After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Day in the Life of a Salem Puritan

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

What did it feel like to wake up Salem Village during the darkest days of the witch trials? Would you be able to swallow down your beer and pottage breakfast? As you walked towards the simple wooden Meetinghouse in the afternoon, what feeling would have been in your breast? Anthony & Maddy are on a quest to find out!Sign up to History Hit to watch this and hundreds of other original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  Edited by Tim Arstall. Produced by Tom Delargy. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.You can now watch After Dark on YouTube! www.youtube.com/@afterdarkhistoryhitAll music from Epidemic Sounds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Salem 1692. The village stirs beneath the pale sun. Smoke rises from low chimneys as families begin their morning prayers, uttering passages from scripture amidst the creaking of their wooden homes. In this village, every action measures itself against God's will. Labour is a form of worship. Idleness, a pathway to sin. Children gather kindling for the day's fire while their fathers walk the fields, frost crunching beneath their boots,

mothers tend spinning wheels and loaves of coarse bread. Yet beneath the rhythm of prayer and duty, unease hangs in the air. As the bell rings, villagers lift their eyes to heaven, steady in devotion, though within each of them lies a great fear that will soon wreak havoc amongst this small community. Salem. Paranoia, penance, piety. For the religious puritans of colonial America, this was everyday life. And for the residents of Salem, Massachusetts, it was all about to get so much worse as they found themselves embarking on a witch hunt that would leave 19 people dead and a legacy lasting for over 300 years. But who are these puritans? What was life-life?

like in Salem, and how terrified of the devil must they have been to let it go so far? And I'm Anthony. And today we are back with another day in the life episode. I always enjoy these because they go off the rails. And also we do the weirdest days of the life. It's never like a day in the life of a 1920s postman. No. Oh, I'd be interested in that.

That might be fun too fair. What's that root? Yeah. Sounds like a game. What's that rude? Time to play. This week, as you may have gathered, if you've downloaded this episode and saw the title of it, We're going to be talking about the day in the life of a Salem Puritum. There is a lot told about the famous witch trials around Salem in this moment on this tiny little village in, nope.

I've kind of bit Donald Trump there. Let's not do that. This tiny little village on the east coast of America. When he's in good mood, when he's like, actually guys. This was the most beautiful village that ever existed. It's full of witches. I hate the witches. Okay. So we have, we've heard all about. the witch trials. And we know Donald Trump loves a witch hunt. It's a witch hunt. Ladies and gentlemen. I would literally say Donald Trump, we'll come back to this, could not exist without the 1692 settlement trials. Oh, I don't think it would be possible. That's the headline up front. Nice. Well done.

We know about the witches, the so-called witches. We know about the accusers. But what do we know about the lives of the average people who lived in this village and it surrounds? Anthony, give us a a little bit of context. Okay, so the first thing to say is in terms of naming. So Salem... Oh, he's made it boring already. Yeah, yeah. This is actual history, Maddie.

Salem Town, Salem Village. Yeah. We are dealing with Salem Village, which is now known as Danvers. I remember this from when we did... Oh, we did. Or maybe three. Maybe it was three. Yeah, oh, I forgot about that, but we did.

Okay, so this, sorry, the Salem Town... And Salem Village, and we're dealing with Salem Village mostly. And where are the initial... Which trials held? Salem Village. Okay. So Salem Town is nearby? Very nearby.

Like, I think it's within six miles. That's classic. Like, we've colonized this bit of land and we're going to call everything the same name. And it's Danvers now. So Salem Village is now Danvers Town. Excellent. Yes. So if you go and visit Salem today, you want to go to Danvers.

Yeah. Cool. Not to Salem. Is there a place called Salem, though? Yeah. And you get there and it won't have any witches. No, it does have stuff, but it's not the location. It's capitalised.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's two different things at stake here, right, when we're talking about this. You have the hearings in the village, but the trials take place in the town and the executions take place in the town. So the initial part of this investigation takes place in the village. And then it gets too big for the village. But the actual formalized trials are in the town. Okay, thank you for that. So that's that. And the next thing is we are going.

Admin done? Well, almost. We're also going to encounter this word that we come across an awful lot when we talk about Salem and that word is Goody. I adore this. Well, Goody Pelling as a witch. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Goody means good wife in case, I mean, I know you know this, but I didn't always know this. So I thought everyone's called Goody. Because, yeah, yeah. It's like misses, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so specific. I mean, obviously it was used, I assume, across.

the 17th century elsewhere, but it becomes so specific in our cultural memory to the Salem witch trials. I'm thinking about the crucible play. And, you know, it's so like, yeah, Goody Proctor and all that. Goody good. Goody good. That's the one that always got me. Is that a person in this? Goody good. Was she good? Yes. Well, in that she wasn't witch. None of them were. Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. Spoiler alert. Give me some very serious 17th century historical context, please. Oh, God. There is a lot to it, really, isn't there? Goody, Delaney, yeah.

