stacy: early january are late february, two little girls, nine-year-old and 11-year-old starkey convulsednd twitch and shutter and shrieked and ultimately will hide in small corners of the room. the symptoms are more or less identical to symptoms described by cotton mather in a 1680 boston case of witchcraft when was afflicted.ly and the woman who lay accused or who is accuse in that case will hang. that case is known to everybody in salem at the time. brian: how did the trials begin? what started that? stacy: at the time of the first of afflictions begin, there is no political administration in place in massachusetts who has -- which is been without a government for three years. it seems know what to try the case. it's a little unclear if the acting governor could have set up in court if he wanted to. a new governor arrives in may. the prisons are filled because ans has taken on and -- exponential life of its own. and he will set up a witchcraft court that will set up early in the summer to start to try the cases. he puts nine men, five who has to be in the room at each trial. the chief