"It was a thousand to one and a million to two Time to go down in flames and I'm taking you Closer to the edge...Can you imagine a time when the truth ran free...Paid for with pride and fate...One day maybe we'll meet again."

Back in 1692-1693, the witch trials began in Salem, MA.  150 people were accused of witchcraft, they started because some girls didn't like some people in their town, and nobody would listen to them, so finally they hurt themselves and cried out saying that the people they didn't like did this to them.  Now in one of my classes, we are doing a mock witch trial after a book we just read; everyone got a part in the trial.  You have the judge, the jury, the prosecutors, the defenders, the victims, and the witch/conjurer them self.  I am one of the afflicted girls/victims of this trial.  I have been beaten and given and forced to do things by a man named George Burroughs.  This is a real story.  In the trial, I am the victim Mercy Lewis.  George Burroughs carried me up a mountain and offered me the whole world if I wrote in his book.  And at the trial, he was proven guilty because of the cuts I and the other victims had put on ourselves but claimed he did them.  George was later hanged in the gallows on Gallows Hill, Salem.  But while he was there, he recited the Lord's Prayer which was thought to be impossible for a witch or wizard to do, though it still changed nothing but did give everyone a shock.  For some reason, I am very excited to act out this trial, and I feel I could get into this very well, and I hope I do well too :).  Right when my dad got home I asked him if we could go see a mock witch trial in Salem, and he said sure. :D I am very excited and I truly hope we do.  I have never been to Salem, so this would be my first time.  My summer just keeps getting better. :)) In the end, no one really did practice witchcraft during this time, so all the accusations and trials were just about superstition and dislike for people in their town, but the Puritans back then were very strict and kept to the Bible.  Taking things in the Bible very literally, and lived by what they perceived from it.  The Puritans came to New England for religious freedom, but when other religious groups came, the Puritans didn't like the other groups very well, and so shunned them in a way.  Made them outcasts.  There really was no freedom, truth was forced, many people had pride, but no one really had a say less they were a Puritan.  Overall, things have changed quite a lot, thank goodness!