Witchcraft

Witchcraft is also known as Wicca, an ancient tradition of religious belief and magic in the western world. Up to relatively recent times people were persecuted in western Europe, including Great Britain, for their beliefs and practices. Old women who knew the secrets of healing herbs and people with traditional, non-Christian (i.e. pagan) beliefs were the object of great suspicion, particularly at times when the Church was feeling weakened by reform movements that threatened to fracture it. This led to vindictive witch hunts, which led in turn to imprisonments, accusations and counter-accusations, trumped-up charges of bewitching crops, people and animals, trials, hangings and burnings. The most famous case in England was perhaps that of the Lancashire witches, centred on the villages around Pendle Hill, but other countries had bloodier and smokier periods than England. Practitioners of Wicca still attract a certain amount of suspicion, with Christian fundamentalists even staging protests outside public halls holding events of the Mind, Body and Spirit type.

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