FACTORALY - E96 WITCHES

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

Witchcraft has nearly always been used to do good. In physical health and in wellbeing. But there was a time in the 14th and 15th centuries and onwards when it was very much frowned upon. Today, we delve into the world of witches and witchcraft, exploring the fascination with women who sought alternative ways of healing.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello Bruce. Hello Simon. How are you today? I'm feeling relaxed, thank you very much. How are you? That's jolly good to hear. I'm feeling okay, thank you. And shall How are you? That's jolly, good to hear. I'm feeling okay, thank you. And shall I relax somebody else? Yes, go on. Because I can use my voice to do that. You can. And so can you, actually. Well, yes, we do have rather relaxing, soothing voices.

Of course, we're voiceovers. Yes, we are. So if you've got a voiceover job. Yes, please let us know. In the meantime, however, here's something diverting for the next 30 minutes. Yes, this particular diverting thing is a podcast called Factorally. Factorally you say? I do say. What's Factorally?

Factorally is an interesting dive into a particular topic where we extract interesting facts and fascinating moments of huh never knew that. You say interesting. Depending on who's listening. Mildly interesting. Indeed. And sometimes surprising. Yes. And today's, as you've seen, is all about witches. Yeah.

Now we should point out at the very beginning of the programme, a quick trigger warning, witches were not always treated very well. No, they weren't. So if you are of a delicate nature, there may be things in here that you might not be happy to share with a very small child. Yeah yeah well we'll try not to be too graphic but yeah there are moments in history where a certain group of individuals were not treated well. It's very difficult to talk about witches without talking about the maltreatment of them. Yeah.

about the maltreatment of them. Yeah. So talking of witches, where do they come from? What is a witch? How do you spell witch? Which which is which? Which which is which which, yes exactly. So the witch that we're specifically discussing is spelled W-I-T-C-H as opposed to W-H-I-C-H. Okay. So it's that kind of witch. The word witch comes from an old English word which is spelled W I C C E with a funny little inflection over one of the C's. Okay. Whether that was pronounced witch or wick

or wickie or whatever. Yes. But it's related to wicker and wicken. Yes. The religion of wicken. Apparently a female practicer of this craft was called a Wic and the male was a Wicca. And all of those words come from a Germanic root Wicco, which means a sorcerer or a wizard. Oh right, okay. The word witch, as we spelt it, first appears in English in the year 890. Right. In a document called the laws of Alfred. Ah. Which makes certain laws against people doing witchy things. Are there laws? Or edicts? Well, edicts, rulings. Because I think witchcraft as such wasn't illegal up until about 1400. Interesting. And then from about 1400 and something. It was very much illegal.

Yeah. So this is what this is an interesting thing that the idea of a witch or witchcraft or whatever it's it's been sort of built upon it doesn't come from one direct source. I'm suddenly thinking of our episode about Santa Claus. You know, there was no one defining moment where the fully formed figure of Santa Claus popped into existence. He was built upon by different traditions, different mythologies, different images put together. And it's kind of the same with the sort of stereotypical traditional image of a witch. A little bit comes from here, a little bit comes from there. Yes. The first mention of a witch actually goes back to Homer's Odyssey.

Oh wow. So 800 odd BC. You know, a Greek word meaning witch, it wasn't obviously the word witch per se. But the idea of a woman using magic to do magical stuff in its basic form goes back a really really long way and it's been built upon and built upon. Well you say using magic. Yeah. A lot of it is actually using information and understanding of things like nature. Yes, yes. So it looks like magic when you

apply a herb, you know, when you're told to chew the bark of a willow tree to get rid of a headache, but then you realize actually that's what aspirin is. Well yes exactly, yeah, yeah. Modern science is seen as magic in a time when they didn't understand modern science yeah yeah totally. But yeah witchcraft has sort of taken lots of different forms you know I think that the modern-day practice of Wicca or neo paganism is it's all connected to nature. You know, modern day witches use their abilities for good and for healing and yes and things like that. But there is this chunk of time as you say sort of beating around the

