4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 22 October 2024
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
When we think of the witch trials, we often think of women being charged.
Whilst misogyny was at the heart of many of the witch trials, this isn't the full story.
In this second episode of a limited series, Inside the Witch Trials, we go back to the the Westfjords of Iceland, to find out why it was mostly men, not women, who were burned at the stake for witchcraft.
How did society differ to the rest of Europe at this time? How did Iceland's history of magic impact ideas around witchcraft? And what hope did you have if you were accused of being a witch?
Kate is joined by Dr. Ólína Kjerulf Þorvarðardóttir, Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Bifröst.
This episode was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.
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0:00.0 | Picture this, static cars, idling engines, angry horns. |
0:07.0 | Now, picture you, zooming past it all, light and breezy. |
0:15.0 | Ah, the sweet feeling of whizzing past traffic. |
0:20.0 | Book your train journey via Avanti West Coast.co. UK. |
0:25.0 | Avanti West Coast. |
0:27.0 | Feel Good Travel. |
0:29.0 | Hello my lovely betwixters it's me Kate Lister how are you doing well I'm doing just fine |
0:38.8 | thank you very much for asking I'm glad that we're all fine and here together. But to make sure that you stay fine and I stay fine and everyone else stays fine, |
0:46.6 | I have to give you the fair dues warning, so here it is. |
0:49.2 | This is an adult podcast broken by adults to other adults about adult things in an adult |
0:52.6 | way covering a range of adult subjects and you should be an adult too. |
0:56.5 | And actually in all seriousness we are getting quite tasty today we are discussing |
1:00.7 | the witch trials and if that is not your cup of tea then this is your opportunity |
1:05.0 | to get out now while you still can. |
1:07.8 | For the rest of you on with the show. The early modern period was a time of huge upheaval. |
1:18.0 | Radical ideas were spreading like wildfire. |
1:21.0 | People were led to believe they were at spiritual war with the devil. The |
1:25.9 | stakes couldn't have been higher. As fear and paranoia grew, a violent breaking point was inevitable. What became known as the witch trials |
1:35.6 | soon followed. Over the course of this limited series I'll be taking you directly into the isolated |
1:45.4 | communities where this fear was felt the most. Further still we'll enter into the |
1:50.3 | courtrooms at the heart of three significant witch trials to find out what it was like to be caught up in the middle of all this mayhem. |
1:58.0 | From Pendle in Lancashire, where a nine-year-old sent her whole family to their deaths after accusing them of being witches. |
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