Do you think witchcraft really existed?

I read about burning girls and women for witchcraft but find it hard to believe it was real.

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It existed in that there were people who believed they were practicing witchcraft. It's basically a religion like any other. But the people who were burned or hung for witchcraft usually weren't witches, they were just random people accused of heresy.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@BohemianBabe Not quite correct.

"Witchcraft" and "heresy" were two very different "crimes"

Witchcraft was a mob-rule reaction through ignorance, fear and superstition to any unfortunate event, based usually on mere co-incidences. Burning was used in some European countries but the penalty in England at least was usually hanging, though by gibbet not gallows.

By the way, by the proper legal term, they were "hanged", not "hung".

Heresy was speaking against the Church or its dogma, and that could bring execution by burning at the stake.

(It differed from county to country but executions for other capital offences were more often by hanging or beheading. The appallingly grisly "Hanging, drawing and quartering" was used against treason, in England, and don't think "Braveheart". That film showed its own version that glossed over the reality.)

BohemianBabe · M

@ArishMell It was mostly hanging in America too. Burning witches was usually done in Germany, Scandinavia, Scotland, and France. But yeah, in England and America, it was almost always death by noose.

Witchcraft was generally considered a form of heresy.