The Witchcraft Acts were a historical succession of governing laws in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the British colonies on penalties for the practice, or—in later years—rather for pretending to practice witchcraft.
Elizabeth Proctor was convicted of witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. She was the wife of John Proctor, who was convicted and executed.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a 1994 science fiction horror film directed by Kenneth Branagh who also stars as Victor Frankenstein, with Robert De Niro portraying Frankenstein's monster, and co-stars Tom Hulce, Helena Bonham Carter, Ian Holm, John Cleese, Richard Briers and Aidan Quinn. Considered the most faithful film adaptation of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, despite several differences and additions in plot from the novel, the film follows a medical student named Victor Frankenstein who creates new life in the form of a monster composed of various corpses' body parts.
The City of the Dead is a 1960 supernatural horror film directed by John Llewellyn Moxey and starring Christopher Lee, Venetia Stevenson, Betta St. John, Patricia Jessel and Valentine Dyall. The film marks the directorial debut of Moxey. It was produced in the United Kingdom but set in America, and the British actors were required to speak with North American accents throughout.
Witchcraft II: The Temptress is a 1990 American horror film directed by Mark Woods and starring Charles Solomon, Delia Sheppard, David Homb, Mia M. Ruiz, Jay Richardson, Cheryl Janecky, Mary Shelley, and Frank Woods. The screenplay was written by Jim Hanson and Sal Manna. The film is a sequel to the 1988 direct-to-video film Witchcraft, and the second film in the Witchcraft series. It is followed by Witchcraft III: The Kiss of Death.
The Bideford witch trial resulted in hangings for witchcraft in England. Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles and Susannah Edwards from the town of Bideford in Devon were tried in 1682 at the Exeter Assizes at Rougemont Castle. Much of the evidence against them was hearsay, although there was a confession by Lloyd, which she did not fully recant even with her execution imminent. These women have been labelled as the last witches to be hanged in England, but there are subsequent cases which are not as well documented.
The Basque witch trials of the seventeenth century represent the last attempt at rooting out supposed witchcraft from Navarre by the Spanish Inquisition, after a series of episodes erupted during the sixteenth century following the end of military operations in the conquest of Iberian Navarre, until 1524.
Cultural depictions of the Salem witch trials abound in art, literature and popular media in the United States, from the early 19th century to the present day. The literary and dramatic depictions are discussed in Marion Gibson's Witchcraft Myths in American Culture and see also Bernard Rosenthal's Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692
Love at Stake is a 1987 American comedy film, directed by John C. Moffitt, based on a screenplay by Lanier Laney and Terry Sweeney. It stars Patrick Cassidy and Kelly Preston, with Barbara Carrera, Bud Cort, Dave Thomas, and Stuart Pankin. Joyce Brothers makes a cameo appearance as herself.
Elizabeth Howe was one of the accused in the Salem witch trials. She was found guilty and executed on July 19, 1692.
The Samlesbury witches were three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury – Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley – accused by a 14-year-old girl, Grace Sowerbutts, of practising witchcraft. Their trial at Lancaster Assizes in England on 19 August 1612 was one in a series of witch trials held there over two days, among the most infamous in English history. The trials were unusual for England at that time in two respects: Thomas Potts, the clerk to the court, published the proceedings in his The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster; and the number of the accused found guilty and hanged was unusually high, ten at Lancaster and another at York. All three of the Samlesbury women were acquitted.
Margery Jourdemayne, "the Witch of Eye Next Westminster" was an English woman who was accused of "false belief and witchcraft". She was probably sentenced by a church court; no record survives confirming the charges. Edward Coke later claimed he had seen a document that she was burned De heretico comburendo. She was burned at the stake in Smithfield Market on 27 October 1441.
A Discovery of Witches is a 2011 historical-fantasy novel and the debut novel by American scholar Deborah Harkness. It follows Diana Bishop, a history of science professor at Yale University, as she embraces her magical blood after finding a long-thought-lost manuscript and engages in a forbidden romance with a charming vampire, Matthew Clairmont.
The Channel Islands Witch Trials were a series of witch trials in the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey between 1562 and 1661.
Grace White Sherwood (1660–1740), called the Witch of Pungo, is the last person known to have been convicted of witchcraft in Virginia.
Witchcraft in Orkney possibly has its roots in the settlement of Norsemen on the archipelago from the eighth century onwards. Until the early modern period magical powers were accepted as part of the general lifestyle, but witch-hunts began on the mainland of Scotland in about 1550, and the Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 made witchcraft or consultation with witches a crime punishable by death. One of the first Orcadians tried and executed for witchcraft was Allison Balfour, in 1594. Balfour, her elderly husband and two young children, were subjected to severe torture for two days to elicit a confession from her.
Witchcraft is a horror film series, that as of March 2018, has 16 direct to video installments, making it one of the horror genre's longest-running interconnected series. It began in 1988, and most films focus, at least partially, on the character of William Spanner, who is a powerful warlock who fights for good despite having an evil lineage.
Issobell Young was a wife of a tenant farmer residing in the village of East Barns in the parish of Dunbar, Lothian, Scotland. She was tried, strangled, and burned at the stake at Castle Hill, Edinburgh for practising witchcraft.
In England, witch trials were conducted from the 15th century until the 18th century. They are estimated to have resulted in the death of perhaps 500 people, 90 percent of whom were women. The witch hunt was at its most intense stage during the English Civil War (1642–1651) and the Puritan era of the mid-17th century.
Elspeth McEwen or McKewan or Elizabeth MacEwan of Balmaclellan was the most famous convicted witch in Galloway and the last to be burnt at the stake there.
