Actor Suranne Jones unpicks three of the most famous witch trials in the 17th century in Investigating Witch Trials. Credit:
Witches in popular culture swing from Maleficent to Melisandre,Sabrina Spellman to Hermione Granger,but most people,Jones says,see a witch as an old woman,a crone,with green skin,a pointy hat and a cackling laugh. Emitting a high-pitched cackle she declares:“Ooh,that’s agood laugh. Someone cast me as a witch. I mean,come on.”
Jones has a connection to the dark origins of being labelled a witch. She grew up in Chadderton in England’s north-west,an area close to the famous witch trials held at Pendle,Lancashire,in 1612. Ten people – seven women and three men – were hanged for witchcraft there,an event sparked by young woman Alizon Device cursing a passing pedlar for not giving her any pins. The pedlar collapsed and his son reported this to the local magistrate.
At the time,paranoia about witchcraft was high. King James I was known as a keen witch-hunter,and authority figures curried favour by following suit. The Pendle trial’s notoriety was aided by clerk of the court Thomas Potts turning his notes into a book,The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster. This informed a reference handbook for magistrates,The Country Justice,which, no surprise,made its way to the English colonies in the US and the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.
Suranne Jones is vividly emotional about the fate of those accused in the documentary.Credit:
In her investigation,Jones travels to the sites of three of the most famous witch trials in the 17th century:Pendle,Salem and Bamberg in Germany. She tours the areas where people were imprisoned,tried and then executed.
What lifts this program from being just a peeping-Tom-style titillation excursion is Jones’ genuine intrigue. She is vividly emotional about the horrendous fate of those accused. Her visit to memorial stones in Salem and an underground witch cell at Lancaster Castle are chilling.
Later,in the company of self-described modern witch Semra Haksever,Jones smashes a walnut with a hammer to “break down old beliefs” and is genuinely affected by doing so. She’s also very funny on occasion,including being presented with an early illustration of a naked witch figure gripping a long broomstick like a phallus. “F--- housework,” she says,elated.