I was going through the 1500s legal records of Essex, England on a Genealogy search and came across several instances of "spinsters" getting a kind of one year suspended sentence for "bewitching" someone's cow or pig to death. Many of these are documented in the book "Witch Hunting and Witch Trials" by C. L'Estrange Ewen. It seems the superstitions were widely believed, while the accused always plead innocent and was given a mild punishment (as though the authorities didn't take it that seriously). I guess marriage and children were great protections, as otherwise one was looked upon with suspicion? In Plymouth MA, archeologists found urine jars buried under thresholds to scare witches. It seems Christianity and Paganism coexisted as folks wanted to "cover all bases". The good news is that no matter how ridiculous the premise back then, they did aspire to conducting a fair trial.