rief. There were no natural causes. At a time when weather phenomena and disease were mysteries, people judged them and other natural disasters to be the work of a vengeful, unseen power. Even the most educated people felt that they lived surrounded by invisible beings, of whose presence they were always aware: ôAt least four Popes issued Bulls against witches during the Renaissance Period, setting standards of belief that are held by many living in these supposedly more enlightened times.ö
The inhabitants of New England were only echoing long established beliefs in their feelings about witchcraft. Most of the colonists hailed from England. At the time, witchcraft was an accepted fact of life, punishable by law in England and on the continent of Europe, where hundreds of persons were hanged or burned as witches each year. For example, ôDuring EnglandÆs æLong ParliamentÆ (1640-1660), 30,000 persons were executed as witches, while 4,000 others lost their lives in Scotland during this period of mass bestiality.ö The witch hunts of Europe continued well into the 18th century.
Numerous people actually engaged in witchcraft during this period because people generally believed in it so thoroughly. If a person discovered that a witch had been making image magic against them, for instance, they were seized by such terror and such a sense of doom that their lives fell apart. The fear of witchcraft was so powerful that people who believed wholeheartedly in witches were always on the lookout for them. The poor, the elderly, the cranks, the half-crazed, the rude and quarrelsome-ùall were natural suspects to witch-hunters. In the old records of witchcraft cases, it is noteworthy how often the accused witch was a poor, elderly person or an ill-tempered hag who fought with her neighbors (and was thus considered a threat), and who was blamed for any ill fortune that came their way: ôMany of the Puritans were certain that ...