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Marion Gibson is professor of Renaissance and Magical Literatures at the University of Exeter.

She's written nine books on witches in history and literature.

She came on the podcast to speak to us about one of them, The Witches Ascent As Scythe.

In her latest book she explores the global history of witchcraft accusations and executions

through a survey of some of the most high-profile and significant trials.

I wanted to talk to her about the first four that she had chosen.

They are from Austria, Scotland, Norway and Virginia in the United States as it now

is and they chart the development of demonological witchcraft beliefs between the 1480s and the

1620s.

This is the period in which people didn't just believe that witches existed.

They came to believe that witches made a pact with the devil which put them entirely at odds

with right-thinking Christians.

It's this development and its manifestation in trials both by the church and the state

that concerns us today.

And we start with a man who might be considered responsible for everything that follows.

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