Episode Description
Fast Day in Salem: Prayer, Fasting, and Abigail Williams’ Witch Feast Vision
In this episode, we follow Thursday, March 31, 1692, as Salem observes a Puritan fast day while Abigail Williams reports seeing about 40 witches feasting near the Salem Village parsonage of minister Samuel Parris and claims the specter of Rebecca Nurse attacks her. We explore how Puritans in New England viewed prayer and fasting—grounded in the Gospel of Mark—as powerful defenses against demonic possession and witchcraft, from private household fasts like those held for the Goodwin children in 1688 and the Parris family earlier in 1692, to government-ordered public fasts during crises, including the 1697 fast when Judge Samuel Sewall’s apology was read aloud. We also preview Abigail’s testimony pattern, listing multiple March and April dates when she says Nurse afflicted her.
00:00 Fast Day in Salem
00:33 Why Puritans Fasted
00:54 Private Fasts and Afflictions
01:31 Public Fast Days
02:15 Witches Sabbath Allegation
03:05 Rebecca Nurse Specter Claims
03:18 Testimony Timeline Wrap Up
Sign the petition to exonerate Massachusetts witch trial victims
Find My Massachusetts Legislators
The Thing About Witch Hunts / About Salem YouTube channel
Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692
Bernard Rosenthal, ed., Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt
Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience
Marilynne K. Roach, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege