#OnThisDay

On August 19 1612 three women, Jennet Bierley, Ellen Bierley, and Jane Southworth, were tried as witches and cannibals in the English village of Samlesbury, Lancashire. The case against the three collapsed after the main witness, fourteen year old Grace Sowerbutts, was shown to have been influenced in her accusations by a local Catholic priest. Interestingly, also #OnThisDay in 1692, five people were hanged for the crime of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials in America. But, what links witches with medieval misericords, the Kingdom of Benin in 1890, William of Orange, and the US state of Tennessee?

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