13 1400s where witches were seen as pure evil connected to Satan summoning demons, as pure evil, connected to Satan, summoning demons, holy and utterly bad. Because before 1400, as I understand it, witches were kind of like accepted in society, kind of. And if anybody was found practicing witchcraft, the worst they got was like a day in the stocks. And it was generally sort of like, you know, people sort of turned a blind eye to potions and spells and things. Yeah. And in fact, the early church didn't even recognise witchcraft as being a thing. You know, they sort of deemed it to be superstitious nonsense. Yes. It wasn't until about the late 13, early 1400s that a few particular sort of religious writers

and preachers and things started taking it seriously and saying, actually, this is entirely un-Christian and we should Persecute the heck out of it. I think that was more to do with The power of men over women sure Yeah, I mean that's a big area of witchcraft and the persecution of witches is that men have never liked women of power Yes and when you know the women would gossip and they would move news around and they would hear about things and they would pass on the herbalist aspect of their lives and they would

teach people how to cure things and then people kind of went, oh well if you can cure a hangover, can you cure me of being in love with someone? I'll pay you quite a lot of money to come up with a cure for my my love hangover and you kind of if you're into herbalism you kind of okay maybe I can come up with a few bits and pieces that might help you to relax a bit and then they're seen as like magic potions yes magic with a K or magic with a K yes so we can people differentiate between like Paul Daniels style magic and and what they do by putting a K on Yes, so Wiccan people differentiate between like Paul Daniels style magic and what they do by putting a K on the end. So Paul Daniels magic is M-A-G-I-C and Wiccan magic has a K on the end. Oh I see. I mentioned sort of the different images that come around. Obviously every

every culture and every country in the world will have their own sort of the different images that come around. Obviously every culture and every country in the world will have their own sort of version of witchcraft and what a witch looks like. Here in Europe, our image is sort of slightly Macbethian. Well, that's based on something else, isn't it, which we'll come to in a bit. But yes, our sort of idea of a witch being an old hag with a crooked nose with a wart on the end, a pointy black hat, a cat riding through the air on a broomstick, etc. etc. These have all come from different places at different times. A lot of it anti-semitic actually. Yes, of course. The hook nose and the hat taken from that sort of... So anything that people didn't like, they kind of heaped onto witches.

Yeah, yeah. Our mutual friend and fellow voiceover and writer, Debz Wardle, told me a while ago about something called an alewife, which I'd never heard of back in medieval England. The brewing of beer was a female occupation. Oh, right. And these women were called alewives and they would sort of brew things in a cauldron. Yes. Beer, not potions or anything. Everybody used cauldrons. Cauldrons weren't exclusive to witches. Yes, exactly. They were just a general cooking

utensil. Yes. But these alewives, to mark the fact that their house was a place where you could buy beer, they would hang a broomstick outside of their house. Almost like a sort of a pub sign, you know. So this idea of a woman with a broomstick making a concoction in a cauldron, nothing to do with witchcraft whatsoever, but it's just a little bit of iconography. The brewing of ale then eventually got taken over by men. So again, as you say yeah it's sort of the demonizing of the woman and then the men yes taking her power from her. Yes all of these things are quite nefariously connected. The good thing about witches and which doctors in other countries and various people like that it's's all about healing. It's generally about doing good. And in fact, there's a nice thing which I read, which is any modern witch who comes up with a spell or a potion, when they finish the spell, they have to finish

it with and do no harm to anyone. Oh, really? Yes. Because you know, there's a possibility that if you cast a spell, it's positive positive for one person but might be negative for somebody else Okay, sure So so the idea is that you end end a spell with and do no harm to anyone and it harm none I think is the exact wording right okay, but yes, so then then witchcraft became quite literally demonized Yes, yes very much. There were several flash. One of them was a mad bugger in in in Tyrol called Kramer. Oh yes, Heinrich Kramer. Heinrich Kramer in 1486, he came up with a document called Malleus Maleficarum. Yes. And that was like a treatise on

witchcraft and witches. Yeah. And it explained all sorts of things. He got permission from the Pope to publish it, even though the Pope didn't really know what was in it. Yeah. And it was kind of like an Inquisition type of thing. Yes, that's right. Yeah, this fella Kramer was a sort of an Inquisitor clergyman. He wasn't really a clergyman. Well, that's kind of what he said on his bio. He was a self-appointed clergyman. He wasn't really a clergyman. Well that's kind of what he said. He was a self-appointed clergyman. Yes exactly, self-appointed clergyman. Let's go with that. Yes. But yes, this one particular document he sort of sets out his own description of what or which

is, what they are doing, and how we should treat them. Yes. And it caught on. Interestingly he was expelled from Innsbruck. Oh really? Yeah, he was working in the Tyrol at the time and he was he was chucked out of the city Oh, well his face beliefs, but then he spread them far and wide and published this Manifesto sort of thing. Yes, and it was the second best-selling book The Bible was the best-selling book and at the time in 1486. It was the second best-selling book in the Bible was the bestselling book and at the time in 1486 it was the second bestselling book in the world. Crikey.

