Set down the suspicious apple and mind the bubbling cauldron. These 120 witch trivia questions cover ancient goddesses, folklore, trials, familiar animals, famous books, movie covens, television spells, and enough broomstick history to make airport security seem refreshingly straightforward.
Cast a wider quiz net with our mythology trivia, Halloween trivia, and horror movie trivia.
Witch Folklore, Symbols & Magical Traditions
The familiar pointy-hat image combines centuries of art, theater, folklore, and prejudice. Real traditions are far more varied, which is one reason I never trust a costume-shop broom to explain history.
Q: What is a witch in traditional folklore?
A: A person believed to use magic, often for harmful or supernatural purposes.
Q: What word describes the practice of alleged witch magic?
A: Witchcraft.
Q: What is a coven?
A: A group or gathering of witches in some traditions and modern religions.
Q: Which household tool became a famous witch vehicle?
A: A broomstick.
Q: What vessel is commonly shown holding a witch’s brew?
A: A cauldron.
Q: What is a familiar spirit?
A: A supernatural helper believed to assist a witch, sometimes appearing as an animal.
Q: Which animal is most famously associated with witch familiars?
A: A black cat.
Q: Which nocturnal bird is also linked with witches and wisdom?
A: The owl.
Q: What pointed garment became standard in popular witch imagery?
A: A tall, pointed hat.
Q: Which color is strongly associated with Western witch costumes?
A: Black.
Q: What book contains instructions, charms, or magical knowledge?
A: A grimoire.
Q: What is a spell?
A: Words, gestures, or actions intended to produce a magical effect.
Q: What is a potion?
A: A prepared liquid believed or imagined to have magical properties.
Q: What is a charm in magical tradition?
A: An object or spoken formula meant to influence events or provide protection.
Q: What is a hex?
A: A curse or harmful spell.
Q: What is divination?
A: The practice of seeking hidden knowledge or predicting events through supernatural means.
Q: Which reflective object appears in crystal-gazing divination?
A: A crystal ball.
Q: What card deck is widely used for divination?
A: Tarot cards.
Q: What does a pentagram look like?
A: A five-pointed star drawn with intersecting lines.
Q: How does a pentacle differ from a basic pentagram?
A: A pentacle usually places the five-pointed star within a circle.
Q: What is an amulet?
A: An object worn or carried for protection.
Q: What is a talisman?
A: An object believed to bring a specific magical benefit or power.
Q: Which poisonous plant shares a name with a deadly-nightshade relative?
A: Belladonna, also called deadly nightshade.
Q: Why were herbs linked with witches?
A: Healers and magical practitioners used plants for medicine, ritual, poison, and symbolism.
Q: What does “maleficium” mean in witch-trial records?
A: Harmful magic or sorcery.
Q: What was a witches’ sabbath in hostile early modern accounts?
A: An alleged nighttime gathering for forbidden rites.
Q: Which horned figure was sometimes falsely said to preside over sabbaths?
A: The Devil in Christian demonological accounts.
Q: What is the difference between folklore and evidence?
A: Folklore records stories and beliefs, not proof that supernatural events occurred.
Q: Which modern religion includes practitioners who may identify as witches?
A: Wicca, though not every Wiccan uses that identity.
Q: Who publicly introduced Wicca in 20th-century Britain?
A: Gerald Gardner.
Witch Trials, Salem & Historical Accusations
Witch trials were not whimsical stories about spells. They were legal and social disasters that targeted real people, so accuracy matters more here than a spooky punchline.
Q: When did the Salem witch trials begin?
A: 1692.
Q: Where did the Salem accusations begin?
A: Salem Village in colonial Massachusetts.
Q: What is Salem Village called today?
A: Danvers, Massachusetts.
Q: Who were the first two girls whose symptoms stirred the crisis?
A: Betty Parris and Abigail Williams.
Q: Who was Betty Parris’s father?
A: Reverend Samuel Parris.
Q: Which three women were first accused in Salem?
A: Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne.
Q: Who was Tituba?
A: An enslaved woman in Samuel Parris’s household.
Q: How many people were executed during the Salem witch trials?
A: Twenty people, including 19 by hanging and one by pressing.
Q: Who was pressed to death in Salem?
A: Giles Corey.
Q: What plea did Giles Corey refuse to enter?
A: He refused to plead guilty or not guilty.
Q: Which phrase is traditionally attributed to Giles Corey?
A: “More weight.”
Q: Who was the first person hanged in the Salem trials?
A: Bridget Bishop.
Q: How did most Salem executions occur?
A: By hanging.
Q: What happened to people accused of witchcraft who died in jail?
A: Several died from illness, exposure, or harsh conditions.
Q: What was spectral evidence?
A: Testimony that an accused person’s spirit or specter harmed someone.
Q: Why was spectral evidence controversial?
A: It relied on unverifiable visions and dreams rather than physical acts.
Q: Which governor ended the special Salem court?
A: Governor William Phips.
Q: What court conducted many Salem trials?
A: The Court of Oyer and Terminer.
Q: What happened when a new court restricted spectral evidence?
A: Convictions sharply declined and the crisis ended.
Q: Which minister criticized reliance on spectral evidence?
A: Increase Mather, among others.
Q: What did Increase Mather say about innocent and guilty people?
A: It was better for ten suspected witches to escape than one innocent person be condemned.
Q: When did Massachusetts formally apologize for the trials?
A: Public acts of repentance and later exonerations occurred over several centuries, beginning in 1697.
Q: Which Salem accuser publicly apologized in 1706?
A: Ann Putnam Jr.
Q: What caused the Salem crisis according to historians?
A: A mix of local conflict, fear, legal failure, belief, illness, and social tension.
Q: Which European regions held especially intense witch hunts?
