Witchcraft Expert Malcolm Gaskill Breaks Down Famous Witches in Films & TV

Our dear Lord would not allow an innocent woman to be accused. I think someone would say that our dear Lord did allow innocent women to be accused. Hi, I'm Malcolm Gaskill, I'm an

expert

on the history of

witchcraft

and I'm here to discuss some clips of

witches

in movies and TV shows, so now we're going to look at an episode of Doctor Who from season 11 called The Witch Finders, those who accuse of

witchcraft

and will be judged by my stool carved from the most powerful tree. in Pendle Hill if you drown you are innocent if you survive you are a witch this is a very familiar scene.

I think a lot of people know about 17th century witchcraft so we're in Pendle, it was probably around 1612 where there was a real witch trial where 10 people were executed and here we have a berth a woman about to be subjected to the

famous

water test that if it floats then it seems to be guilty and if it sinks then it seems to be guilty innocent, everyone knows this type of Catch-22, but this would never have happened like this, in reality it is a stool to bend down, bending down was a punishment for skulls, actually had nothing to do with witchcraft, although they did happen.

It is highly unlikely that a magistrate would have ordered this and it was therefore considered superstitious and would certainly never be part of the material evidence at a trial. I will still be with you water in the fire in the air on Earth jumps the witch, so I think the really good thing about that is obviously very moving. The dry records of Witchcraft we don't really have that sense of emotion and I think there would have been a lot of very passionate feelings, sometimes mixed feelings about whether this should be happening or not, this was a piece of community theater and I think this comes across quite strength here, where people want to reinforce their own notions about whether this person was a witch or not, and I think that comes across quite strongly.

You know, if this woman doesn't pass the test, you will immediately pull her out and hang her, that would never have happened. What you often miss in movies and TV shows is this sense of due legal process that might actually be less dramatic, but it's actually really What Happened? Who dares? Interview with this trial. 35

witches

we have judged and yet Satan surrounds us. We will not be detained. So there is that kind of idea of ​​summary justice. The magistrates say they have judged. They are in this little place. 35 witches who. They have hanged her, that could never have happened if she were alive.

I'm sorry, but here the woman has died, but if this had really happened, if the villagers had caught an accused witch and put her in the water and she had drowned, that would have been murder, even in those cases where the ones where people, somewhat extralegally, subjected suspects to the water ordeal, or silenced it, or made sure the person didn't drown because if they had floated, then that's actually what they needed. what you have to do is bring them out to be tried by the law, so Doctor Who overall I would give that a 7 out of 10 for kind of dark fun I guess, historical accuracy I think it actually has to be , also added it, so this. is the most brilliant witchcraft movie, this is Robert Eggers, um, the witch, must you continue to dishonor the laws of the Commonwealth and the church with your proud presumption?

If my conscience deems it appropriate, these people feel literally harassed in the desert. It's a different kind of experience, these are immigrants who are leaving behind religious persecution in England, but when they get to New England they start fighting among themselves and there are divisions over the Authority and that's what you see here, so this is a man. that he's about to be banished from his community, expelled to leave and you know, settle down alone on the edge of a forest and that's where things are going to get very difficult for him and go away and don't bother us anymore, what sadly it has been! the Lord testified against you, so because you cannot resolve your differences, you will leave this plantation and go alone, but this is also very, very sensitive to the idea that the devil is internalized, the devil is actually inside of the people also fled from the devil in England and then they came there and found the demons there too, so they all accuse each other of straying from the path of righteousness by having been tempted by Satan.

Well, music certainly helps that. but you feel very strongly that they are not going to go to a happy realization, but that they are facing a very different kind of danger and that is very graphically in this film, a diabolical danger. Towards the end of the movie you see scenes of witchcraft coming, which are very, very graphic from the witches' coven of the Witches' Sabbath meeting, but here you get a different kind of terror, the terror of facing real witches and I think that really makes it a great horror movie and it's also a It's also a great historical document, so Robert Eggers is the witch.

I'm going to give it a 10 out of 10. I think it's an absolutely great movie and I'm also going to give it a 10 out of 10 for its historical accuracy. so now let's watch a clip from the 1993 movie, uh Hocus Pocus, now just a little context for the sons and sisters who have supposedly sucked the life force out of this poor kid's sister, they thought witches were very much about the line between life and death and they could manipulate and control that the key emotion with witchcraft is envy. Witches were always thought to be envious, they wanted something, someone else's husband, or they wanted someone else's goat, or they wanted someone else's youth or their baby and so on, but the way most witches work It is not by casting spells but by having malice in their hearts and forming a pact with Satan so that their very inner desires manifest as harm towards their enemies, as she says we just Our old ladies Spencer now, of course, gender and age are very important to the history of witchcraft, but there is this idea that women form a coven or some kind of infernal knot and here we see that kind of classic image, but outside of ourselves.