Wow. He sort of jumped on the popularity of the printing press which had sort of popped up quite recently and let's just say his marketing department was quite effective. His views kind of spread quite a bit and there were there were various people who took it up. Eventually James the first of England, James the sixth of Scotland, who wasn't a very nice person. He was incredibly gay and didn't like to tell anybody that he was and just got around it by being absolutely ghastly to women. And he got married to a woman called Princess Anne of Denmark. That's right. In Denmark. And he was sailing back home to Scotland with his new bride. And they were beset with storms, which meant that he had to take shelter in Norway for

about a couple of weeks while the storms died down. And he thought, these storms feel unnatural. And he'd been reading all this stuff about witches. I bet you it's witches. Yeah. What else could it be? Which spurred two sets of witch trials.

There was a huge set of witch trials in Copenhagen and there was also a massive witch trial in Beric. And in Beric and in Beric there were sort of like 70 people were accused of witchcraft including some quite high-born people. Not just women, men and women as well who were all accused of witchcraft and and met very bad ends. Yeah yes he did go on a bit of a crusade didn't they? I'd sort of read that there were witch hunts or witch trials or whatever name you want to give them, spanning from roughly the mid 1400s to the late 1700s.

Yes. So it was quite long. But the period under James's rule was just excessive. He had a real personal vendetta against witches and he made it his personal mission to hunt them all out and execute them, really. These trials, the trial is a very loose term, if the authorities had made up their mind that a person was a witch, then that was it.

They were condemned. There was no evidence they could give to get themselves out of it. So utterly rigged, utterly based on the perception of male authority. You know, if you were accused then you were guilty. Yes, well there were tests. Yeah, in inverted commas. Yes, I mean, did you know about pricking? Nope. So they would prick you with a pin and if you were pure the pinprick disappeared, but if the if you were pure the pinprick disappeared but if the devil was inside you the pinprick made a mark. Okay, I mean that's just... wow.

It's just silly. It was sort of a classic test about submerging the accused underwater. The ducking stool. The ducking stool and pretty much if you survived the ducking you were deemed to be a witch and you were killed. If you didn't survive the ducking you were killed by virtue of having been dunked under the water for too long. So well whilst we're in the trigger area yeah why don't we quickly talk about the fact that witches were dealt with very poorly. Do you know how many witches were burned at the stake in England? All loads. No, none. None. None. Really? They were either

hanged strangled or drowned. Really? Huh? Yes. Okay. In Scotland, however, different kettle of fish They would often burn them willy-nilly If they were lucky they'd get strangled first and then burned at the stake right okay so yes the imagery of which is being burned in England anyway yeah is is not accurate right but in America they did a lot of these people were all self-appointed as well mmm yeah we talked about Heinrich Kramer yeah there's also a guy called Matthew Hopkins. Okay. Who was a self-appointed witch finder general. Oh yes, the witch finder general, yeah. Who

again, no parliamentary approval, nothing at all, but he would go from town to town pointing out witches to the local town's men, and I'd say men quite pointedly, and he would get like a bounty for every witch that he managed to uncover. Right. So therefore it was very much in his interests. Oh boy. To torture these women until they confessed

and also dobed in fellow witches who obviously weren't fellow witches at all. But under torture you'll say anything. Crikey. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"]. But then sort of as we sort of emerge from the 17th century into the 18th century, witchcraft is sort of like pushed very much into the background. Yes. And it becomes more of a religion than a sort of a practice, if you like.