There's a lot too. So European colonisation has been happening in North America. Never heard of it. Well over a century now. We can kind of take this back and look at how about 70% of some estimates say right up to 90% of the indigenous peoples in coastal Massachusetts regions succumbed to European illnesses like smallpox and hepatitis. I'm sorry, up to 90% of indigenous populations. You're talking of thousands of people in Massachusetts now this is, losing their lives because of illnesses brought by European coloniser.

So this is cataclysmic. As well as colonial violence, I guess, as well on top of it. Yeah, absolutely. Land is claimed by Puritan settlers from England, and the reason they are over there is because they're being persecuted in England. And this is, I said this at the top of the episode, that Donald Trump wouldn't exist, without this moment in time.

These are extremists. Religious extremists. The basis of what we know in terms of American religiosity now comes from religious extremism. And we are seeing that inaction in this trial and we are living

with the repercussions and the legacy of that today. There can be no doubt like history feeds its way through. So this is what we're seeing there. And these Puritans are trying to purify the church, the clues in the name. We're having the most pure version of the Church of England

as it was. And who gets to decide what's the most pure version of anything? Well, it's this idea of communing with God on one's own terms, the intermediary. I mean, we have that in Protestantism anyway, but this takes it to a whole new level. You have that personal relationship with God. And then you get these preachers who come into this and these leaders in these communities that feed off people's fear, people's anxiety, and they come in with their charisma, sound familiar. Uniqueness, nerve and talent, yes. Yes, exactly. And RuPaul's Drag Race, yes.

I'm bringing that in. Amazing. We'll go with that. No, no, yeah, yeah. But, you know, the kind of these people that people gravitate towards can really rise in these situations. And that's what we see in the witch trials. We see these individuals, particularly men, particularly accusers of these women and men who are accused as well.

the accusers and particularly people in power are really rising through the ranks and there's a very frightening level of power that is achieved very quickly within these communities once they get to America. When you're talking about them getting to America, we're talking about 1626, and this is when Salem is founded.

It is founded on land belonging to the indigenous Naukeg people. It is supposed to be this city on the hill. You hear this phrase a lot, don't you? This is the famous speech that's done at the time. Yeah, we are the pinnacle of Christian morality, and we are building this new world for everybody to aspire to. We are the perfect, the perfect people. But in reality, despite that bluster, it is rural, it is self-contained, it is struggling, it is poor, it is intense, it's bleak. It's a new land.

They have to, they don't have the indigenous knowledge of how to farm it, how to care for it, how to draft with it. Totally. They're on the brink a lot of the time. constant tension with the more prosperous Salem town the Salem village is outlying going we don't have enough food we need to have some kind of a link with them but there's so many tensions

there's only about five or six hundred people here so you know it's a small group thing to say in terms of hierarchy here is that slavery is part of everyday life here it is and it's a slavery we may not be as familiar with as we become in the end of the 17th into the 18th century where we understand slavery in terms of plantation

and the transatlantic slave trade. This is more domestic in iteration. It includes people that are Native American as well as black people, all of whom we know would have been in Salem at this time. Tichaba, of course, is a very famous historical character and then we talked about Arthur Miller's. She's the first woman accused.

And this idea of otherness and foreignness really feeds into her accusation and to why witchcraft may have spread through the village of Salem at this time. And of course, Tidjpah goes on to confess, doesn't she? And brings in this idea of what people want to hear. She begins to story tell in order to save her own life, which is totally understandable. Yeah, and this idea of otherness, you know, really it's the Puritans who are other

in this situation coming into this lap, but it's completely turned on its head, and they are now like the normalized version of this community. On a very small scale, because they're othered in England. They're othered in terms of the indigenous community. and yet they find this way to position themselves. Literally the city on the hill. Like they are the center of the universe. Yeah.

So it's actually quite, I find it really unsettling when you think about what's happening there. Oh, it's incredibly, you would not want to be living in this situation. This is one of those nightmare moments in history. You don't want to be anywhere near this. Absolutely. Okay. This is a day in the life episode, though. Unfortunately, we are in this moment.

We are living in this moment. Talk me through the Puritan Moritz. morning routine, please. This is not for you or I. This is not for, this is for like the gym bros who do TikTok and no last. Okay, before you tell me then. Oh my God, they still would have been.

Yeah, oh my God, yes. Oh my God. That's a lot to unpack there. Yeah. What is your morning routine, first of all? Mine. Yeah. Oh, I will get up as late as I possibly can.

Same. Like, okay, weekends there are no, what's it called? Alarms. I don't even know the names. What's that thing called? It makes the noise that it makes people that they have to go to, what's it called? A job?

I have a job. I have multiple jobs. So do you. We tend to get up weekdays at seven. Okay. Shower. Have breakfast. Take all our supplements that probably do nothing.

Walk the dogs. Creaking bones as you're reaching for these pills. Both the dogs. Then Shane goes to work. Leaves the house goes to work. I go into my office and then... Do the dogs come in the office with you? Oh, yeah.

Couldn't leave them out there. They'd be making too much noise. They'd be upset. Yeah. I feel like you have a... You have a looser regime than that in the morning, right? Oh, I have no regime. No, I like to get up as late as possible.

