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Right now I am listening to The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix and I just cannot get enough of it.
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Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash.
And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid.
It's morbid It's like kind of morbid in the morning But not like the morning morning Like late morning Yeah I would say Yeah You know It's like 10 .30 Yeah, you know We're in the middle of a heat wave But it's fall in my heart Oh, it's fall everywhere except outside Yep yep um we started decorating for Halloween yesterday I started and finished the other day I had Hocus Pocus the Corpse Bride and what was the other movie that I had on the background Halloween Town no I didn't do Halloween Town yet wow Practical Magic okay oh no I'll do Halloween Town I just haven't yet we did Hocus Pocus and Halloween
Town while we were decorating yesterday and we are still not done decorating because let me tell you decorating with three kids and two dogs means that you don't decorate in one day yeah no you just don't was out of the house so i got to do it like all by myself and it was i haven't done that in like a long time like yeah yeah it was great yeah you know it was lovely i hope you're all decorated for halloween everybody because it's halloween it's spooky season let's go weirdos we're here i'm ready for haunted houses i have been waiting for this all summer fuck summer if you love summer that's fine
for you i fucking hate it every in the fact that we're in a heat wave right now when it is september and we're supposed to be in the fall yeah i'm not enjoying that at all in fact it's like does that are we just done after that like does anybody know nobody knows we can't see that far out you know i feel like we can okay you know okay next wednesday according to my weather app is going to be 69 see that's what i'm looking bring me to the 60s as soon as i as soon as we're out because even 70 i'm like even 70 can can kind of go fuck itself.
70 could definitely go fuck itself because the sun is still hot when it's 70.
And then you get like that nice like fall breeze that starts to come in.
But if you find yourself in the wrong place outside.
You're hot. And the sun is on you, you're just like, fuck, that's not fall -ish.
Yeah, why am I wearing this junkie sweater?
Exactly. Exactly. But let's hope, you know, everybody put their collective brain powers together to make fall appear for us.
Please. Wiggle your spirit fingers.
I'm requesting this of you.
my god tomorrow's gonna be or thursday's gonna be 93 fucking degrees no i don't i don't want to do that i don't want to go to there i don't want to go to there next week looks chiller like 74 72 69 okay all right so that's the weather with ashley that's the weather oh before we start today's pretty just like bummer episode because it's about a witch trial okay but it's like when you you go into witch trials you always go in there being like which is fun and then you go through and you're like oh this sucked yeah like so hard persecuted as fuck yeah but um I wanted to quickly shout out someone
pretty awesome um a listener Corey who sent us this first of all Corey has an Etsy shop amazing crocheter so good sent me a papa doll I wish that you Corey could have seen seeing Elena's eyeballs yeet out of her face when she opens this.
And then I immediately said, are you going to sleep with that?
And I, and I brought it.
Maybe. I brought it down to John and I was like, can I, I'm going to put this on our bed.
And he was like, please don't.
He was like, that's amazing.
But please do not put that on our bed.
It's incredible. It's sitting right next to me.
Like as we speak. With all her other ghost paraphernalia.
With all my other ghost This doll is fucking phenomenal.
He's so cute. I'll definitely post a picture of it because it's just too good not to.
Oh, yeah. The care you put into it is you're really talented.
The details, too. So I just wanted to shout out Corey's like all her shop places.
They are all alternative hippie.
I love that. It's H -I -P -P -Y.
Ah, nice. Just so you know.
no so she has an Etsy shop and it's Etsy .com slash shop slash alternative hippie Instagram .com she's alternative hippie all that good stuff so go blow up her shit go blow up her shit because I'm telling you I'll again I will post a picture of this doll and you will be like what the fuck you made that it's so cute and it was so thoughtful and it was like you you were saying how like you know you hadn't listened to ghost before that and now like you were and I think she said the same thing that she was like I was like you I hadn't really gotten into any like newer rock stuff and And I missed that feeling.
And then I felt it with Ghost. So like I love that we all feel that together.
I love that a lot. I just wanted to shout you out because that was really thoughtful and really awesome.
And you literally made my year with it.
So I, again, I wish you could have seen Olivia's face when she opened that package.
She goes, true joy.
Somebody made me a Papa doll.
Like it's Papa. So thank you so much for that, Corey.
And I hope that your shit gets just like rocked in the best way right now.
Yeah. And I hope you can't crochet enough to, you know, I hope it just blows up.
So you're awesome. And go check out Alternative Hippie.
Or else. Or else, okay?
We don't know what else.
What else? But I don't know.
But that's it. Either way, we're going to get into the story now of Half Hanged Mary.
Oh. Of Hadley, Massachusetts.
Oh, shit. Hadley, Massachusetts?
Yeah. Massachusetts.
Massachusetts really out of time.
Yeah, we fucked up a lot.
We fucked up. We fucked up.
Yeah. I'm going to say they because like they fucked up our people.
Yeah. You know, like the people doing the fucked up things.
Yeah. That's not a we thing.
No, I mean, I was not there.
Yeah, no. Like I may be the elder on this podcast, but I was not present during these.
So I will say that.
That was a missed opportunity for a good joke on my part.
So thank you for walking yourself into that.
No problem. I was waiting for it.
I love that. I was waiting for you to be like, you were there, right?
I try not to do too much elder abuse to you.
It's okay. It's all right.
I feel okay about it.
But I think we can all agree that there are very few examples of mass hysteria that loom larger than the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.
100%. I mean, over 200 people were persecuted during that.
19 were executed. So crazy.
It's so sad. And it was all for crimes that nobody had actually committed.
But, you know, we just, everybody ran with it.
And for centuries, it has served as a very important, but often ignored, warning against groupthink, against intolerance, you know, all that fun stuff.
Once again, often ignored.
We'd love to believe we're past that, but, you know, we're really not.
I thought of a great idea.
We should make sweatshirts that say fuck Ann Putnam.
Oh, 100 % because fuck Ann Putnam.
Okay. Noted. For sure.
But it was definitely not the only example of witch hunting in Massachusetts, for sure.
And in fact, 10 years before the Salem Witch Trials, there were very similar accusations of witchcraft that were aimed at Mary Webster of Hadley, which was another small village in Massachusetts.
It's in like Western Massachusetts.
Yeah. I don't think I realized Hadley was like that old of a place.
Yeah. I mean, every place in Massachusetts is pretty fucking old.