I mean, again, we talked about witch doctors. Witch doctors are still going in various sort of Caribbean, African and South American states. And people do go to witch doctors for not just for healing actually but also for things like mediation between people. They're seen as wise people. Yes, they're sort of the town elders aren't they in many ways? Yeah yeah so they're looked to for advice, they're looked to for information and often they'll be the witch doctor will be more powerful than the head of the village. Right okay. Because they know more. Yeah. Which often leads to tension. Sure. So that can be a bit tricky. Yeah. Just before leaving the 17th century actually, because of the whole thing with James the first slash sixth. Yes. Well he wrote a book didn't he? Oh did

he? I didn't hear that. He wrote a book of his own, which was called Demonology. Oh okay right. He wrote that in 1590. Oh okay. It's a treatise on witchcraft. Right. And because of his obsession, you know, he really did become quite obsessed with this. It sort of spiked a rise in popularity of witches being portrayed in literature. Yes. So in order to sort of stroke the king's ego and agree with his very, very anti-witchy sentiments. In 1604 the English playwright Christopher Marlowe wrote a play called Dr Faustus which contained themes of witchcraft and so on and then a couple of years later there was this vaguely popular play written by some guy called Shakespeare called

Macbeth which I am allowed to say out loud because it's only unlucky if you say it in a theatre and we're not, so it's fine. No, we're in these soundproof rooms. Yes, exactly, they can't get to us. And yes, Shakespeare wrote these three characters, the weird sisters who encounter Macbeth and give all sorts of prophecy and things like that, again to sort of stroke the king's ego and say, yes, we agree with you, witches are bad, etc. Total propaganda, you know. But apparently Shakespeare did quite a bit of research into the incantations and spells and ingredients that which is traditionally used. So some of the stuff that he writes.

Eye of Newt. Yeah, all of that stuff. Skin of Snake. Apparently that's sort of based on real witchcraft practices. And there was a particular group of witches at the time, at the release of Macbeth, who didn't like the fact that Shakespeare was using their stuff. And allegedly, according to legend, they put a curse on the play of Macbeth, which is why it's deemed as being unlucky. And right from the start, the very first production of Macbeth was strewn with bad fortune and accidents happening and people getting injured and someone accidentally stabbing the guy playing King Duncan because they picked

up a real knife instead of a prop knife. There are stories of sort of weights you know the weights that lift the curtains and the scenery. Yeah falling on people and injuring people. Right from the very first production and you know this sort of tradition of Macbeth being a very unlucky play and even more unlucky if you say the name of the play in a theatre Not in the context of doing the play but referencing it you have to you have to turn around three times and spit That's right. So if you do say the name of the play outside of the play, but inside a theatre Yes, very specific conditions then in order to counteract that you have to leave the theatre, spin around three times, spit on the floor, curse and then knock on the theatre door

to be allowed back in and that's the only way you can dispel the bad luck. So it's a whole thing. Goodness. Yeah. The portrayal of witches in fiction is quite common. I mean, it was reasonably common in Shakespeare's day. And he kind of made them very well known. Yeah.

We still do it. Have you seen Wicked? I've seen Wicked. I've seen The Wizard of Oz. I've seen Harry Potter. I've read Room on the Broom. It is quite a popular popular trope isn't it I mean you got practical magic the witches of Eastwick of course

Jack Nicholson I really like that one that's fun and of course Roald Dahl yes of course Roald Dahl yeah the witches the witches yeah I love Angelica Houston in that and then then you've got the more frightening ones like the Blair Witch Project which was which was revolutionary at the time by using handheld cameras and sort of making it look like found footage. Yes that's right. And Bedknobs and Broomsticks is of course yeah is about witches. Yes it is isn't it. And Sabrina obviously. The teenage witch yes yeah, and then there's my favorite which go on Samantha and Darren that's right. Yes in bewitched Yeah, so bewitched was a TV series American TV series about which who was living in sort of normal suburban America

Married to an advertising executive. That's right. Actually, he was technically sort of a copywriter, but he wasn't really a copywriter. As an ex-copywriter. I was gonna say, that says the man with previous experience, yeah. So yeah, so it was about an ad man who accidentally marries a witch.

