Explore one of the more bizarre forms of evidence used to convict witches in colonial America. When the Salem Witch Trials judges accepted poppets as deadly proof of witchcraft, they turned dolls and rags into evidence that cost innocent people like Bridget Bishop their lives. The judges admitted all kinds of evidence that wouldn't survive five minutes in a modern courtroom, including poppets—dolls crafted with malicious intent—that were allegedly used to afflict targets from afar.

The hosts reveal how law enforcement searched accused witches' homes for "pictures of clay or wax," turning up everything from rag dolls stuffed with goat hair to knotted handkerchiefs filled with cheese and grass. In the most shocking cases, judges conducted live magical experiments in their own courtrooms while watching the “afflicted” witnesses writhe in apparent agony, then using these theatrical displays as evidence to send people to the gallows.

Listeners discover the tragic stories behind Salem's most infamous poppet cases, like those involving Bridget Bishop, Candy, and Abigail Hobbs, who claimed the devil personally delivered poppets to her. The episode also explores pre-Salem cases like Goody Glover.

This is another chapter in understanding how Salem became America's most infamous example of justice gone terribly wrong.

The Thing About Salem Website

The Thing About Salem YouTube

The Thing About Salem Patreon

The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube

The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

In the inaugural episode of The Thing About Salem, hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack take you inside the Salem Witch Trials, focusing on the early events that triggered the infamous witch-hunt. Discover how Tituba became the unwitting catalyst for America's most infamous witch hunt. This isn't the sanitized version you learned in school or saw in The Crucible—this is the raw, documented truth about three pivotal days that changed history forever.

When 9-year-old Betty Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams began barking like dogs and trying to walk into fireplaces in January 1692, their desperate community turned to folk magic—baking a grotesque "witch cake" made with the girls' urine and feeding it to a dog. This bizarre ritual, unique in all of New England's witch trial records, appeared to succeed when the girls began naming witches the very next day. Their first target was Tituba, the enslaved indigenous woman in their own household—the most vulnerable person in Salem Village and the unwitting catalyst who would spend 15 months in jail as the witch trials exploded across Massachusetts.

Listeners are provided with a detailed account of the strange behaviors exhibited by Parris's daughter Betty and niece Abigail, the mysterious witch cake baked by Mary Sibley, and the subsequent accusations against Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne. The podcast also highlights Tituba's lasting impact and a commemorative brick in her honor at the House of the Seven Gables. The episode is the first in a weekly series exploring different facets of the Salem Witch Trials.

00:00 Introduction to The Salem Witch Trials

00:13 Meet Your Hosts: Josh and Sarah

00:35 Podcast Overview and Schedule

01:07 Focus on Salem Witch Trials

01:25 Tituba: The Enslaved Woman at the Center

02:02 The Mysterious Illness of Betty and Abigail

05:55 The Witch Cake Experiment

09:58 Accusations Begin: Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne

12:10 Tituba's Fate and Memorial

13:31 Closing Remarks and Patreon Invitation

Key Topics Covered

• The Parris Household Crisis (January 1692)
• The Afflicted Girls
• Mysterious Symptoms
• Dr. William Griggs
• Mary Sibley's Folk Magic
• Samuel Parris's Response

• Tituba's Vulnerability

• • Life-Changing Moment

  The Thing About Salem Website

  The Thing About Salem YouTube

  The Thing About Salem Patreon

  Mary Bingham’s YouTube Channel: Sarah Wildes 1692

  The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube

  The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

  Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem by Elaine G. Breslaw

  Six Women of Salem by Marilynne K. Roach

  The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-By-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege by Marilynne K. Roach

Are you curious about the Salem Witch Trials? Fascinated? Intrigued? Maybe even fully obsessed? Josh and Sarah from Witch Hunt podcast bring you The Thing About Salem, a podcast dedicated to uncovering all things about the Salem Witch Trials. Each week, in 15 minutes or less, we go through all the feels as we share a story and a discussion. Together, we will cry, rage, and even laugh a little about some of the silliness, like the witch cake baked with the urine of the afflicted girls. Early topics include Tituba, The Crucible, poppets, the witches' sabbath, and witch marks. In future episodes, we will peel back all the layers of the witch trials.