Yeah. I mean, it depends. Obviously, like, today I had to kind of very early to come into the studio, which I was so annoyed, no, it was a little bit ill in that. Usually Matt gets up, he's in the army, so he gets up and goes to work super early, which he's not a morning person. It's at five. Is he getting up at five?

It's not quite that early, but like it's early. And he deals with the dogs in the morning. Like, he does dog stuff, and I just pretend I'm asleep, so I don't have. to do it. And then the dogs will get back into bed with me and we sort of... After their walk. Oh yeah, yeah, totally will. They'll have a little snuggle. And then eventually I'll get up if I'm working from home. And then I will probably write in my pajamas all day and shower about 10 minutes before Matt comes home and pretend I've been dressed all day and I'm a functioning adult. That makes sense when sometimes I get voice notes from Maddie going,

I'm so behind. I have so, I'm just like... And also I haven't spoken to anyone for the entire day and I'm like, you're a chaos merchant when it comes to that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Like, I will show up on time for a job. I will, like, I am showered and dressed and everything. But if it's your deadline. But if it's my deadline and if I'm working from home and it's just a writing day, nobody needs to see this goblin. Sure. Like, this is, this is a private goblin situation. Like, the dogs witness it. They're on board. They understand. It's, it's a secret. The Puritan's sort of hated you. Oh my God. They'd be like, she's so slovenly. I would be, I'd be burned to think. You would have been, you would have been accused. Yeah. 100%.

Like, she stays in bed all day because you're supposed to be. With her two familiars. You're supposed to be getting up at about five. Well, you're supposed to be getting up before the sun. No. So, depending. No, that's the worst thing for me. Before the sun, that's depressing. I can't cope.

Although, I did see something on TikTok recently that was like, oh, if you have to get up before the sun, try doing it with candlelight. And I was like, oh. Because I know you have your Victorian cap and gown. I don't have a cap, but I've got. Oh, we need to get you one. I do have a Jane Austen from the actual Jane Austen house, like nighty situation, in like a white, it's quite see-through.

It's like you couldn't answer the door to the postman in it. It's revealing. Are you just telling people now that you've stolen from the Jane Austen? No, no, no, no. It's in the shop. You can buy them in the shop. It's a replica. They sell underwear.

Well, what is essentially underwear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So occasionally I will put that on to do my writing if I'm feeling like I want to be in the time period. But yeah, definitely you can't open the door to anyone in it. I can write my pajamas or in my bed. Okay, so then you're expected to pray and to read scripture and to do your devotions. I just think. Before you've eaten anything.

I need a cup of tea in the morning before I can talk. Like, nobody talked to me. You're not having me. And I have to then, like, lead up to breakfast. I can't eat straight away, but I'm not doing anything before I've eaten. Well, and when it comes to your eating, this is what you're having. I don't think you'd be happy with this either. You're having a small beer.

I'd be fine with a small beer for breakfast. That's good. Cornmeal, leftover stew. Oh, that's disgusting. No, no. Or a pottage, which, you know, if you came to our live show. I have now tried potage. It wasn't the worst of what I ate that day.

Yeah. If anyone who didn't come to the live show, we made Anthony eat different historical things. Well, I looked on and laughed because being pregnant, I couldn't eat any of it, which was fantastic. I've never been happier to be pregnant. Literally never been happier. Only one of the things I called used.

What was the final thing that you had? Like a fish. Fish eye thing with like fish sauce. I couldn't finish that one. Because there was a bone in it. Oh my goshed when I was like, there was a sick bucket. Yeah.

I didn't get sick, but I did spit it out. You did spit it out. Yeah. Okay, so no thank you to the potage for breakfast. No. Now, you will have gotten dressed before this. And there's this really interesting idea of what Puritans look like, how they've dressed, right? And I've got an image here, but I will tell you this is from 1878. So bear that in mind. So for the people, can you describe what these 19th century idea of 17th century Puritan is looking like? Okay, in this very 19th century image, we have a group of Puritans standing around chatting to each other. The men, and they're mostly men, apart from a little girl who is holding one of the men's hands, are dressed exactly, as you'd imagine, they've got the dark clothes on. Are they meant to be entirely black outfits?

Well, that's what we're supposed to believe here, I think. Yeah, certainly, with the big white, crisp collar, very kind of Oliver Cromwell. And then they have their famous sort of Puritan hats, and they've got beautiful calves dressed in tights or stockings and quite sort of puffy trousers situation going on. Look at those, like, on the guy that's kind of not to the center, but to the center right of the image, his puffy, almost Tudor-like trousers, actually, are... You can tell we're fashion historians. Are tied with silk bow, it looks like silk around the thing.

Yeah, so they're, you know, the Puritan up to a point in like everything's very simple, but it's... It's quite rich. I'm probably fancy. It's 1692 in Salem, you're not encountering these people. Okay. It is a lot more rough and ready than that. There are no tassels, potentially.

