Today's interview is with historian Marilyn K. Roach. She works as a freelance writer,

illustrator, researcher, and presenter of talks on historical subjects. And she's written

for the Boston Globe, the New York Historical Genialogical Register, and the Lizzy Board

in Quarterly. She was a member of the Gallows Hill Project that verified the correct site

of the 1692 Hangings, a discovery that was listed by archaeology magazine as one of the world's

10 most important discoveries of 2017. My producers, Matt Frederick and Alex Williams had a chance

to sit down with Marilyn this past summer, and I want to share that conversation with you today.

So, without further delay, let's get on with the show.

This is the Unobscured Interview Series for season one. I'm Aaron Manke.

My name is Marilyn Roach, and I've been studying the Salem Witch Trials and related

material for 40 years now. And there's still more things turning up that I didn't know before,

and more to write about. The very top nowadays when the word witch is bandied about, there are many

different ideas and images that are conjured. And when you were, let's say, 1691, 1692, and you're

in the colonies, the image of a witch is a specific thing. Can you tell us about that?

In 1692, the legal definition of someone who had a familiar spirit, and was assumed you knew

it that meant, but they were in cahoots with an evil spirit, a little demon or imp, and in order

to do that, you're at some point been in contact with the devil knowingly or unknowingly,

because it was understood by ministers that humans did not have the ability to perform magic.

Therefore, if there is magic being done, it's not being done by the person, but by some spirit

that they're in contact with. A folklore would say that these good spirits will do that too,

but the ministers would tell you the angels had better things to do than that. So it has to be

an evil spirit and say, it's behind that. Some people did practice a lot of folk magic, maybe more

...