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

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The Thing About Witch Hunts / About Salem YouTube channel

⁠Salem Witch Trials Daily Hub

⁠The Thing About Salem

⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts

⁠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

Peabody Essex Museum Salem Witch Trials Collection