Yeah, it's not as silk stockingy, put it that way. Yeah, so this is a very, yeah, 19th century reimagining. Yes, almost romanticising of this kind of purity. And this is, it does represent something, though. And of course the Victorians would be interested in that. Of course they would. But we have this, like, idea of them being, in reality, a very vigilant society. Yeah.

Give me another name for vigilant, nosy as fuck. Like, they are, you know, watching everyone, everything. Where is this sin? They're actively. The writer in me really. panicked them, by the way, when you were like, give me another word for this. I was like, oh, I wasn't actually going to test you. No, I was going to give you the word. It's fine. But it's like they're actively scouting for the devil.

Yeah. Can you imagine what a pain in the arse that is? I could not live like this with the constant, yeah, the constant, yeah, the constant, yeah, the constant anxiety, the constant, yeah, like you say kind of scanning and they're scanning like people, neighbors, your own household, just constantly like, yeah. Yourself? Was I just tripped by the devil? Yes. What was that? Oh my God. Was that just a goat that I saw or was it the devil? There's no idea of peace. So boring. Like, leave me alone to be in my pajamas and eat my biscuits in my 17 cups of tea. Yeah. To do my writing. Just leave me.

there is truth in this idea that they cancel Christmas, you know, or they, at least, you know, they did in, I think it was 1647. That's a very puritan thing, seen as pagan, because of course, it is pagan. Christmas, those are the origins. We've never done it. Origins of Christmas. We should totally do that. Producers stew, that's one for the list, write that one down. But they're in a constant, I love this face, in a constant state of spiritual warfare. No.

Right? It's just exhausting. And you live cheek by jowl with the devil. This is a real presence. Now, I will point out, because I always do in these scenarios, doubt also exists. Yes, yeah. And there are people, but I will say they're in the minority in this setting specifically. Well, exactly. In this, you know, you talked about this is an extremist group, essentially. And so, and what we see in Salem is this hysteria that occurs because every, Everybody, or almost everyone, and like you say, there is, you know, varying levels of belief, but everyone in this community lives with this idea, at least, that the devil is real, that evil is real, that witchcraft is real and has a tangible effect on your world. And we often talk on this show, I think, about how difficult it is to access those mindsets of the past and that we can't possibly know what it is to believe the witch could curse you or that you need to carve something above your fireplace in order to keep the devil from coming down your chimney.

Like, it's, it seems quaint, a little bit fun to us now. And, you know, it's something that a lot of country house museums lean into and stuff around Halloween, this idea of like, ooh, you know, we've got the Apotrapeg, which marks to keep the evil out. And, hey, I love a bit of Apotrapeake graffiti as much as the next person I want to see it celebrating. Probably more than the next person, let's be honest. Considerably more.

I mean, I have it tattooed on me like it. I'm committed. But it is so hard for us to actually get in the head. space of what it would mean to be genuinely frightened by this and that this was a real possibility and that your life was governed not only by the routines of daily life and by the realities of having to milk the cow and get the stuff in from the field, whatever corn, whatever you're growing, to go to market, to go to church, but also these unseen forces that are at play constantly and you have to be constantly vigilant against them. Otherwise, they're going to get you.

Yeah, and it is this idea of labour in order to counter idleness, and idleness leads to devilry. And this is how you need to, you know, you're talking about the cows, you're talking about me. And this is why you have to get up at 6am, 5 a.m. Depending on when the sun is rising, you're getting up because if you allow those thoughts to come in, if you think the wrong thoughts, you need to be put, like the control levels that we're imposing on this little society. It's making for a kind of a Tinderbox. But also there's this idea, despite this kind of grandiose devilry and witchcraft and God and all this kind of thing, there's also then the bricks and mortar idea of existing in a more rough and ready way than Salem Town was. So South Town is seeing as more elite.

So talk to me about this snobbery then. So we're in Salem Village. Yes. For this day and the life. So how different are these two places? And you've spoken already about there being a tension between the people. people in both in a kind of one-upmanship and the village is kind of looking at the town going, hmm, they've got quite a lot over there. We might need some more of this, you know.

What does that look like on the ground? Are there different homes? Are there different households? Are there different levels of wealth? What is that disparity? So in its most basic form, and then I'll go into a little bit more detail, Salem Town is seen as more elite. Salem Village is, I would say, more, I think it's fair to say, more religiously extreme. So there are even outliers of the outliers. Oh, I don't like it. Because in Salem Town, we will have this idea of a mercantile class. We will have this idea of money actually shaping things. We will have more of this idea, and this comes into it when the trials happen later, of disbelief going, this, stop this. This is too much. So Salem Town has that. And you know things

have got out of hand when your extremist community is like, let's dial this down and a little bit. Don't get me wrong, though. These are still Puritans. They're still a very strong belief system in Salem Town, but it is more elite and it's seen as more urban's the wrong word, but more financially commercially driven. It's buzz inmate. It's absolutely off its tits. Salem Town is coastal. It's got a growing economy and that economy is dominating Salem Village in turn. I can see like the right move entry is like desirable coastal property, overlooking the ocean.