I was going to say it's all old.
but but by the time the massachusetts bay colony was established in 1630 the existence of witches and you know witchcraft and dark magic and all that had been a very prominent source of anxiety and hysteria over in europe right and that was for nearly like two centuries that that was going on so that was nothing new you covered some of the ones in europe didn't we did we covered maybe one or two i think we'll definitely cover some more because it really is fascinating fascinating um but although fears of witchcraft had existed in cultures around the world long before beginning in the late 15th
century public fears and public accusations of witchcraft largely spurred by the catholic church at the time led to a centuries -long period of witch hunts across europe that led to the executions of not 19 which is bad enough tens of thousands of of innocent people.
That's crazy. So because there was such a prevalence of fear and black magic and witchcraft at that time, it makes sense that the earliest colonial settlers in Massachusetts Bay Colony would bring all those fears, anxieties, superstitions, all of that stuff to their new home.
They're like, let's bring all of this fuck shit right on over.
Yeah, let's not start with a clean slate.
No. Let's just bring it all over.
Never that. So when the first laws were enacted in the colony in 1641, the general court included a common law statute that quoted directly from scripture.
And it established, quote, if any man or woman be a witch that is hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death.
When you truly think about that, like if you're a witch, we gonna kill you.
That's why. It's crazy.
when people say i'm not really interested in witch trials it's like you're not like that yeah i don't get it of that being those those were laws like that was put into law wild you consulteth with a familiar spirit they basically said if you have a cat yeah if you have an animal that sometime is seen around you you're we're gonna kill you that's because we think you're consulting with the devil wild law wild law men that's the problem unfortunately it was a lot back then hey weirdos you know ash and i have covered some seriously dark tales about romance gone really wrong oh yeah there are so many
cases where too good to be true turns out to be exactly that Well, get ready for a love story that's going to blow your minds because this one is happening right now.
And get this, it's hosted by our friends Hannah and Saruti from Red Handed.
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Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery's podcast American Scandal.
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Now, with laws in place that were literally criminalizing witchcraft and consorting with the devil, it didn't take long for colonial settlers to make good use of them.
We're not going to let those laws just sit on those books.
They're like, no, let's do this.
No, No, they can't get dusty.
We got to use them.
So in 1648, 35 -year -old Margaret Jones, who was a Charlestown midwife and practitioner of medicine, was like herbal medicine and stuff, was very much accused of witchcraft and put on trial.
Little documentation from her trial has really survived today.
But the diary of Governor John Winthrop, who sat on the general court at the time of the trial, does show some of the evidence that was used to convict Margaret.
I remember that name John Winthrop.
Yeah. The evidence included the fact that quote she was found to have such a malignant touch as many persons men women and children whom she stroked or touched with any affection or displeasure.
And some things which she foretold come to pass accordingly.
Other things she would tell of as secret speeches which she had no ordinary means to come to the knowledge of.
So basically she's saying like they're saying like people got sick after she was around them sometimes.
sometimes and, you know, she knew things.
Maybe she was a little clairvoyant.
Before I did. Right.
And it's like, I don't know.
John Winthrop's like, I think you're just a man, Joan.
His journal also says that Jones's disposition during the trial was also used as additional evidence against her.
It says Jones was very intemperate, lying notoriously and railing against the jury and witnesses.
Gee, I wonder why. And he wrote, in simple terms, Margaret Jones's unwillingness to be deferential and demure during what basically was was most certainly a fight to keep herself from being hanged for nothing.
Literally nothing. Was considered by this puritanical society to be proof that she was consorting with the devil.
So because she wasn't demure on the stand and sitting there and going, well, I guess if you say I did it, I suppose I have to admit it.
Sure, mister, yep, I absolutely did that.
Because she didn't do that, they were like, the devil.
level it's also like she's she's on trial for doing her job it sounds like which you all took advantage of for a little while until you decided that you wanted to rally against her you were bored because you couldn't do anything in those times so you're just gonna make her a witch that's the thing now margaret jones was the first person in massachusetts and just the second in the colonies to be tried and executed for witchcraft and the fact that she was a woman was definitely Definitely not coincidental.
No. Never. She was a midwife, a practitioner of medicine, like we said before.
And she likely, because of those things, like we just kind of touched upon, she definitely held a little bit of power in the community.
You know, those kind of resources, that kind of expertise, that was pretty specific.
It was not in big supply in the colonies at that point.
So she was going to be looked at as someone to turn to.
It was kind of in the case of Bridget Cleary.
we talked about how you know the guy who was looked at as the powerful elder who had all this knowledge of folklore and shit he held power at one point and then when he didn't everything changed he made it come back now and also she used local herbs and other non -traditional medicines you know people started looking at that as suspect of course um especially they only looked at it really when it was that it was suspect when their treatments didn't work work when their treatments worked suddenly you're a great doctor and midwife and all that good stuff but when it didn't work you're a witch and also sometimes
like medicine medicine doesn't work yeah sometimes you're just gonna die right sometimes that's just the way it is okay no eight years later that same community tried and executed a woman named ann hibbins for similar things nonsensical we don't like her she's not this demure little wilting flower that we would like her to be exactly because remember in Salem that seemed to be a lot of the shit these women would speak out and speak up again against things they would speak up for themselves they would speak up for their families for all that stuff was like shut up and they were like shut the fuck
up witch and it's like okay yeah well like we all see it we all see it yep but um apparently uh in one of the sources that I'm going to link in the show notes uh Bridget Marshall author points out witchcraft accusations were actually fairly common during this period in the colonies.
Every town seems to have had at least one official accusation.
And no doubt many more had local legends and suspicions.
So it was definitely one of those things where there was official accusations, which would go to the higher authorities, go on trial, all that stuff.
But, you know, it was one of those things where they were like, that lady's a witch. Down the street.
Yeah. Who lives by herself because everyone she loved has died.
She's a a witch exactly and again they are like the accusations were common but at this point convictions and executions i don't know why that was so hard to say uh they were less common at the time like you could bring it to a point but getting a conviction and executing that person was going to take a little more um but this was also due to the fact that you know they were recently established communities removing someone who was like a medicine woman as much as you're claiming that's witchcraft and shit removing anyone from these communities is kind of disadvantaging you know that it's really
becoming a disadvantage for that community at this time because they really only have a handful of people to begin with.
They need to establish themselves first and then they can fuck you over later.
Yeah so it's it's gonna fuck the this accused witch over but it's definitely gonna fuck everyone else over too so they were they were very aware of that I think these a lot of times these things were more of a shame you into compliance and submission kind of thing so we don't have to take it to the conviction and execution stage we're just going to make sure you know that you will become ostracized and we can bring you in if you speak out against us so like just listen to what we say become submissive and we'll leave you alone Well, and going back to them like not being fully established yet,
I'm sure some of these women were like the first midwives in their village.
