A lecture by Malcolm Gaskill (University of East Anglia, UK), moderated by Julie Stone Peters (Columbia, English).
In the late 1640s and early 50s strange things began to happen in the Massachusetts township of Springfield. As tensions rose, rumours of witchcraft spread, and the community became tangled in a web of anxiety and suspicion, fear and recrimination. This lecture tells the story of Hugh and Mary Parsons, a troubled married couple at the eye of the storm, and explores the uncertain relationship between the theory and practice of witch-beliefs, as they appeared in one particular historical case-study.