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American History

The 1970s Witchcraft Trial and Other Oddities in Witch History

witchcraft trial

25. A Me Too! Frenzy of Witchcraft Confessions Swept This School

antoinette bourignon
Antoinette Bourignon triggered a panic that almost got her students burned at the stake for witchcraft. ChatGPT

A schoolgirl ran away, too scared to stay in an establishment infested with little black devils who might possess her at any moment, as the headmistress and her staff constantly warned the students. When brought back, she claimed not to have run away, but to have been carried away by the Devil. Also, that she was a witch who had practiced witchcraft since she was seven years old. When they heard that, about fifty other schoolgirls began to have fits.

When they came to, they joined in a “me, too!” rush, and claimed to be witches as well. In their clamor to confess, the children competed to outdo each other with the details of their witchcraft. Some claimed to ride on broomsticks. They were topped by others who claimed an ability to pass through keyholes. Those were trumped in turn by those who claimed to have feasted on the flesh of babies or to have attended the Domdaniel, the gathering of the demons.

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A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.

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