And then when they like got more and more of them, they were like, oh, now we can fuck with that one that we don't like because we like this one better because she listens to what we say.
It's like, but when they're the only ones, they were just dealing with it.
Right. Now, like we know now, the reasons why a person would have been accused of witchcraft were very varied and almost always completely irrational.
unprofessional um you know petty arguments overactive imaginations just puritanical shit i don't i don't like your face so i would like you to be gone from my view kind of shit like it was all just very like haphazard if i don't like this person i can accuse them of it so scary like for example this is a very interesting one the case of mary parsons who was a northampton woman accused of witchcraft by her neighbor in 1656 mary and her husband joseph parsons had moved to northampton from springfield okay so they were already very much outsiders in this newly formed community because remember it's
all brand new um so immediately the community was a talking as soon as two people come in from anywhere else you're gonna be the target um mary also had a son who was actually the first English child born in town.
So that was another thing that was already going to stir up some crazy gossip.
And then the Parsons were also of a higher social class and they had a lot more wealth than their neighbors.
So there was a lot of jealousy already off the bat.
They are batten zero.
Now, one day, not long after they came to Northampton, a neighbor named Sarah Bridgman received a knock at her door.
She was holding her infant son when she came to answer the door and she said, no one was there, but then she saw two cloaked figures pass by and she became convinced that her child would die.
Sarah Bridgman's an asshole, just so you know.
I answered the door and no one was there, so I thought my baby was going to die.
That's a leap. Seems legit.
That's a leap and a half, girlfriend.
The child did die a short time later, which is very unfortunate.
Of course. And Sarah became convinced that the death was caused by Mary Parsons.
and not just like the old timey of it all.
Apparently since she had arrived in the village, Bridgman and Parsons did not get along.
They had feuded right off the bat.
Which it's like alright Sarah, sometimes bitches aren't going to like you and that's just the way it is.
Like move on. That doesn't mean that they're a witch and that they killed your kid.
And you have to involve yourself in their life.
Just move the fuck on.
If you don't like someone, walk away.
Toxic person, walk the other way.
Like just leave okay?
But no, we've got to make this It's a bigger problem.
We've got to make it everybody's problem.
And honestly, it's going to become your problem, bitch. So she, yeah.
So they've been feuding ever since the Parsons had arrived.
And Bridgman spent months telling anyone who would listen that Parsons was a witch and that it was her fault.
And finally, Joseph Parsons, Mary's husband, was like, fuck you.
And decided to file a complaint of slander on his wife's behalf because that's a bad bitch move.
especially for a husband back then that's a husband he was like don't talk shit about my wife like fuck you sarah but that is probably not good that he brought this to court because i feel like that's where it's all gonna get crazy it was very proactive of him of course and it was pretty badass of him totally sure i support joseph i am here supporting him we stand with joseph but like you said not great because of how shitty the system was it was great in all other ways not not great because of how shitty everybody else was because by bringing those accusations to the attention of the authorities
before it was like we were saying before it was like shit talking right it was shit talking among the community it wasn't taken to the official level but now it's happened it's gotten brought to the authorities they know that people are talking oh this poor man was only trying to help his wife and like his wife he probably regretted that every day and so it was brought to court and sarah when she explained it she said there was a great blow blow at the door and i was like what sorry what and she immediately said she sensed a difference in her newborn as soon as that great blow at the door happened
okay and she was she said immediately i was sure my child would die and i was like i don't know i feel like that's someone you should talk about with someone else because i don't think that was mary and she said it was because there was wickedness in place wow this is real i just need like this is why these kinds of trials it's in this time period are so fucking fascinating to me because this was a legitimate criminal trial and this woman just said someone knocked on my door and i my newborn got fussy and so i knew he was gonna die because wickedness was in place yeah she said that in a legal
trial and they went hmm they said that's why they stroked their chins and they said maybe we should hang this bitch like Like, that's— It's scary.
That was real. How—that's fascinating to me.
Like, terrifying. They didn't have enough to do back then.
They sure didn't. Now, and that's the thing.
They had enough to do, but it was—and that's the thing.
It's like they weren't bored.
They were just miserable because it was miserable back then.
And we'll get into it, but it's like that's what it was.
It's like— Like mind -numbing shit.
Yeah, and kids were bored.
They're bored and miserable.
now at the trial a lot of people testified that um sarah bridgman's child child had actually been frail and sickly since birth so so there's the that on that so they're like when the child died unfortunately it was very tragic but not a surprise to a lot of people because he was born very sick that's sad but bridgman stuck to her story that parsons was a witch and had killed her child through her consortment with the devil and the wickedness of it all then we had other people come into the trial saying you know there was a yarn spinner that said the yarn she spun for mary parsons just ended up
in knots no matter what she did and she said that was obviously because she was a witch maybe you just suck at spinning yarns yeah maybe maybe you're spinning the yarn right now i think you are what i did there i do lies lies liar and it's also like it's just sort of the devil like knots like i don't know is that what that's supposed to be just likes tying knots yeah I'm not I've never heard I'm not up on his his likes and dislikes but I didn't know that was one of them I haven't heard that in a ghost song so I'm not so sure did you see the protesters everybody like you gotta go on TikTok the protesters
at the ghost concert I think it was in Texas that checks yeah um funny they brought out a Mary statue and everything it's like just let people there were signs that said I'm so sorry Mary and I was like like what what now i don't pretty funny yeah i'm not gonna say too much well that's i'm like like what you like but like that's the thing don't listen to the music if you don't like it go home you don't have to partake in it it's fine when people like some people i feel like everyone now is just like they're indoctrinating our children for like everything and i'm like just don't let your kid go
to a ghost show yeah it's like your kid isn't gonna go to a ghost show unless you bring them to one right so unless they're like speaking out to it but like that's your fault so it's just ridiculous it's a little silly isn't it and honestly ghost shows are fucking amazing and the people at ghost shows are some of the nicest people i've ever been around so they're at the ghost at the ritual that we went to i thought they call it a ritual it's always called a ritual i don't think i even knew that they call their shows rituals that's fun i love it uh that probably scares the people even more it does
at my ritual uh that we went to uh We were loving the people in front of us.
It was this couple.
And don't worry, I'll get back to the story.
I promise. I know Tangents pissed some people off, but here I am.
But I just got to tell you because it was lovely.
It was a couple in front of us, a man and a woman, and they were having the fucking time of their lives.
I love that. And they were like so in love and just like dancing with each other and so happy.
And I literally was like just their vibe.