Live in the town, don't live in the village. because things are about to kick off, as we know, in the village. In 1670s, Salem Village got permission to build a meeting house. Now, when we're talking about meeting houses, these are churches, these are meeting places, these are courthouses if they need to be, and we will see that slightly. It's a town hall. And again, that overlap of civic and state duty and religious duty as well in those spaces, it's entirely wrapped up together.

All the one to them. And there is a reconstructed version of the... that town hall on site in Danvers now. So you can, you can see what that might have felt like. I know we said this last time we did these episodes, but we really need to go. I will not be happy unless I am, I get there. We need to do it as a documentary. History Head TV, please. Take us there. In 1692, Reverend Samuel Paris is appointed whose accusations then are the catalyst for the witch trials there. So he is a really key person. Do very mind that Even he is living in a relatively small wooden house.

There's very sparse furniture in there. It is the bare minimum. It is cold, Maddie. Like, it's impossible for us to know how cold it is during this time. Immediately no. And I like a bit of cold. Working alone. They are, and he's struggling for income.

Like, they're not as as, as a fool look, as we would say. They're not as as affluent as their town counterparts. So there are bibles. There are no mirrors. There's very little insulation. you have the pewter bowls, you're keeping to this schedule, and it's backing on to vast arable land, by the way. So you are, what's behind you?

We don't know. We're not actually even very familiar with this landscape. Well, it makes me think of Robert Eggers, the witch film, which obviously is set in this period. And the idea there, they have, you know, their small, very humble cottage that they're still building, and then there's the fields, and then it's just empty and horrible, and then the wood beyond.

And this idea of not knowing the landscape, because you've only just arrived and you haven't been there for generations like you would have done in England and you are not familiar with its valleys and gullies and trees and all of that, but also you're not familiar with its folklore and its spirits and the dangers that might be out there. But do bear it by now English people will have been born there

as opposed to will have sailed there. But still, they're not firm-rooted. No. Now, tell me this. How do you feel about the Puritan interior aesthetic? I kind of love it. see I love a bit of carved furniture I do I have a marriage chest from the 17th century

which is carved with someone's initials and it's so beautiful and I've put my wedding dress in it which is yeah because I'm never going to wear it again it's like it's nice I mean it's slightly a little bit creepy and it's just like that and I see it in my head

and it's quite creepy but in a nice I like that time yeah yeah but I'm a Georgian gal through and through but I do like a bit heavy carved wood yeah yeah I can get on board with it I don't necessarily want to live with it all the time but aesthetically I can get bored of this.

Couldn't do all the pewter plates too much. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'd prefer a wooden boat. Anyway, look, they're not inviting us over and they won't be inviting us over after this. We would not do well. But, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's a, there's something aesthetically pleasing,

but not practically pleasing. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you've got your simple house, you got a little bit of competition with the town, between the town and the village. If we're in 1692 at this point, we have a new reverend appoint. He's a little bit extreme even for the taste of the people in the village.

Tell me, though, if we've got up at 5.30 in our simple little house, and we've done our prayers, and we've had our beer and potterge for breakfast. Yeah, we're just buzzing a little tiny bit. It's nice. What are the activities the rest of the day? You mentioned this idea of idleness being the devil. Yes. So I assume there's going to be lots of heavy lifting involved. Yeah. Well, especially if you're a man, there will be. You are supposed to be outdoors. You are tending to the land. You are toiling. You are keeping yourself busy. Generic toiling. Generic work. How is your day? Toiling? Just to toil. I could say that anyway. I tend to toil, generally speaking. Yes. So you're doing kind of outdoorsy, manly stuff. He says in adverse comments, if this is on a podcast and you can't see me rolling my eyes. Anthony's dead serious and extremely toxic at all times. Then women are indoors, very stereotypical gender roles, as you might imagine. Also toiling. Also toiling.

Mending clothing, keeping the house clean, doing all the domestic chores, making clothing. I would honestly rather be outside doing the farm work than the sewing. And the being, this is an issue for me. This is why I like my job, that there's a variety. And sometimes I have to shower before midday. And I'm glad you did. Thank you. Today I made the effort because I can't deal with being in the house working all day, every day.

If I do like two or three days of writing at home in a row, by the third day, I am crawling up the walls. See, I could do it nonstop. Yeah, well, you want to go and live on like the more somewhere, which I love the idea of, but I know in reality, day three, I mean, maybe I just pushed through it and by like day 12, I'm like, oh, I do this now. This is fine. But the idea of most of human history, and in many places in the world, still the case, of being confined to your home as a woman, and that being your work space, your domestic space, your everything, your entire world, where you do not leave that, you do not have a life outside of it, that is it,

those walls contain you, no. But also let me point out, this is the worst bit for me, because I want to, you know, about living in the middle of nowhere, I do want to do that, but I don't want to live near neighbours, but you are near neighbours here, and they are what. and that's the worst bit to a certain extent. Hate a neighbour. Particularly if you're a woman because they are watching you for gossip, they're watching

you for the curses, they're watching you for disrupting the... They're watching you give a bit of you disgusting breakfast potage to the cat and they're like, oh, the cat died or whatever two days later. So you are being monitored and very purposefully so. And it's this real tension between the claustrophobia of that living space and I don't just mean the house and mean the village and then the vastness of the landscape that's behind you. The people around you are all you've got.

