Witchland

For centuries, the story of the British witch hunts has been told from the wrong side. In Witchland, Professor Marion Gibson brings the focus back to the individuals who were accused of witchcraft – and to the communities that turned against them.

Drawing on newly uncovered historical records, this gripping historical account restores the voices of the people accused of witchcraft and largely forgotten by history. These were ordinary people, their families and neighbours, caught up in suspicion, rumour and panic. Moving from village to village, Witchland uncovers how the accusations grew out of everyday tensions – poverty, grief, resentment and fear – and how entire communities became involved in the persecution. 

Set during the chaos of the British civil wars, the book reveals how economic uncertainty, hunger and religious extremism created the conditions for mass witch-hunting. Women and the poor were especially vulnerable, singled out as communities struggled to survive. From Essex and Suffolk to the Midlands, the North and Scotland, fear spread rapidly, and neighbours turned on one another. Hundreds of witch trials across the country soon followed which, Gibson argues, provided a handbook for others to conduct witch trials around the world, and most famously in Salem just a few decades later.

Both a powerful history and a warning from the past, Witchland leaves readers with an unsettling question: if the witchfinders came to your town, who would you have believed – and what would you have done?