Witches

Was Rasputin really Russia’s greatest love machine? Did he have any healing powers? And why might his penis be pickling in a jar?We're in the middle of some willy related episodes at the moment, and it would be wrong not to include the man, the myth, the 'mad monk'. In this episo ...  Show more

To many she's known as Lady Jane Grey, but history should remember her as Queen Jane I.She was only queen for 9 days in 1553, but this made her the first ever queen of England when she was just 16.What happened in her short life that made her suddenly the most powerful woman in E ...  Show more

From seductive sorceresses to withered necromancers, witches play a varied - and vital - role in ancient history. Recorded in classical epics by the likes of Homer, and immortalised in tragedies by Euripides, the names Circe and Medea resonate across society and culture even t ...

Suzannah Lipscomb joins Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook to discuss the history of witches and witchcraft. Why did society see witches as a threat and what is the modern equivalent of a witch hunt? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices 

In 1682 three women, Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles and Susannah Edwards, from the town of Bideford were tried and hanged as witches. They were convicted on flimsy evidence, including an incident where a magpie, supposedly a symbol of the devil, had spooked the wife of a local m ...  Show more

Season 3, Episode 11. Between 1450 and 1750, some 100,000 Europeans were tried for witchcraft, and some of the most intense periods of witchy panic took place in Scotland and England. Most, but not all, of these so-called witches were women. During this special Halloween episo ...