50 free Witch trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
44 free Witch trivia questions with answers. Witches have been feared, burned, worshipped and turned into sitcom stars, and this quiz covers the whole span. It moves from the Salem trials and the European witch hunts (Matthew Hopkins, the Pendle witches, the Malleus Maleficarum, the last executions) through folklore and literature (Baba Yaga's chicken-legged hut, Macbeth's Weird Sisters, Roald Dahl's Grand High Witch) to modern Wicca and the witches of pop culture: the Wizard of Oz, Bewitched, Hocus Pocus, Sabrina and Wicked. Easy questions cover things anyone knows from Halloween. Harder ones ask who was hanged first at Salem, what the witch cake was made of, how many were executed across Europe, what skyclad means, and where Wicked opened on Broadway. It suits a Halloween party, a history class or a spooky pub quiz round. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the trials, the folklore, Wicca and the films and shows, and each question carries its source.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Salem witch trials took place in which years?
1692 to 1693
Thirty people were convicted and nineteen hanged; a modern town, Danvers, occupies the old Salem Village where the accusations began.
Q 02How many people were executed by hanging at Salem?
Nineteen
Fourteen women and five men; Giles Corey was separately pressed to death and at least five people died in jail.
Q 03How did Giles Corey die during the Salem trials?
Pressed to death under stones
The torture, peine forte et dure, was meant to force a plea; legend has him answering only "more weight."
Q 04Who was the first person tried and executed at Salem, in June 1692?
Bridget Bishop
She was indicted and tried on June 2 and hanged eight days later; the first three arrested were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and the enslaved Tituba.
Q 05In what year was the last convicted Salem witch, Elizabeth Johnson Jr., formally exonerated?
2022
That was 329 years after her conviction; earlier acts had cleared others in 1711, 1957 and 2001.
Q 06Nobody was burned at Salem. What did the 'witch cake' used to detect witchcraft contain?
Rye meal and the urine of the afflicted girls
It was fed to a dog; the minister Samuel Parris had explicitly warned his flock against such folk tests.
Q 07The Malleus Maleficarum, the notorious witch-hunting manual, was written by which German inquisitor?
Heinrich Kramer
It was published in Speyer in 1486 and spread fast thanks to the new printing press.
Q 08What does Malleus Maleficarum mean?
Hammer of the Witches
Top theologians at Cologne condemned it for recommending illegal procedures, but it became a bestseller anyway.
Q 09Which pope issued the 1484 bull Summis desiderantes affectibus against devil-worshippers?
Innocent VIII
Kramer had the bull printed as the preface of the Malleus to imply papal approval.
Q 10Modern historians estimate how many people were executed for witchcraft in Europe?
35,000 to 60,000
Estimates since the 1990s put it at 35,000 to 60,000. Around three-quarters or more were women, and central and southern Germany saw the heaviest persecution.
Q 11Which self-styled 'Witchfinder General' drove England's witch-hunting peak in 1644-47?
Matthew Hopkins
His tests included stripping suspects to find the witches' mark, pricking the skin, and the swimming test.
Q 12Which king attended witch trials after storms hit his bridal voyage and wrote the manual Daemonologie?
James VI of Scotland
The North Berwick trials saw more than 70 accused; James later became James I of England, Shakespeare's patron.
Q 13The Pendle witches were tried in 1612 in which English county?
Lancashire
The twelve accused were charged with ten murders by witchcraft; the trial's clerk Thomas Potts wrote it up as The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches.
Q 21The concept of a witch's 'flying ointment' first appears in records from about which year?
1456
Modern researchers note the plants involved contained hallucinogenic tropane alkaloids, one of which can be absorbed through the skin.
Q 22What was the older English word for a broom, still used for the twiggy witch's version?
Besom
Birch besoms were bound with a strip of ash wood; broom the word comes from the broom plant whose twigs were used.
Q 23Baba Yaga, the witch of Slavic folklore, lives in a hut that stands on what?
Chicken legs
She flies about in a mortar, steers with a pestle and sweeps her tracks away with a broom.
Q 14Anna Göldi, often called Europe's last person executed for witchcraft, died in 1782 in which country?
Switzerland
She was executed in Glarus; Barbara Zdunk was killed in Prussia as late as 1811.
Q 15At one point in the Würzburg trials of 1629, what share of the accused were children?
60 percent
Würzburg, Bamberg, Trier and Fulda hosted the largest German trials of the era.
Q 16Which country executed a man for practising witchcraft and sorcery in 2014?
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia beheaded a man for sorcery in 2014. Witchcraft accusations have also led to violence in parts of Africa, South Asia and Papua New Guinea in the 2010s and 2020s.
Q 17In English folk belief, what is a 'familiar'?
A demon in animal form
Cats, toads and hares were typical; the idea that witches have animal helpers is found on several continents.
Q 18Which modern religion, made public by Gerald Gardner in 1954, is the main form of contemporary witchcraft?
Wicca
Gardner was a retired British civil servant; his High Priestess Doreen Valiente wrote much of the liturgy.
Q 19Wicca is typically duotheistic, honouring a Triple Goddess and which male deity?
The Horned God
Its seasonal festivals are the Sabbats, and its lunar rites the Esbats.
Q 20What is the traditional Wiccan word for practising rituals in the nude?
Skyclad
Tradition also holds that thirteen is the ideal size for a coven, though it is not a firm rule.
Q 24In Macbeth, which goddess scolds the three witches for meddling with Macbeth without her?
Hecate
Many scholars believe the Hecate scenes were added by another writer, possibly Thomas Middleton.
Q 25Holinshed describes Macbeth and Banquo meeting three women 'resembling creatures of' what?
Elder world
The play calls them the Weird Sisters, from wyrd, the Old English word for fate.
Q 26What caused Margaret Hamilton's serious burns while filming The Wizard of Oz?
Flames ignited her copper-based green makeup
The toxic makeup normally had to be removed with acetone; she suffered third-degree burns to her hands and face.
Q 27How does Dorothy accidentally destroy the Wicked Witch of the West?
She splashes her with a bucket of water
The witch's guards are the Winkies, and asbestos was used for the burning broomstick effect.
Q 28In the 1939 film, how does Glinda the Good Witch arrive?
In a bubble
Billie Burke played her; she tells Dorothy the house has landed on the Wicked Witch of the East.
Q 29In Hocus Pocus, what is the surname of the three witches?
Sanderson
Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy played them; a sequel arrived on Disney+ in 2022.
Q 30What punishment do the Hocus Pocus witches inflict on Thackery Binx?
They turn him into an immortal black cat
They also raise Winifred's ex-fiancé Billy Butcherson from the grave to chase the children.