We have another very important trope to the history of witchcraft, which is the howling mob, so this perpetuates a myth. I mean, obviously it's a children's movie, but it perpetuates the myth that the witch trials took place in local communities and it was all a wrap. Justice that, in reality, to early modern states would have looked very much like a lynching and would have been very messy and undesirable, but there are other well-documented cases of women who went to The Gallows and were extremely defiant of the idea that He Would Curse to the people you were going to hang yourself for.

I think she actually has some kind of knowledge of the historical relevance of her to Hocus Pocus. I'm going to give it 4 out of ten for historical accuracy. I'm going to give it a five. I think there's definitely something about these witches taking on life force and I think even though it's an execution on the community that would never have actually happened, I think that feeling is staying defiant in The Gallows cursing his executioners, I think. is right, so now we can see a clip from the great cult classic of Michael Reeves, the witch hunter General, the law has prescribed interrogation methods for you and I have been like this, the

famous

witch hunter, General Matthew Hopkins, There was only one of them, um, and he was in the 1640s, not 1612.

Hopkins and Stern head to the next town where they hear there are suspicions of witchcraft exactly as they would have in 1645 and one of the things they mentioned here is actually very true. to the writings that Hopkins left and that Stern left, which is that they had no real formal authority to do the things that they did, but were able to establish themselves as witch investigators, there would now be very few witch trials in the 1630s. We are in the period of the Civil War where some of these suspicions and accusations are now coming back to light and what the witch finders actually did and what they're really doing in the movie is they're going in. and encourage people to come forward with their suspicions and then the witch finders will give those people the confidence to take their cases to the law.

What is the purpose of this? When the devil buys his soul, he marks the person's flesh so that we will know if such a mark. If he pricks himself, no blood will flow and no pain will be felt. There's an idea in the 17th century that when someone made a deal with the devil, there would be some kind of non-insensitive part in the body that, if pricked, then it would be pricked. Maybe they didn't bleed and they didn't feel pain and that would be another way to discover evidence. I'm not entirely sure whether or not Hopkins did this but there were certainly some jabs in Scotland and in Newcastle, the point of this as the water test was a sort of community theater action to build on pre-existing suspicions you can throw some light on his innocence in private is far from the distraction of the crowd maybe in the silence of your room tonight you can help me prove that he is innocent, would you release him now?

I mean, this is all completely fictional, but Hopkins' legacy was that he was totally corrupt and I think the fact that he could have been corrupt in both sex and money, I think is a mistake. something that was very authentic, but is actually being challenged by gentlemen of the stature of Norwich asking what his authority is to do these things, they felt that the world had turned upside down and every Tom Dick and Harry had declared themselves ministers and while All the ministers were fighting and they were soldiers and you know the Civil War was a time when everything had been turned upside down so trying to restore that sense of order was very important and I think Hopkins falls under that heading, well, believe.

It's an excellent movie, so I'll give it a 9 out of 10. As for historical accuracy, it's a little difficult because I think some of the spirit is very faithful to what I know happened, but some of the details are less so. So I'm going to give it 6 out of 10. So now we have an episode of the Jamestown series on Sky, if you, sir, attract the holiness of God in this piece of bread and the piece of bread itself is Holy. Well, what we have here is a test, so you can test whether this woman who suspected her of witchcraft is going to be a witch.

Are you not attracting the power of God? Well, this is Protestant Virginia, but this is very very Catholic understanding of the Holy Eucharist, whoever the priest or they had called the minister is going to say um, it didn't happen here, it's our merciful father, we beseech you and grant us to receive your bread according to that son. in remembrance of his death and passion to be partakers of his Most Holy Body a little better in reality that is how he is, he does not contradict what she says but he says in remembrance of the sacrifice of Christ after the Protestant Reformation that bread had a symbolic meaning, it was It's not really a miracle, although now they are going to try to use it, I think to perform a different type of miracle to use the power of God to prove whether this woman is a witch or not.

The Lord would not allow an innocent woman to be accused. neither should we, well I think someone would actually say that our dear Lord allowed innocent women to be accused, but that this caused a lot of anxiety to people in the early 70th century who really couldn't always tell the difference and who definitely didn't want to. Judging people who were actually innocent and finding evidence of witchcraft that could be used in a court of law was all about trying to uncover the truth, but it was incredibly superstitious; no Protestant clergyman would have allowed this to happen.

I think it is what it is. It's actually pretty good that the whole community goes there because they're suspicious, but they're not sure and they really want some authority to tell them whether their suspicions are well founded or not. Overall, I'll give this. um, six out of ten has quite a bit of drama, historical accuracy. I think I'll give it four because, although it's a good atmosphere in the meeting house, I think it's this kind of thing. very athletic type of test used to determine the innocence or guilt of this woman. I don't think it would have ever happened, so my favorite of all the clips would have to be Robert Eggers the Witch.

I just think it looks exactly right for the new colonial era of the 17th century. England really is like a living nightmare, so it works very well as a horror movie, but I actually think it's the closest we've come in a movie to showing the experience of witchcraft that thousands of people once had thanks for see. You can get my book The Witches Rune in paperback and audio by clicking the link below and don't forget to subscribe to Penguin for more videos like this.