And they are your safety net as well. Yeah. Because if a big bear comes out of the forest, you're going to have to team up. Or if another village comes to try and kill you, or some indigenous people decide that they want to attack you because you deserve it. Get out of my world. Yeah, absolutely. That the community you're in are your survival mechanism. Yeah.

Whether you like it or not and you are stuck with them. And the irony, of course, in this story is they will also be your downfall. They also can be your downfall. So let's concentrate for a moment on Reverend Samuel Paris. So this is one of the names that comes out most strongly from the witch trials, because it's within Paris's household that this chaos begins. And if we were to look at him just for his background, he is actually born in London. So he is one of those people that has just traveled over, as you were mentioning earlier.

He was a merchant in Barbados before undertaking ministry. Didn't go particularly well. His move towards ministry is interesting because it was seen, it was a way for him to try and get a more stable lifestyle income-wise. And power as well, right? If you can't get power through money as a merchant, this is the alternative. Well, he was very frustrated because he thought he would be getting more money. And then when he arrives in, the money's not coming in because it has to come from the villagers. And they're really not happy about having to hand over very hard earned money.

So it's a slow income stream for him. Especially probably for puritans, because again, we've talked about how this is a religion or religious sect that strips back those middlemen between you, the worshiper and God. And so having a reverend who's now like, you need to pay me my fee is going to be a problem maybe in that community that is so far extreme already. And so down a different road in terms of how they commune with God and how they understand their religious experience, their spiritual life. coming into that, he sort of has, I mean, he has a lot of power, but then he's also disrupting that in some ways. And he depends on them as well. It's this strange position he finds himself in. And that, you're talking about. He depends on their credulity. Them giving him credence. Yeah. They, they, they, they, they, he, his position, his livelihood,

is based on whether or not they believe. Yes. And so it's in his interest to maintain that and shape it. The tension, of course, is that at the absolute heart of Puritanism is that you don't need a leader because you have access to God, you know, in terms of your spiritual leadership. So he has to, but what I'm saying is that he has to convince them, therefore, that he has something to offer. And this is how he does it. This is from one of his sermons in 1691.

He says, the Lord hath been sorely displeased with this place. And if we do not reform, he will come amongst us with flaming vengeance. The devil is here among. us and his instruments walk in our midst. This idea of, you know, sewing these seeds of dissent and fear mongering and turning people against each other and saying, this community, this society is rotten to the core, who's going to fix it? Yeah, this guy.

Could two a year later, not even a year later actually, but in the following year of 1692, this is where the accusations from his household come from his daughter and niece. and they make the first accusations towards Tichiba, the enslaved woman that lives in their house of witchcraft. This is the spark that leads to absolute devastation. And it's interesting, isn't it, that it's someone who comes into this community relatively late as an outsider who sparks this off, but he finds the perfect tinderbox already here and realizes this is opportunity to really ingratiate himself into the people. Yeah, and it's the perfect storm, that initial thing, isn't it? It's this outsider who's demanding reverence, as you were saying.

It's also then children who, you know, what position do they occupy in this society? And then, of course, it's Tichiba. It's the outsider. It's the person of a different colour than most of people there. Yeah, there are so many motives coming from so many different people here. Like, it's not simply the reverend himself. But the household, those dynamics, those layers of power are just so fascinating. and he and his family really capitalise on them.

It does feel like that. I mean, ultimately, there seems to be a capitalising. I totally agree. That's my instinct on it too. Tichab, of course, is then put into this, you know, and you can hear, if you're talking about the discovery and the trials, go back to her other two-parter. Yeah, we did this in a lot of detail.

So look at that. But she denies this initially, and she's like, I don't know what you're talking about. This is insane. And rightly so. Yes. But then also rightly so, she goes, on here now. I think this is so savvy of Tichiba, actually, because she goes, I'm going to need to play

their game. I'm not going to be able to win them by being adversarial. I'm going to have to feed into this narrative too. And actually, if you think about the ways in which, yes, it endangers other people's lives. Well, this is the problem that it snowballs, right? Yeah. But she has to invent, to survive. And she does so by bringing in ideas of witchcraft that she, well, the ways they sell it is that she's familiar with these ideas of witchcraft because of her otherness, because of her color. And it's interesting that she understands that she needs to do that because she is an outsider in this community in every sense, racially in terms of her position, she's an enslaved woman, all of that.

But she sees it for what it is, and she plays the game. It is canny. Yeah. No, it is. It's also horrific and she has no power and she takes the only opportunity she can to try and, I suppose, prolong her own life. and to keep herself safe, like, you know, it's... I and judge and Titchipa for wanting to survive. Exactly.

