ShortHand: The European Witch Craze – Part 1

RedHanded

True Crime

4.5 • 19.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2022

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For over a thousand years, witches were believed to be local soothsayers who used their powers for everyday charms and spells. But in the 16th and 17th centuries, Europe was suddenly gripped by a new idea: that witches were part of an organised demonic network, plotting with the devil himself to cloud the whole world in evil.

And to stop the armies of darkness, more than 200,000 people were executed across Europe for the crime of witchcraft.

In the first half of our two-parter on Europe's witch hunters, H&S look at how it grew into a state-sanctioned frenzy, why it lasted for over 200 years, and some of the more gruesome torture methods they used to extract confessions...

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, hello.
0:07.0	Coming to you, not live from the forecast studios and nothing.
0:18.0	Welcome to this week's short hand, which is the first of possibly many two potters.
0:24.0	Yes.
0:25.0	Because even though the whole can see if the show is short,
0:27.0	this one was too big, so this is which craze part one.
0:32.0	We're on tour, that's why we're recording in Dublin and it is absolutely pissing it down outside.
0:38.0	Number walk here, some coachman decided it would be very fun to just drive through a puddle directly onto me in a comedic scene.
0:45.0	I tried to warn you, I was one of those things that you watch like in slow motion.
0:50.0	I was just like, okay, directions.
0:52.0	I need to stop my phone getting to where, oh no, now I'm soaking and I'm going to get trench foot in one fur.
0:58.0	Because my sock at my trainer are absolutely soaking.
1:02.0	And much to the horror of anybody else in the building.
1:05.0	I am now side here barefoot.
1:07.0	That's okay.
1:08.0	So yes, ignoring the mild damp discomfort that I'm in, it's going to be great.
1:13.0	Because we're going to talk about witches.
1:15.0	Believe in witches dates back for at least 2000 years.
1:22.0	The first mention of witchcraft that we know about was by the ancient Greeks in 330 BC.
1:28.0	In the region of Thessaly which is the classical home of ancient witches.
1:33.0	Socrates mentions the Thessalonian Enchantresses who bring down the moon from heaven at risk of their own petition.
1:41.0	The Romans had witches too and there were even a few mentions of them in the bite ball.
	...

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