Why a book about witch trials feels weirdly relevant today

Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Witches have always provided inspiration for culture of every kind, from the atmospheric plotters in Macbeth via Arthur Miller’s The Crucible to the curiously enduring bright green visage of hit musical Wicked. In the climactic scene of Tidelands, Alinor is stripped and searched for “witch’s marks”, which could include strangely shaped birthmarks or, most damningly of all, an extra nipple used for suckling “familiars” – animals like cats or toads that were thought to be satan’s little helpers. Everyone looked at Alinor, who… was known as a cunning woman with skills beyond this world.” Pretty soon, everyone is also enthusiastically baying “swim her”, the euphemistic term for holding a suspect underwater. It’s only been eight years since Australia’s Tony Abbott condoned “ditch the witch” as a slogan against the then prime minister Julia Gillard; four years since Donald Trump decried TV moderator Megyn Kelly for having “blood coming out of her wherever”.