That's precious. was so happy we all said it like we were all like these people are lovely to just be around I love that it was delightful that's so like shout out to those two people in front of us because they were and they were like turning to each other and like screaming the words to each other and just like dancing having a ball it was just so good the guy was so theatrical to every song I was like you're killing me it always like adds to the experience when you have people around like that and I met a lot of listeners at that show and they were really kind and awesome and and it was really
cool, and you guys rule.
But go to a goat show.
But either way, you know, the devil loves nuts.
Who knew? Weird. But things escalated as well when a woman named Mrs. Hannum, who was another yarn spinner, and she apparently worked with the Parsons before, she testified on Sarah Bridgman's behalf, saying that Parsons had, quote, attempted to lure her daughter away from her home.
What? And it's like, what?
what? And then another woman came and said her daughter got ill after she refused to let her daughter work for the Parsons.
So she must have bewitched her out of spite.
Yes, of course. And then a man came forward and testified and said, well, my cow got sick as fuck after I had some words with Mary Parsons.
And then it died. And it's her fault.
I truly can't. The fact that they thought people just died because they had words with each other.
Well, and what's great What's great about this one, I will say, is that the court was able to be like, debunked.
Okay, that's nice. Debunked.
Because upon further questioning, it was very clear that Mrs. Hannum, the yarn spinner, had been feuding with Mary Parsons ever since Mary Parsons complained of the quality of her yarn.
So she was just pissed because her little ego got bruised.
Because she had shitty yarn.
Fuck your yarn. And she saw this trial as an opportunity to get back at Parsons, which I'm like, people were fucking cutthroat back then.
She didn't like my yarn?
Hang on. yeah she didn't like my yarn so my way of getting back to her is having her hang by her neck until she's dead yeah like damn that's normal imagine living your life but i'm not that petty like imagine standing in that crowd you you spun some yarn you know what you did and you just sit you're sitting there and you're like you're like well she got hers shouldn't have said shit about my yarn my urine quality is top notch. It's like, what the fuck?
Like, that's cold -blooded.
Like, people were cold -blooded.
So yeah, she was just pissed about the quality of the urine and she was like, cool, I'm offended, so I'm going to send you to be executed.
I'm offended, so. And people also testified that Sarah Bridgman's baby, like they had said before, had definitely been sick since birth, so that was just not right.
Under these circumstances, the court, and I think they found that the cow had died of a very normal cow thing that happens he was just old and i think it was actually the owner's fault like it was like something he had done accidentally that had caused it wow so the court ruled in favor of mary parsons and we're actually told sarah bridgman you are actually in trouble for lodging these false accusations now oh hell yeah so they said you can either pay parsons court fees or you can issue a public apology i would say you have to do both and that petty little bitch was like i'll pay the fees she
wouldn't even publicly apologize wow like what a bitch people really were petty like such a bitch but what's sad though is that although the slander trial may have come to an end bridgman kept spreading rumors about parson being a witch and they just kept going for like generations and basically it undermined the part it undermined the parson's family social status and any political influence they had in the village for generations that's really she She ruined their legacy, essentially.
That's fucked. Just because she didn't like her.
Like, that's a petty bitch. I hope she got hers.
I hope she's living a bad life in the next one.
And this kind of shows you that although there was a genuine belief in witches and witchcraft, that's the thing.
This wasn't only, I don't like this person, so I'm going to fake it.
People genuinely believe that witches and witchcraft were, like, evil and that, like, they were these, like, you know, the hook -nosed, like, you know, with the wart on the end of the nose kind of thing we see.
and all the media you see of, like, they're green and they have the hat and that they're flying on a broom in the middle of the night, you know, like that kind of stuff.
They definitely believed that, especially in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
But it was also just as common for this to be the case, where it was, you know, consorting with the devil was basically I'm being petty and I'm going to, you know, settle my petty grievance with you by pretending that you're consorting with the devil.
Right. Right. Now, getting on to Mary Webster, it kind of seemed like this was partially the case, is that people just didn't like her and she was an outsider.
So they decided to make her consult with the devil, fictionally, as a case.
Fun. So Mary Webster was born Mary Reeve.
She was born in England circa 1624.
And she was brought by her parents, Thomas and Hannah Reeve, to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
And she was brought within a decade or two after her birth so within her first 20 years she was brought there all right a lot again a lot of these records are haphazard so you just kind of have to piece everything together but they settled in Springfield now little is known about her early life but she does and she doesn't appear on record until 1670 and that's when she married 53 year old William Webster of Hadley so she relocated from Springfield to Hadley and when that happened and often moving was a big deal of course it set you back yeah back then it sets anybody back anyways but it really
set you back back then when people like died on the way to move yeah to a new place and they were the websters were described as having become poor and having living many years in a small house in the middle highway and were sometimes aided by the town okay so nobody's really sure like what the definition of poor was back then because things were so willy -nilly like Like how bad it really was.
Yeah, but I think the fact that they were receiving aid from the town makes them down at the bottom of the ladder.
You know what I mean?
So according to Sylvester Judd, who is an author and who wrote the town history of Hadley.
Oh, cool. He said Mary's temper, quote, which was not the most placid, was not improved by poverty and neglect.
And she used harsh words when offended.
Despised and sometimes ill -treated, she was soured with the world and rendered spiteful towards some of her neighbors.
So here's the thing.
The thing with Mary is that we see she's in poverty.
She's having to get aid from the town.
She's being treated as such because people are now treating her like shit.
And it's like, so her neighbors are dicks to her and treat her like a piece of shit.
And she's supposed to be like a ray of sunshine.
She was brought here from where she was born.
and it's like and she's supposed to be this fucking ray of sunshine for you and might like make you happy when you treat her like shit because of something completely out of her control that she's dealing with poverty of course yeah absolutely and they they even said because of her quote unpleasant demeanor her neighbors started referring to her as a witch and she quickly became a target for a lot of harassment Hey weirdos, we need to tell you about something that has completely blown our minds collectively.
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Now, soon rumors were spreading about Mary and that, you know, she did this, she did that.
She bewitched some cattle and horses so that they stopped and ran back and could not be driven by her house.
In some cases, the rumors had a little bit of truth to them because Mary would try to keep farmers and travelers away from her house, and so she would overturn their loads sometimes.
What a, that's hilarious.
Or she would chase them away.
She was just like, get off my fucking lawn.
Well, she was like, you're all assholes to me.
You're mean to me. Stay away from my house.
I don't blame her. Fuck you.
Well, and you have to wonder if something happened that she wanted them away from her house because that seems like a kind of like a jump, you know?
Oh, yeah, because when you find out what they actually do to her and what is very normal, you're like, yeah, you were probably hurting her physically, you pieces of shit.
Yeah, that's what it sounds like.
