A 15th Century Guide to Spotting a Witch

Books have always had the power to cast a spell over their readers -- figuratively. But one book that was quite popular from the 15th to 17th centuries, and infamously so, is literally about spells: what witches do, how do identify them, how to get them to confess, and how to bring them to swift punishment. As fear of witches reached a fever pitch in Europe, witch hunters turned to the "Malleus Maleficarum," or "Hammer of Witches," for guidance. The book’s instructions helped convict some of the tens of thousands of people -- almost all women -- who were executed during the period. Its bloody legacy stretched to North America, with 25 supposed "witches" killed in Salem, Massachusetts, in the late 1600s.