In the fourth installment of what has turned out to be "witch week," we turn to the witches of Wales, and the story is more than just the tale of a Welsh witch named Rhiannon. From 1450 to 1700, around 35,000 people, the great majority of them women, were executed for witchcraft in Europe. Those numbered 4,000 or so in Scotland and 1,000 in England. But in Wales, only five women were sent to their death as witches. Those thousands in England and Scotland may be due to particularly enthusiastic prosecutors, which extended to royalty. But what was going on Wales?
A new book exploring the horror of witch trials poses a couple of reasons why Wales was different, and a reason to admire the Welsh for it, plus the real motivations behind the witch hunting craze in other parts of what eventually became Great Britain. -via Fark
(Image credit: Henry Ossawa Tanner)