Now, in one instance, they claimed, and I'll take what you will from this, they claim that, quote, she entered a house and had such influence upon an infant on the bed or in the cradle that the infant was raised to the chamber floor and fell back again three times.
And no visible hand touched.
Where were the owners of the home when she just barged in?
I'm like, I don't know.
This looks like neglect of an infant or possibly abuse of an infant.
And then they just blamed it on Mary Webster.
Like what? Now, the rumors were growing and growing.
Apparently. And so the community was now kind of biting back at Mary.
Oh. So either way, the rumors are growing and growing.
And in response to these rumors, the community is starting to get more and more, you know, proactive in their response to her.
So she became the target for what is called witch disturbances.
Oh no, I don't like that already.
So apparently, so the author I mentioned before, Smith, says that when farmers claimed they were unable to drive their cattle by Mary's house, they, quote, would enter the house, beat her, or threaten to do so, and then she generally let them pass.
uh yeah because they had beat her so she was probably unable to stop them at that point so that was called a witch disturbance they would just enter the suspected suspected which is home and beat the shit out of her to make her whatever was happening stop what the and then they're always like and these women were so unpleasant and it's like i would fucking i would be the the epitome of foul and rotten if I were this woman.
I would ruin everyone's lives around me.
Do you ever just think, like, what are humans?
Like, what are we? I think it all the time.
Like, how did we get like this?
I think it all the time.
It's a lot. I really do.
So they would do that.
That's why when they're like, oh, she would, like, knock over their loads and stuff.
I'm like, yeah, I would fuck up their livelihood, too.
I'd be like, you literally came in my home and beat me.
So fuck off. Fuck off.
Don't pass my house.
Now Judd, the author I mentioned before who did the history of Hadley, described an incident in 1680 where a 16 -year -old girl named Ann Belding was charged with, quote, purposes and practices against the body and life of Mary, wife of William Webster.
So apparently Ann entered the Webster's home and likely assaulted or attempted to assault Mary.
And so she was required to publicly apologize and pay a fine.
She had to pay one pound to Webster and four pounds to the county for doing that.
Why didn't she spend time in jail, y 'all?
Because they're just like, you know what, just say you're sorry.
What the fuck? So over time, the rumors about Mary Webster just grew, they grew, they became way more outlandish, way more detailed, they were coming from way more people.
But there was one that proved a lot more consequential for Mary's safety than the other ones.
Oh, no. And you knew this was coming.
I did. You knew one of those was going to hit different and it was going to be the breaking point.
I was worried. So in the early 1680s, it was said that Mary entered the house of a neighbor.
Again? And before she left the house, or excuse me, not long after she had left the house, a hen came flying down the chimney and fell into a boiling pot of water.
Okay. To me, that just feels real colony -esque.
That is. I'm sure hens fell down chimneys all the time.
If I was back then, if you transported me – hi, I'm Elena from 2023.
If you plopped me into 1680 or wherever this was in one of these houses in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and suddenly a hen fell down the chimney into a scalding hot thing of water, I don't think I would really – I'd be like, probably.
Like, I think I would just look over and be like, yep.
You'd just be like, well, we're having chicken for dinner.
Yeah, I'd just be like, oh, is that how you guys would get your food?
Like, I don't— Except from Santa?
That doesn't seem wild to me.
I'm like, hens were probably all over the fucking place.
Yeah. And they're probably just falling down chimneys and shit.
It's not like our chimneys where it's, like, this very intricate system.
Yeah, no, it doesn't sound that crazy to me.
It's just a hole in your roof that's just going to fall down.
So, to me, I'm like, yeah, okay, like, dinner.
But no, because apparently that was a little strange that a hen just fell down the chimney, which I think is wild.
I do too. I feel like it I agree.
I don't think it'd be that weird. I don't think it was.
I think they're just using that but the real strange thing was that Mary was discovered to have a scald mark on her body in the same place that the hen had.
I guarantee someone probably broke into her house beat her and burned her.
Probably or it's like I don't know they were cooking over straight up bonfires back then like yeah I'm sure everyone got burned all the fucking time by just doing the simplest of tasks.
Probably. Like, I'm sure there was all kinds of burns.
But did they make this like a witch mark?
Well, what they assumed was, you know, that because it's in the same place as the hen, that Mary had been acting in the form of a familiar to spy on her neighbors.
So, they're claiming she was the hen.
They're claiming Mary transformed herself into a hen and said, let me yeet myself down the chimney into a boiling pot of water in some hot water and then she lived and then she lived okay because that's the other thing here's my other question here but we don't have it on record so I would like to ask this neighbor from beyond what the fuck's up yeah because this hen fell down your fucking chimney into a scalding thing of water I think it died and you didn't eat that hen oh they ate you're telling me you just let that hen go no they ate that we're in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1680 and you're
letting free fucking dinner waddle out of your house i don't think so i don't think so you sure about that you're sure about that i don't think you are i think you ate that for dinner and then you're sitting here claiming that it was mary webster i don't think so so you ate mary webster but how's she walking around if you ate her it doesn't make sense this whole thing is truly the most that's what it and that's i'm like no one was logical back then or you know what But here's the thing.
I bet. Here's the thing.
Here's the thing. I bet there were some logical people in there, but they were zipping their fucking lips because they didn't want to be the next one accused or be thought to be consorting with the devil.
That was the thing.
They just stayed quiet.
So it's one of those things.
They just stayed quiet and let it happen.
And it's like, so we look back and we're like, are you all just cuckoo?
What is going on? And no one stepped in and was like, well, did you eat the hen?
Like no one asked that.
Yeah. Did you eat said hen that fell and burned their booty in the water?
Did you eat the booty burned hen?
You didn't let that thing leave. No, of course not.
Why waste a good hen?
Exactly. In 1680? Hell yeah.
Now, in March 1683, Mary was brought before the county court in Northampton because of this.
And she was accused of, quote, being under strong suspicion of having familiarity with the devil or using witchcraft. What?
