How To Kill A Witch

Publisher: Octopus Publishing Group
Publish date: 5 March 2026
Pages: 320
Language: English

Subjects: History, Women, Body, Mind & Spirit, Witchcraft, Religion, Wicca, Social Science, Feminism & Feminist Theory

'Vivid storytellers.' THE TIMES

'As well as highly entertaining read, How To Kill A Witch is a tour de force of research, understanding and compassion.' PROFESSOR SUE BLACK, author of All That Remains

'Fascinating, angering' THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

'A work of real historical investigation and a fierce warning for our times.' MALCOLM GASKILL, author of The Ruin Of All Witches

'Tempers the justifiable rage with sharp and funny pinpricks to the pompous.' VAL MCDERMID, author of Past Lying

As a woman, if you lived in Scotland in the 1500s, there was a very good chance that you, or someone you knew, would be tried as a witch. Witch hunts ripped through the country for over 150 years, with at least 4,000 accused, and with many women's fates sealed by a grizzly execution of strangulation, followed by burning.

Inspired to correct this historic injustice, campaigners and writers Claire Mitchell, KC, and Zoe Venditozzi, have delved deeply into just why the trials exploded to such a degree. In order to understand why it happened, they have broken down the entire horrifying process, step-by-step, from identification of individuals, to their accusation, 'pricking', torture, confessions, execution and beyond.

With characteristically sharp wit and a sense of outrage, they attempt to inhabit the minds of the persecutors, often men, revealing the inner workings of exactly why the patriarchy went to such extraordinary lengths to silence women, and how this legally sanctioned victimisation proliferated in Scotland and around the world.

With testimony from a small army of experts, pen portraits of the women accused, trial transcripts, witness accounts and the documents that set the legal grounds for the hunts, How to Kill A Witch builds to form a rich patchwork of tragic stories, helping us comprehend the underlying reasons for this terrible injustice, and raises the serious question - could it ever happen again?