You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. It's not like she holds the cards here. Yeah. But what I'm saying is that she, I suppose, she is aware of the thought process and the belief system of the people around her who have enslaved her, who are in charge of her, who are now accusing her of things.

And she makes the decision for better or worse to lean into it. She understands the game. Because she can't argue against her. No, no. Because these people are too far gone. As you're saying, this starts a snowball. As you're saying this starts a snowball, more people are accused, one of them being goody good, Sarah good.

And she, as we see so often in these cases, she is an outsider herself. She is white. She is a Puritan or, you know, a wayward Puritan as they would have seen her. But she is poor. She is at times homeless. She begs. So she is... She's another problem in this society.

And Tichiba knows that actually if she points there, it'll be believed. Yeah. Because, as you say, she's a problem. So this is the day in the life. And as we've said, we have covered the witch trial. in a lot more detail before, so do go and find those episodes. But thinking about the next activities in our day, we've had our disgusting breakfast.

We probably had some lunch at this point as well. We have done our cookery and our sewing and our tending to the land, etc. We've done our toiling. Are we going to go off to a witch trial now? That seems like the likely afternoon activity. We are and we're going to be made to go. We're going to be called to that, well, not so much the trial yet because we're still in the village.

So the drum is going to go, we're all going to go to the meeting house slash church. This is the multi-purpose space. See, I also not enjoy this, being summoned to places, like at a moment's notice. Now, again, remember, this is a specific thing that there is a witchcraft accusation blowing up in the village. So this isn't happening every day, but it's happening right now every day. So this is making all of this belief and all of this tension even more acute at this moment. And it's also this idea of witchcraft seeping into their community, it's now disrupting this daily routine as well. So it's becoming more and more powerful in their minds because life is becoming distorted for them.

Absolutely. And now you're inside, let's go into the meeting house, you're inside this essentially wooden box. There are no steeples. There are no pews, the reverence not up on a big stage thing. This is very simple. This is a bare basic room. Wooden, it's being lit by candles. light. We are in a dark time of year. We are all now together as a community to come to see that the men are kept separate from the women and children. So when we're together, we're still apart. We're showing that gendered thing. And sometimes it's also, we won't necessarily congregate in the meeting house. We'll go to Ingersoll's tavern. So again, we know this, you know, in the 18th century, this is even happening in the 17th century, this is even happening in England too. These taverns fulfill

legal functions, social functions beyond just drinking. Oh, God. I mean, there are auction houses, they're meeting places, their places to plot, their places to make journalistic connections, there are all kinds of things in this period. On this particular day, let's say we're on the 4th of April 1692. Elizabeth Goody Proctor is being questioned and she's among the first and most prominent people in the village to be accused. And so it starts around midday. who are in the meeting house.

There is a preliminary interrogation from a local magistrate, but the trial itself, remember, is in Salem town. These are those, these are these preliminary questions. And it's so interesting how it spreads and catches fire so quickly. And we're in this crowd, imagine it, we're in this crowd,

it's echoing around this wooden structure. And what you're sitting there listening to is discussion of witches marks, of familiars, of deception, of spell casting. And you're watching in real time, judging this woman looking for the little cracks in her performance, is she lying? Is she a witch?

Because you really think there's a possibility that she might be. And here's the thing. If you're hearing constantly, the devil's amongst us, the devil's amongst us, the devil's amongst us. And even if you have a little bit of a doubt going, but is he though, here he is. Here he is in people you know. He must be here because look at how everyone else is. is reacting, look at the effect on the room. These girls are writhing. They are screaming in pain. My vitriol in history doesn't get much more anchored than towards those girls. Sometimes

I really struggle with what's going on there. Because it's more nuanced than this, of course it is, but my instinct just always just see them as bratty. Yeah. See, I slightly disagree. And I completely see what you mean. And I think if you were on the receiving. end of an accusation like that and it was coming from these girls, you would feel so angry and horrified by their behaviour. And I think there is an element of that. And I think as well, it's this thing of we now have a sense of like teenagehood and what that looks like and what that experience is like. And that is really not a concept in this moment. And that is something that's overlooked. And I think the key thing here is that these girls are overlooked. They are

stifled. They have no outlet for anything. They're changing bodies. They're growing up into womanhood, their understanding of sexuality or their lack of understanding of it. All of this stuff, there's no outlet for it, as there is, you know, for most people in the modern day. That's the release for them, is to, I suppose, crash out in this weird and horrifying way. And it's their way of pushing back against the society they live in, whilst not getting bollocked for it, essentially. I'm going to yes and you, because yes, entirely, yes, and their religious zealot brats as well. You know?

