill her for having a mole instead.

[Greg Jenner]

So far, so awful.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

Hey, what about me?

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, yeah. In the 1640s, there was another awful rotter called Matthew Hopkins.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

I'm the witch finder, General.

Says who?

Says me.

So you just made it up?

Oh, so you know my mind, do you? Like some sort of witch?

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, you carry on, Mr. Witchfinder General, sir.

[Greg Jenner]

Matthew Hopkins would get accused witches to confess by.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

Wake up. Come on, wakey wakey.

[Greg Jenner]

Not letting them sleep. His first victim that we know of was an 80 year old lady called Elizabeth, who he kept awake for days before he claimed that he saw her summon her animal familiars. But poor Elizabeth was probably just talking to herself because no sleep had made her brain go funny. Matthew Hopkins tortured and killed loads of people riding from town to town, making use of the chaos of the English Civil wars to make money from scapegoating the vulnerable. I said scapegoating. People executed for witchcraft weren't always burned in England and Wales. They were mostly hanged because doing harm by witchcraft was treated as a legal crime, like murder. In Scotland, however, it was seen as a religious crime. So accused witches were burned as heretics.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

You're under arrest for the religious crime of witchcraft. Prepare to burn.

Abbot. My. My feet are over the English border.

Fine. You're under arrest for the legal crime of witchcraft. Prepare to hang.

You know what, that's probably not as bad.

[Greg Jenner]

In Scotland they weren't always burned alive.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

We're not monsters in Scotland. We'd strangle you first.

Thanks.

[Greg Jenner]

However, it wasn't the same everywhere. Despite the German states having very high rates of executions. One German town called called Rothenburg ob der Taube had really low numbers. Why? Well, because not only did they investigate accused witches, they also tortured the accusers to make sure they weren't lying just to ruin their enemies reputations. Weirdly, it seems that fewer people said.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

That old woman cast my bratwurst when.

[Greg Jenner]

There was a chance that they would be treated as badly as the person that they had accused.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

All right, it was in me Lady Hosen the whole time.

[Greg Jenner]

Also, communities could sometimes fight back, especially if they really liked someone accused of witchcraft. A historical document from Dorset in England from 1606 shows a neighbourhood signed a petition saying that a woman named Joan Guppy was not a witch.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

You can't kill Joan. Who else is going to bring jam tarts to next week's feet?

[Greg Jenner]

I really hope it worked. Usually neighborhood petitions can't even get potholes filled in. However, ridiculous accusations were still easy to make in loo. In 1671, an unnamed writer claimed a woman he had arrested had used witchcraft.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

To make the English navy lose a battle, stop the Queen having babies and make an MP get killed by a bull.

[Greg Jenner]

And his proof?

[Comedic Voice / Character]

She was seen near some bouncing cats.

[Greg Jenner]

And yeah, the poor lady was arrested. Maybe the cats were just bouncing around her because they wanted salami down.

[Comedic Voice / Character]

Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

[Greg Jenner]

Much like Gangnam Style, thankfully, all bad things must come to an end. One of the last known people executed for witchcraft was Anna Goldie in Switzerland in 1782. That is just 126 years before they invented the Toblerone. Really makes you think. Despite having once been supported by the law, the church and a literal king with a book deal, the witch craze thankfully petered out, as most crazies do. And that really gives me hope that one day we'll all stop wearing Crocs. So how much do you remember from today's speedy history lesson? Let's find out. Pencils at the ready, here comes Question one. What was the name of Heinrich Kramer's best selling handbook on how to hunt witches?

[Comedic Voice / Character]

Malleus Maleficarum, which meant the hammer of witches.

[Greg Jenner]

Question 2. Roughly 90,000 people were accused of witchcraft during the European witch craze. But how many were executed?

[Comedic Voice / Character]

45,000.

[Greg Jenner]

And question three, who was the last person in Europe to be executed for witchcraft in 1782 in Switzerland?

[Comedic Voice / Character]

Anna Goldie.

[Greg Jenner]

Well done. Join us next time for another snappy history lesson. And if you're a grown up and want to learn more about the witch craze, listen to our episode of youf're Dead to Me, Professor Susannah Lipscomb. Thank you for listening. Bye. This was a BBC Studios audio production for Radio 4 Dead Funny History was written by Gabby Hutchison Crouch, athena Kublenu and Dr. Emma Nagus. It was hosted by me, Greg Jenner and performed by Malian Reese and John Luke Roberts. The script consultant was Professor Susanna Lipskin.

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