The Salem Witch Trials

The book is one for younger readers, and summarizes the events involved in the Salem witch trials.

It has something I have not seen in any other book on the subject, though. It claims that some of the girls involved in making the accusations were in the local inn and making fun of the people they had accused. The innkeeper “sharply told them they lied. The children shrugged and giggled, one of them saying that 'they must have some sport.'”

This would be very good evidence of the girls' guilt in making false accusations if it is, indeed, true.

The book also brings up the theory that the girls might have eaten rye bread contaminated with a fungus that could cause hallucinations, although this would have required only the girls and no boys or adults eating the same bread, which would be sort of hard to explain.

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