Yeah. And sort of hilariousness ensues, because there's a neighbour who kind of sees weird things happening and nobody believes her. There's a baby that comes along. One of the weirdest things that happens is that Darren changes actor. Oh, he does, doesn't he? So Darren was originally played by Dick York. And then at some point, halfway along the series he was replaced by Dick Sargent. Dick York had a much more sort of like relaxed kind of comical aspect to him whereas Dick Sargent was a bit more kind of like oh my god this is terribly serious. Right okay. There's a lot of speculation as

to why they switched from Dick York to Dick Sargent and whether he'd fallen out or whether witches had got to him or whatever it was. But actually the real reason was that he was ill. He had sustained, I think it was a back injury when he was shooting another film called Condura and the back injury just got worse and worse and eventually he couldn't act anymore so they had to switch him from Dick York to Dick Sergeant. Right, well nice to know that they kept the first name. Yes I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll put a link to the first episode of Bewitched in in the show notes. So we have every episode comes with its own show notes so if you've ever listened to an episode of this and thought

I'd like to go a bit deeper into that then you should go to factorally.com. Factorally.com? Yeah and go to the blog and you'll find each episode comes with its own special show notes that go much more deeply into subjects than we have here. Indeed yes that'll be a deep dive for you to take up in your spare time. for you to take up in your spare time. Whilst we're hanging around with witches in sort of popular culture and film and TV and so on, you mentioned the Wizard of Oz there. I had a quick look at the Wicked Witch of the West, played by Margaret Hamilton. And I seem to remember sort of there being complications with her makeup. So I sort of took a quick look into this obviously she was portrayed as having green skin

Yes, which wasn't in the original novel they made up for the film purely to show off the capabilities of technicolor You know the drab black and white of Kansas becomes the beautiful glorious technicolor of evolves That's right. And so they decided to make the witch green purely for that purpose. And if you go back to our episode on color. Yes. About how the color of the horses. That's right, food dye.

Yes. Which they then started to look off. In fact jello. That's right, oh yes, but maybe it was on our episode on jelly. It could be our episode on jelly. So many crossovers. We've got so many episodes on everything.

So our back catalog is quite sensational. It is. Go and have a listen. But yes, the green make-up that Hamilton wore for this character was copper based and really bad for her skin. So it was quite toxic and also quite flammable. And during one particular take of the scene in which the witch's broom is set on fire, it actually ignited her makeup on her face and the actress suffered second degree burns because of it. This copper based makeup took absolutely ages

to remove. They had to use alcohol. It was really bad for her skin She actually ended up with a slight green tinge to her skin for weeks and weeks after filming gosh the stuff just wouldn't go It was quite bad actually talking of brooms. Did you know in Norway on Christmas Eve they hide the brooms Do they hide all the brooms just in case the witches want to go for a quick flight. Oh sure, standard. If you don't want to lose your brooms you put them away somewhere safe in Norway on Christmas Eve. Great. Because what they'll do of course is, which is preferred method of takeoff, is going up the chimney. Is it? Apparently.

I didn't know that. It just goes to show how many different cultural references are cobbled together to make this stereotypical image. Do you know how many witches make up a coven? Oh no I don't. Have a guess. It's quite logical if you think about the religious side of things. Oh, six? It's quite logical if you think about the Christian religious side of things. Oh 13 Yeah Sure 13 witches is a coven is it and that's and that's why when they found one they thought well There must be another 12 hanging around. Yeah, so they tried to find that who the other 12 were Other other records about about witches? Not really.

Okay. I can't believe that there would be. No. How many spells per minute? Yeah. How large a bucket of potion you can make? Yeah. It's not really a subject that people tend to enter their feats of witchcraft into the

Guinness Book of Records for. No, I can imagine. So, no. Well, in that case, shall we bring the episode to a grinding halt with a puff of smoke and just disappear? Yes But before we do thank you very much for listening to us today. Yes. Thank you If you wouldn't mind making sure that you listen next time so you subscribe to us. That would be great If you subscribe to us that would be great. If you would like

us on whatever podcast platform you're listening to us on that would be fantastic. I see we have a five-star rating on Spotify which is all thanks to you so thank you so much for doing that and if you could keep giving us five star reviews and maybe even leaving a written review that helps enormously to get the word out there. That would be wonderful, thank you very much. And speaking of getting the word out there, if you have any equally nerdy friends who are interested in random trivia and fun facts, then tell them about this show so they can come along and join in.

Absolutely. So thank you ever so much for listening to this episode, please come again next time for another fun-filled factual frolic on Factorally. Bye for now.