Color me guilty. uh but after hearing testimony from some of her neighbors the county court looked at it and was like you know what these look these look like pretty strong accusations it seems like everybody thinks you're kind of a bitch so i think maybe we should uh we should look into this further so they referred it to the court of assistance in boston for consideration oh no yeah they looked at this like i don't know it seems like you might have been that hen and then they were like and these people say they that you suck so i think we should just the fact that they're like we think you were that hen
yeah wrap your mind around that we have a burn mark on you so i'm pretty sure you were that hen that flew down the chimney i that they definitely ate for dinner that night i must go like i just don't know and in april by the way mary webster is 60 years old oh now in april mary webster 60 years old is shipped to boston shipping up to boston but not in the fun way dropkick murphy's not like that though where she was held in a local jail cell waiting her trial for witchcraft she was held there for a month oh my god and you can only imagine the conditions think of the worst conditions you can ever
imagine that's what jail was times 10 yeah and that's what they would have you wait in for your witchcraft trial that you were placed on trial for because assholes didn't like you i truly can't and couldn't mind their own fucking business and just stay to their own shit they had to get in your shit this is so sad like now i i didn't realize she was 60 and that adds so much more yeah she should have been happily just you know she should have been happily just being a bitch kind of curmudgeonly yeah like just let her let her live she's a victim of circumstance so just leave her the fuck alone don't
interact don't pass her house she's not trying to hang out with you i mean according to them she really was she really wanted to go into people's houses she's like maybe that's the thing maybe she just wanted a fucking friend and everyone was just being a dick barged in like let's hang you know maybe she just needed some social cues that's all yeah now again sat for a month in jail and then her trial began on march on may 22nd 1683 and was heard by governor simon brad street and nine of his fellow, you know, powerful men.
Now, after hearing the charges, they said, seems pretty reasonable.
I think we should take this to trial.
Seems pretty reasonable that you became a hen.
Yeah. And then they said, we should take this to trial.
And there was an indictment written up, and the indictment read, the grand jury being impaneled, they, on perusal of the evidences, returned that they did indict Mary Webster For that she, not having the fear of God before her eyes, that's always my favorite part of it.
She's not afraid of God?
You don't have the fear of God in you, so you must be an evil piece of shit that we need to kill.
And it's like, huh?
Why do people still feel that way?
So not having the fear of God before her eyes and being instigated by the devil, hath entered into covenant and had familiarity with him in the shape of a warnage, which is a fisher or wild black cat of the woods.
and had his imps sucking her and teats or marks found on her.
They love that. They love a teat and they love an imp sucking.
Oh, they love it. That's the thing.
I'm like, look inside of yourselves.
Yeah. I'm not going to kink shame here, but look inside of yourselves and just come to grips with what you're really focused on.
You guys should just start writing fan fiction about Mary Webster, I think.
You know what? If we had had book talks, like fairy smut books rolling around, that Rune Danon if we had had that back then I think everybody would have been okay they would have sat in their houses read some fairy smut gotten their shit together and come out into the world and been a little less wound up I think so that's all I'm saying to be clear Alina's the one reading the fairy smut she just showed me the song I don't know anything about Rune other than that he's the crown prince I'm gonna read the Crescent City book because I don't know haven't even gotten to him yet no but it's in the song
Oh, um, Rune, Rune, Crown Prince of the, is it the Balgaran?
Balgaran Fae? I haven't gotten to them yet, so.
But anyway. I'm reading Crescent City though.
I've been sucked into it, but they need some fairy smut.
Um, so yeah. So, you know, teats, marks on her, all that good stuff.
And by several testimonies may appear contrary to the peace of our sovereign Lord, the King, his crown and dignity, the laws of God and his jurisdiction.
the court on their serious consideration of the testimonies did leave her to further trial i gotta go nonsense i must go she spent another week sitting in a boston jail and then was brought back before the court of assistance on june 1st where she was formally tried um and there is one piece of documentation from that trial that we can look at that says mary webster was now called and brought to the bar and was indicted to which indictments she pleaded not guilty making no No exception against any of the jury.
Leaving herself to be tried by God in the country.
The indictment. I'm like, he doesn't try, though.
Like, you guys have to try her.
Yeah, like, where is he at?
The indictment and evidences in the case were read and committed to the jury.
And the jury brought in their verdict that they found her not guilty.
Okay. I didn't see that coming.
She was acquitted. Wow.
She was acquitted of the charge of witchcraft. Not for long, I'm sure.
She returned to Hadley, and all was supposed to be great.
But you know what? But it was her neighbors that were pissed.
The court acquitted her.
They weren't going to bring her back in.
But they weren't. They weren't done yet.
But the neighbors were pissed.
Now, when Mary Webster was first accused of witchcraft and brought before the county court, among the men who examined her and considered the evidence against her was Philip Smith, who was a local judge and a deacon for the town of Hadley.
Okay. In his later accounts of the story, Cotton Mather, who everybody remembers, Numbers.
Cotton Mather. That should have like some kind of reverb on it, like scary reverb.
In your brain, it does.
Cotton Mather. It's like Mather.
Yeah, it's just some evil in there.
I don't like it. He describes Smith as follows.
Mr. Philip Smith, a man of about 50 years, a son of eminently virtuous parents, a deacon of a church at Hadley, a member of our general court, a man of their county court, a selectman for the affairs of the town, a lieutenant in the troop, and which crowns all a man for for devotion and gravity and all that was honest exceedingly exemplary um you can stop sucking his dick now like because you know what cotton mather likely never met this man just want to put that out there he loved him he likely never met philip smith but because philip smith was down to get some witches he loved hanging by some
ropes cotton mather was was like, what a fucking virtuous gift to our entire planet this man is.
And it's like, settle the fuck down, Cotton.
Take all of the seats, please.
Settle the fuck down.
And by the way, speaking of Cotton Mather, I think I might take another look at the Salem Witch Trials and kind of, like, revamp our series on it.
I would love that. I've read more into it, and I have more to say.
There's always more to say with Elena Urquhart.
You know, it's happening.
I love it. So he shit his dick.
about philip smith even though he'd never met this man ever did not know what kind of man he was so strange but you know despite mary webster being acquitted of the charge of witchcraft was which was no easy feat no uh but and this was a court in boston so this was a big court she probably knew that this wasn't even the end of it oh yeah smith philip smith maintained that she was a witch she was in league with the devil he would not be convinced she wasn't and that's why cotton Cotton Mather loved him.
He wasn't going to give up.
Right. Beginning in January 1864, apparently Philip Smith's health began ailing a little bit and it was very obvious.
It wasn't like a, you know.
And they said he showed such weakness from the weariness of the world that he knew not.
He said whether he might not, he might pray for his continuance here.
So he wasn't even going to pray to live.
Okay. Because he was so weary of the world.
I mean. And that's what Cotton Mather had written by the way.
But he didn't know him.
he didn't know got it um but basically what he was saying was that you know his righteous spiritual battles were with evil were just taking its toll on him and he was such a we should you know wow like this man should wow this man is on his deathbed because he's just been fighting this this righteous war with the devil so hard and he doesn't even know if he wants to stay here anymore because it's just been too hard this is making my head hurt and i'm like i don't know i I think it's just the 1600s.
And he's dying of things you die of in the 1600s.