Well, exactly. They are in that community. They are, that is their context. But I think you're right to point that out, because clearly that is the nuance and that is the context of this. And there is something of them wanting to have a bit of power in this community where they have no real power within the structure of their families. and that. But they have power over the enslaved people around them, the lower class women who are

being accused. It's not comfortable. No, God, no, no, no, no. But what it does lead to is 200 plus people being accused of witchcraft. It leads to, I think, 30 people are found guilty. There are 25 deaths, 19 of which are hangings. Which is, I mean, obviously horrendous in any scenario. But in a community that's relatively small and relatively new, I mean, this is cat. This is, you spoke earlier about these people destroying themselves, that they don't need these external forces of landscape or, you know, other enemies within this place. They're doing it to themselves. They're just, they're literally killing their own. I think that's possibly the most scary thing of all of this, right? That this is the, the evil within or the, we talk about

the scariness of the devil. We talk about the scariness of witches. But actually, what's within people is so much more petrified. If you, if you're rhetoric, includes saying that the enemy is all around us. It's in your neighbor. It's in the person you live in your household. Whether it's this person, it's that person, it's this person over there because they're different. Eventually, that rhetoric turns into reality for people and they start to believe it and the consequences are people get hurt and people die. We see it repeated in cycles throughout human history and it's happening again. It is also interesting, I think. We're talking about this idea of we cannot know how much they believed in this, and it's so true.

But again, I'll always come back to this idea of other people don't believe that. And they believe this is, so we have a letter here from Thomas Brattle in 1692, the year of the initial accusations. Who is Thomas Brattle? So Thomas is hearing about these. He's witnessing this unfold. And he says, he's a chronicler from the time. Yes, exactly. And he is saying, it is certain that many innocent persons, this is 1692, remember, are accused of witchcraft and imprisoned.

and that many guilty ones are not brought forth. Now, what he means by guilty ones, does he mean other people are guilty of witchcraft, or does he mean there are people... Who deserve to be punished for accusing people of witch. See, yeah, I mean, it leaves a lot to be interpreted, doesn't it? But I think that's so interesting what you say about innocent people are being accused.

And I'm so interested in this idea of people's belief the credulity or incredulity at certain times of history. And, you know, that's a lot of what my new book is about. And I think this is so fascinating that here, even in this moment, there are people looking in on this community and going, ooh. Cup onto yourselves. Yeah. Like, we can see what's. This is quite clearly not good.

The governor intervenes in 1693 and hauls the proceedings. But as I said, by then, we have, you know, hundreds of people. Out of five to six hundred people in the village, we've got about 200 plus. Lives have been destroyed. And it ended in some cases. Yes, yes. But certainly. In terms of poverty or dispossession.

Yeah. The structure, the fabric of society has completely been torn asunder. That's a really good place, actually, to then pivot back to you and I going to the meeting house. The two to five hours of interrogation is over depending of this. Again, remember, we're not a trial here. We're still in the village at the moment. And we just go back. You've heard about the devil amongst you, familiar as you've heard about flying on brooms.

And then you go back to your house. You'll watch each other walk back through your front doors and you're looking, your neighbour. It's dark now, by the way. Closing their door slowly, looking at you, what are you doing? Are you going to light the candle in the window? Are we going to be able to see what you're up to tonight? And who's next?

And who is next? Is it coming? Are they going to knock on my door tonight? Yeah. And so therefore you're in that little basic house that you have. You're praying fervently. You're begging for it not to be you, but also you're begging for it not, for the devil not to come and harm your family or whatever it is.

So it's this desperation over your supper. You're having a bit of bread. You're having a bit of leftover. pottage or stew potentially. And I wonder what was the biggest fear, the bigger fear for these people. Was it, is the devil coming for me tonight? Are the witches conspiring

against me? Are we going to be the victims? Or is it, am I going to be accused? Because I bet it's that they're more afraid of the devil in this moment, because we're not at the height of the hysteria at this point. Yeah, no, I think at this point, yeah, before it has really snowballed. But also, bear

in mind this, if you are a believer and you're seeing this unfold in front of you in the meeting house with Goody Proctor. You have now had a first-hand encounter with the devil. That day, you have crossed paths with the devil. Yeah, it's that is, it's world-changing. Yes, you're touched by him now. So what does that mean for me? He's amongst us.

So it's, you know, you can see why this, if you are in this mindset of a religious extremist, which these people are, and they're even seen at this at this, at the time, time remember that it's ripe for what happens next. And then you blow it, you candle, you go to sleep and everything is fine. Yeah. And you're sleeping, you know, you're kind of communally sleeping as well. Like the adults and children might be separate. Well, sometimes you'd have the servants on the floor by your bed as well. Or by the front door or whatever it is. Yeah. Absolutely. You're not on your own, but I would imagine there is kind of loneliness in those night hours. someone shifts in the bed

and something creaks you think and they're creaking like it's a wooden house with rope beds and you know it's and rats and what's going on outside

you know was that the wind was that now it's April so it's going to be raining like it's atmosphere I've enjoyed this day in the life

yeah it's grim though isn't I wouldn't want to live it exactly it's interesting to walk in those shoes for 12 hours or whatever we've done but

I'm glad to come back to reality. That we're not having to. I'm glad to be able to go next door and get some lunch now. Yes, I'm very hungry. Do you want to go to a meeting house? Do you want me to wrap up? Go on, please.

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