DR Jenner’s House and Garden in Berkeley is delighted to welcome well-known TV personality and academic Professor Ronald Hutton FBA to give the latest in its series of Old Cyder House Talks next Thursday, 30 January.

There are many stereotypes that have entered our popular imagination about witches and witchcraft beliefs, many of which emanate from the days of the Great European Witch Hunt. Witches were said to fly about at night, drink blood, kill babies, devour human corpses and have a whole range of weird, wonderful and frightening characteristics. Images of the witchcraft trials of the middle ages have also entered our consciousness when all over Europe the use of ducking stools, trial by drowning, judicial burnings and a whole manner of other barbaric persecutions were meted out on those suspected of witchcraft.

This illustrated talk will separate fact from fiction, reality from make-believe, and shed a fascinating light on the persecution of people suspected of being “witches”.

Ronald Hutton is leading authority on history of the British Isles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, on ancient and medieval paganism and magic, and on the global context of witchcraft beliefs. He is also the leading historian of the ritual year in Britain and of modern paganism. He is a prolific author having published more than fourteen books, as well as being a popular TV presenter well-known for recent tv documentaries including Professor Hutton’s Curiosities and A Very British Witchcraft.

The talk will be given on Thursday 30 January at 7.30pm. Tickets are £7.50 which includes a drinks reception from 7pm. Seats may be booked in advance by contacting the museum on 01453 810631 or email info@edwardjenner.co.uk

More information can also be found on the museum website www.jennermuseum.com.