Probably. And also, when you're that fucking wound up about everybody all the time, yeah, you're probably going to die sooner because your shit is all rocked inside.
So, like, you should calm down.
Calm down. You know, moon pie.
Stop murdering people.
Quit hanging people.
Now, like the court records that have since, you know, really been lost to time at this point.
Of course. There's not a lot of documentation about Smith's illness, but according to Bridget Marshall, in the time leading up to his death, the decline of his physical health and body was accompanied by a lot of emotional and mental issues as well.
He had fits of delirium, and they would definitely frighten everybody around him, like his nurses, anybody that was watching over his bedside.
I'm sure it was terrifying.
I mean, that would be scary now, even with all we know, But back then, that was, I mean, that's what the witch trial is basically where it started from.
Well, and that kind of like happens at the end of your life.
I mean, any number of things can happen at the end of your life.
Nobody goes out the same way.
And back then, you looked at fits and delirium as being magical.
Like they were spurned by something evil.
Meanwhile, it was like probably just his body shutting down and like seeing shit.
Yeah, it's just biological processes.
processes uh but to a puritanical society that was very deeply entrenched in legends and superstitions in religious doctrine god the very and marshall points out the author the very visible struggle he endured with his illness no doubt appeared to the puritan audience as a fight with the devil and with cotton mather writing that this is his righteous battle with the devil that is killing him it's just compounding that's so wild that they were like yeah he's he's just fighting it out with the devil yeah this isn't just illness this is him literally in a cage match with the devil wow now in his delirium
he would rant like philip smith would rant a lot he would ramble he He was very incoherent, this, there, and everywhere.
We've all, if you've loved someone that's been at the end of their life, you know there can be some moments where you're like, I have no idea where you are right now, but you're telling me about it.
And again, a lot of local people found, and his neighbors found, that they were thinking this was him being possessed, and this was the effects of black magic, not anything biological.
No, never. Now, because Smith had been one of the most, like, loud and aggressive proponents of Mary Webster's guilt, even after her acquittal, many of the men in town concluded that Webster must be to blame for this illness.
I knew that was coming.
Yeah. They said this is definitely revenge for his having tried to bring her to justice.
And, you know, this is all her.
This is, like, he's being the target and after him.
you better believe the next person on the list is going to be someone else involved in the trial that's ridiculous and the longer his illness went on the stranger and more wild the stories of his symptoms became um one of the most absurd things that was stated like officially about it was that in his sick room they claimed that medicines had been emptied by unseen hands and that a fire mysteriously appeared under his bed and then stopped was he burned i was like i feel like you should be looking at him if fires are starting under his bed when a fire starts like what's going on there the fuck now
according to our pal cotton mathers account of it that is not my pal who again believed that very much believed that webster was to blame um they and apparently they decided to test this theory that uh mary was to blame uh people in the town came to philip or uh excuse excuse me, came to Mary's home and decided to do witch disturbance on her.
Because remember, if they think you're fucking around, they can just come and beat the shit out of you.
So Cotton Mather wrote an account of this, even though he was not there by whole count.
Some of the young men in the town being out of their wits at the strange calamities, thus upon one of their most beloved neighbors, went three or four times to give disturbance unto the woman thus complained of.
And all the while they were disturbing of her, which, by the way, him writing disturbing of her remember what we're saying here.
He's saying, all the while while these men came in and beat the shit out of a 60 -year -old woman in her home, all the while while they were beating the shit out of a 60 -year -old woman at her home, he was at ease, Philip Smith, and slept as a weary man.
These were the only times they had perceived him to take any sleep in all his illness.
While everyone was beating the shit out of an elderly woman.
That's good. Yeah. I'm glad he rested easy during that period.
but it's her who's consorting with the devil like y 'all you're telling me the only time this man got sleep was when a elderly 60 year old woman because that's elderly back then yeah it's not elderly now so don't come for me but back in the 1600s that was you were you were past your point of like damn look at you you were you're a wise one exactly but they're beating a 60 year old woman this is so upsetting and he's sleeping soundly like a fucking baby but she's the one consorting with the devil my god everybody he's just living on his deathbed like let's just look at what's happening here but nobody's
gonna speak up but again it was very very long believed that to stop a witch from you know furthering any harm she was doing through magic or her spells was to physically restrain or stop her in some way my god and when philip smith finally died from from his illness on January 10th, 1685, a group of young men set upon Mary Webster at her home.
They dragged her from her house and they hung her from a tree by her neck.
Oh my God. Yeah. Now at this time, the gallows and trapdoor had not been invented yet.
So it is very likely and really the only way that they just hanged her from a tree and allowed her to strangle.
Oh, my God. Yeah, I told you, this is a rough one.
Holy shit. She lost consciousness, and when she was no longer moving, they cut her down, they rolled her body in the snow for some time, and then they finally buried her in the snow and left her for dead.
I am without words.
Yeah. So what we've seen here is that obviously the men of Hadley, it was only men who did this, by the way.
that checks the men of hadley were obviously disappointed by the boston's court decision and certain that mary was guilty so they decided to enact mob justice and they figured they could just get rid of mary webster and that this gave them reason once philip smith died it was her fault they they felt validated picturing that in your head they broke i'm sorry i'm not over this yet as you should be into her home dragged her out probably hanged her from a tree on her own fucking property probably and then rolled her and buried her in the snow so she probably likely died of hypothermia among other
things well you know it's it came to a big surprise to the men that uh when they came back she didn't die what she was still alive what a bad bitch yep and what's even better is that mary webster lived another 11 years before dying of natural causes in 1969 at around the age of 70 or so mary webster said fuck y 'all she said dave's yegs she said fuck y 'all fuck y 'all she said fuck y 'all dave's yay she said philip smith won't be seeing you for a while bye holy cannoli i did not see that one coming cotton mather must have shit his dick and on that day those men what i wouldn't give to be now and travel
back there with just just like an iphone so you could just like record all their reactions and then pop back here and be like check out these fuckers assholes you know they all like some of them cried oh my god but that's it's like amazing that she was able to live that long and i'm so happy but one to go through that and who knows where it ended i'm sure people were still breaking into her house after that but i'm like fuck yeah good for you living out the rest of your fucking days and being like fuck Fuck all you.
Y 'all be damned. Like, damn.
Wow. Mary Webster. I didn't see that.
Yeah. So, you know, the colonial witch trials up to and including those in Salem were definitely about power.
A lot of it. Obviously, there were some cases like Sarah Bridgman and Mary Parsons that were just jealousy, petty shit, grievances.
But they were fueled by a religious body as well that sought to use superstition, misogyny at the time, and great fear of the unknown to maintain their stronghold on the colonies.
