The Salem Witch Trials have fascinated me as far as I can remember and as I learn more and more about them they simply become more mysterious. So I obviously jumped at the chance to visit Salem, MA while up there this past Thanksgiving.
We make the obligatory stop at the Salem Witch Museum that had a surprisingly fantastic theater-style exhibit on the 1692 hysteria. But my favorite part had to be on witches through the ages.” The presentation started off with “witches” who were simply healing-medicine women of their village through the medieval concept of witches on to Hollywood witches and ending at present day Wiccans. Unfortunately no pictures are allowed in either exhibit 🙁 Guess you’ll just have to go yourself and see it!
Besides the museum, there isn’t much else to do there. Many of the original sites and homes of the witch trials have not stood the test of time (mostly on purpose). However, I did just recently read an article in the magazine Archeology that they believe they found the site of the witch trial gallows.
The thing I find so crazy about this whole this is that a bunch of teenage girls got their entire town to go bananas believing well-established men and women were in league with the Devil. But hey, after working at a high school for 3 years I know the power of teenaged girls HA!
JMF
P.S. I bought the book The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff last year. Haven’t read it yet but it just bumped up a few more places on the list 🙂
