This petition was written in 1692 by alleged witches having been imprisoned for the winter and awaiting the renewal of their trials the following spring.  The women beseeched their captors to allow them to winter on bail, for among them were many elderly widows and young women, either pregnant or already with infants.  Knowing their innocence, they claimed themselves fearless of the spring trials; their only qualms were derived from the harsh winter and the unprotected conditions of their prison.  This letter elucidates the other, oft overshadowed, side of the Salem Witch Trials.  Rather than dwelling on the concepts of extreme religious zeal or mass hysteria, this petition shows the thoughts of the simple villagers caught amidst that tragedy and trying to survive into its aftermath.  It is an important resource, as it shows the humanity in an event that happened over three centuries ago, and event often wondered at as a nightmare in American history.

This painting, done almost two centuries after the occurrence of its historical subject, details the drama of the Salem Witch Trials.  In the center of the room, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers and watched by two judges, a man lies unconscious or dead against a swooning woman.  Another woman stands half stripped near the front of the crowd, attempting to preserve what modesty remains to her.  A third woman hazards her own life and reputation by pleading with a judge for mercy towards the accused.  The two judges sit nonchalantly, impartially watching the scene before them while a guard attempts to prevent additional spectators from entering the room.  This scene mimics the many that actually took place during the Trials.  It captures the high emotions and mob mentality of the crowd, but fails to include the judges in this mass mania, an inclusion that most assuredly happened in many instances of the Witch Hunts.

The article, “New England Witchcraft in Fiction”, by G. Harrison Orions, discusses the early fiction of the literary witch craze, which emerged in the early nineteenth century.  It explains the reasons for and the processes by which nineteenth century authors adapted the histories of the witch hunts to their own purposes.  Orions shows that, by studying the birth of the modern American witch story and identifying the aspects recognizable to the 21^st century reader, one might better understand the witch stereotypes and allusions found within modern fictional media.

“Signs, Cures, and Witchery: Appalachian Cosmology and Belief” is a film review article written by Mathew Branch which discusses the documentary, “Signs, Cures, and Witchery”, produced by Gerald Milnes.  The film discusses the German and European folk beliefs of the Appalachian Mountains.  Branch says that the film contains interviews with elderly people who still practice these folk magics, erecting simple charms and casting simple spells.  The film is said to portray these modern witches as a dying people, a culture removed from the modern.  This review helps one understand the folk practices of a people who, in the times of early American literature, might have been persecuted for their beliefs; it allows one to begin to understand the social turmoil of America in the 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th centuries.

"’SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES’:  CONSTRUCTING THE WITCH IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE” is a dissertation for a doctorate of philosophy written by Catherine Armetta Shufelt and submitted in December of 2007.  It discusses the modern ideology surrounding witches as well as explores and defends modern pagan religious practices.  Shufelt seeks to dismantle the traditional western witch stereotypes by discussing modern Wiccan philosophies and by citing her own experiences as a Wicca.  She details the use of witches in both fiction and nonfiction extending back to the middle ages and shows how witch stereotypes have formed and evolved over time.  She discusses modern paganisms as earth based religions, giving examples of Wiccan nature based rituals and environmental political activism.  Shufelt’s dissertation serves to bring early American witch literature into a modern, applicable light.