So again, it goes right back to power and the end of everything.
And keeping everybody...
Keeping everyone in line.
Yeah, exactly. They don't want anyone speaking out against...
They believe this, so you're going to believe it and you're going to shut the fuck up if you don't.
Nope. This was particularly true for our guy Cotton Mather, who was one of the loudest and most aggressive proponents of the witch hunts in all of the colonial era.
Now, in 1689, he actually published the account of Philip Smith's illness and death.
And he named Smith specifically, but he did not name Mary Webster.
He wouldn't name her.
I wonder why. He used the account to, among other things, promote the righteousness and virtuousness of Smith.
And his efforts, his righteous efforts to rid Hadley of witchcraft. And he also kept promoting the belief that the colony as a whole was just lousy with witches is in practice and are practitioners of black magic and again it's important to remember like i said earlier cotton mather was not a resident of hadley and it's unlikely about it that he had ever been there before and he definitely didn't know philip smith or mary webster so what the fuck is your get out of everybody's business bitch he's a busybody he's the definition of he didn't know mary he didn't know philip smith he'd never been
to hadley what what are you doing right and of course he did include some documented facts about the case in his account but a lot of what he wrote was just biased fictionalized shit just bullshit and very much just like preaching what he wanted to preach of course he wasn't trying to give a historical account of something that happened he wanted something that would boost his uh his argument in favor of witch hunting and unfortunately it worked because as we know just a few years later in 1692 and 1693 stories like that of smith and webster were used as supporting arguments for the outrageously
barbaric witch trials in the village of salem um and it actually again it ended up being that it was a governed a government sanctioned murder of 19 people which like when you really think of of that it's just like your brain can't even and most of them were young women who were guilty of literally nothing but couldn't defend themselves because it was just this hysteric frenzied mob of people that were brought to that point by men like cotton mather who were just like insane there's no other way to say it of assholes just run shit create hysteria and then it's like Then these little girls who were fucking
bored and everybody just decided, that's what it was, these little girls who are fucking bored and nasty, cruel little fucks.
And then these men who were trying to, you know, boost this argument anyway, saw that and said, perfect, we can use this.
It's like it all worked together, just a bunch of assholes working together.
What a horrible time to be alive.
Truly. Absolutely. And when the witch trials came to an end in the spring of 1693, public hysteria had died down and order had started to be, you know, restored because that was looked at even by them as like, what the fuck just happened?
happened. Yeah. And the truth came to light that, you know, like these young women were all this, all the people, young women who had made the shit up about like the fits and being attacked inspectors and all that shit that they lied.
They came forward and said, I made the whole thing up.
I was bored. And the public reaction was fucking horror and revulsion.
They couldn't believe what they had done.
They were like, I can't believe we have been taken so easily by all this bullshit.
How gullible have we been?
And how cruel have we been?
Like, damn, we suck.
To the point of murder.
we've murdered young women because we were just easily led but even after the order and sanity had been restored to salem briefly cotton mather and other those guys other like that were part of this whole thing some of the judges some of the people that were into it like the higher up people they were still advocating for further witch hunts and trials just to try to get that control back over the community and luckily they're like you know it was kind of at that point they were kind of like ignored and everybody was like now you're an asshole you have to chill the fuck out guys but you know it's
when you look back on it you're like wow that's wild and it blows your mind but it's also when you look at 17th century colonies hysteria is not that wild to think about because when you think about it colonial life was miserable yeah it was incredibly difficult colonists often relied on that dichotomy of good and evil just to explain the hundreds of hardships and tragedies and oppression and awful shit that just fell into their laps on a normal daily basis like their cows dying and hens coming through the roof and falling into boiling pots of water but and that is truth that is truth that it
was a shitty time it was a shitty life and they they were just looking for something to believe in and they were using something else but we cannot take away that misinformation and the spread of it and misogyny also played an incredible role in that like incredible at the forefront i would say and even in the boston globe in 1977 hal clancy wrote that he talked about the story of smith and webster and he described mary as As, quote, in 1977, he described her as, quote, an aging spinster who wore rags, lived in a shack and got by brewing love potions and peddling hexes.
She claimed to possess an evil eye that could dry up a cow at a blink.
Now, he made this article has like some of the like somewhat of like a satire humorous tone to it.
But it's got tons of factual inaccuracies in it lies.
and it also just completely perpetuates what started the witchcrafts in the first place like witch trials learned nothing this but I was like that article just shows you whoa you just literally looked at that whole thing you saw the lesson there and you just perpetuated it man like he literally says basically his view of the history of that whole thing was the only plausible explanation for why Mary Webster's neighbors believed her her to be a witch and literally hanged her after she was acquitted for it was because she portrayed herself as such she did it by being an old spinster by working with herbs
and non -traditional shit by not being a pleasant flower by not you know preaching whatever it is they wanted her to preach she did it literally in 1977 this man is just learning zero i was like holy shit massachusetts Massachusetts yeah that's embarrassing like this Massachusetts is my girl like I love I ride for her Massachusetts is my b she's my bitch I love her I ride for her I love Massachusetts but it's proof that some people did not learn from their own shit and it's like get it together to be like she was a fucking witch I'm like this is elderly abuse to like the highest highest and you're
like she was a fucking witch she made love potions I'm like I don't think they worked and also it's like Like, she was a witch. They're basically just being like, I don't know, she portrayed herself as one, so.
She could dry up some cows.
And I'm like, okay, so should they have hung her from a tree?
And buried her in the snow?
Like, are you, is that what you're saying?
You sure about that?
Like, you're not sitting here saying, like, wow, this 60 -year -old woman that was just, like, trying to live her life by herself.
That people kept coming into her home and beating the shit out of her on a regular basis.
Don't act like a witch. Don't act like a witch. Like, damn, how?
Wow. damn you would like that sounds like satire but it's it doesn't that's the boston globe like that's like that's not damn damn but yeah so that's the story of mary webster and a couple of other witches but that was quote unquote yeah like that was uh i don't know that was that was something that was wild and really upsetting but the fact that she was like she lived y 'all i mean it was like a triumph but then it's like only a couple years later we were like and now for the the Salem witch trials where it's going to be really bad my god but eventually you know eventually pouring out for all
the witches out there okay yeah truly you know damn holy shit but yeah I'm just like shook that that all of that happened and then however many years later he was like yeah fuck her right it's true fuck her right yeah so that's the story of half -hanged Mary that's what she's referred to woof yeah well with that we hope that you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird that this because what question mark uh don't be stupid think critically please get a life think critically please if you like morbid you can listen early and ad free right now by joining wondery plus in the wondery
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