When the devil stalked Salem
ON THE HistoryExtra PODCAST
During the freezing January of 1692, unsettling incidents began to occur in the parsonage of Salem. The Reverend Samuel Parris’s 11-yearold niece and nine-yearold daughter – usually well-behaved girls – began to shudder and shake, shrieking, wailing and barking like dogs. A local physician was called in and delivered a damning diagnosis that the girls were not suffering from any standard medical issue, but rather an “evil hand” was at work. By that, the physician meant an agent of the devil. That diagnosis would result in one of the darkest and most bizarre episodes in the early history of the United States.
Keen to discover the perpetrator, a local woman, Mary Sibley, encouraged the parsonage girls to bake a “witchcake”. Soaked in urine and fed to a dog, this folk practice was designed to reveal the identity of the malevolent force behind the young girls’ afflictions. Parris was furious when he learnt of its concoction, later railing at his congregation: “By this means, it seems the devil has been raised amongst us and his rage is vehement and terrible, and when he shall be silenced, the Lord only knows.”
His declaration was to prove eerily prescient. A few days after baking the witchcake, the girls did indeed identify three witches masquerading as marginalised members of their community. News of the outbreak of bad magic spread across the small New England settlement, and so too did seemingly supernatural incidents. More girls suffered from similar fits and convulsions, while others encountered hairy beasts at their firesides or felt themselves pinched