A: Parts of the Holy Roman Empire, Switzerland, France, and Scotland.
Q: When did European witch hunts peak?
A: Roughly between 1560 and 1630.
Q: Who wrote Malleus Maleficarum?
A: Heinrich Kramer, with Jacob Sprenger historically named but likely minimally involved.
Q: What was Malleus Maleficarum?
A: A late 15th-century demonological manual advocating prosecution of witches.
Q: Which Scottish king wrote Daemonologie?
A: James VI of Scotland, later James I of England.
Q: Why were women disproportionately accused?
A: Misogyny, social vulnerability, religious ideas, and gendered suspicion shaped accusations.
Witches in Mythology, Fairy Tales & Classic Literature
Storybook witches range from wise advisers to cannibalistic homeowners with questionable building materials. If a house is made of dessert, I now assume there is a zoning problem and keep walking.
Q: Which Greek goddess is associated with magic, crossroads, and ghosts?
A: Hecate.
Q: Which enchantress transforms Odysseus’s men into swine?
A: Circe.
Q: Where does Circe live in the Odyssey?
A: On the island of Aeaea.
Q: Which sorceress helps Jason obtain the Golden Fleece?
A: Medea.
Q: Who is Medea’s divine grandfather?
A: Helios, the sun god.
Q: Which Norse goddess is associated with seiðr magic?
A: Freyja.
Q: What was a völva in Norse society?
A: A female seer and practitioner of prophecy or seiðr.
Q: Which Slavic folklore figure lives in a hut on chicken legs?
A: Baba Yaga.
Q: What does Baba Yaga often travel in?
A: A mortar, using a pestle and sweeping away tracks with a broom.
Q: How does Baba Yaga behave in different tales?
A: She may threaten, test, help, or advise the hero.
Q: Which fairy-tale siblings encounter a cannibalistic witch?
A: Hansel and Gretel.
Q: What is the witch’s house made from?
A: Bread or cake with sugar decorations, depending on the version.
Q: How does Gretel defeat the witch?
A: She pushes her into the oven.
Q: Which fairy tale features an evil queen using a poisoned apple?
A: Snow White.
Q: What disguise does the queen use when offering the apple?
A: An old peddler woman or crone.
Q: Which fairy tale includes the fairy Maleficent in Disney’s version?
A: Sleeping Beauty.
Q: What curse does Maleficent place on Aurora?
A: Aurora will prick her finger on a spinning-wheel spindle and die before sunset on her 16th birthday.
Q: How do the good fairies alter Maleficent’s curse?
A: Aurora will sleep until awakened by true love’s kiss.
Q: Which Shakespeare play opens with three witches?
A: Macbeth.
Q: What title do the Macbeth witches share?
A: The Weird Sisters.
Q: What prophecy do the witches give Macbeth?
A: He will become Thane of Cawdor and king.
Q: What warning do they give about Macduff?
A: Macbeth should beware Macduff.
Q: Which forest do they say will move toward Dunsinane?
A: Birnam Wood.
Q: Who wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz?
A: L. Frank Baum.
Q: How many prominent directional witches appear in Baum’s first Oz novel?
A: Four, representing the North, South, East, and West.
Q: Which witch does Dorothy’s house kill?
A: The Wicked Witch of the East.
Q: What kills the Wicked Witch of the West in the novel?
A: Water.
Q: Which author created the White Witch of Narnia?
A: C. S. Lewis.
Q: What is the White Witch’s name?
A: Jadis.
Q: What condition does Jadis impose on Narnia?
A: Endless winter without Christmas.
Movie Witches, Television Covens & Hard Witch Trivia
Screen witches have given us green skin, twitching noses, musical covens, and one very dangerous book bound in skin. My preferred magical power remains making dishes wash themselves.
Q: Who plays the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 Wizard of Oz?
A: Margaret Hamilton.
Q: What color is the Wicked Witch’s skin in the 1939 film?
A: Green.
Q: What does the Wicked Witch write across the sky?
A: “Surrender Dorothy.”
Q: Which movie features the Sanderson sisters?
A: Hocus Pocus.
Q: What are the Sanderson sisters’ first names?
A: Winifred, Mary, and Sarah.
Q: Who plays Winifred Sanderson?
A: Bette Midler.
Q: What town is the setting of Hocus Pocus?
A: Salem, Massachusetts.
Q: Which 1990 film stars Anjelica Huston as the Grand High Witch?
A: The Witches.
Q: Who wrote the novel The Witches?
A: Roald Dahl.
Q: What do the witches plan to turn children into?
A: Mice.
Q: Which 1996 film follows four teenage witches?
A: The Craft.
Q: What school do the girls attend in The Craft?
A: St. Benedict’s Academy.
Q: Which fictional deity do the girls invoke?
A: Manon.
Q: Which television witch lives at 1164 Morning Glory Circle?
A: Samantha Stephens in Bewitched.
Q: How does Samantha often perform magic?
A: By twitching her nose.
Q: Who plays Samantha Stephens?
A: Elizabeth Montgomery.
Q: Which teenage witch lives with aunts Hilda and Zelda?
A: Sabrina Spellman.
Q: What is Sabrina’s talking cat called?
A: Salem Saberhagen.
Q: Which three sisters are the Charmed Ones in the original Charmed?
A: Prue, Piper, and Phoebe Halliwell, later joined by Paige Matthews.
Q: What is the Charmed sisters’ magical book called?
A: The Book of Shadows.
Q: Which American Horror Story season focuses on a New Orleans coven?
A: Coven.
Q: Who is the Supreme at the beginning of Coven?
A: Fiona Goode.
Q: Which Harry Potter character is called the brightest witch of her age?
A: Hermione Granger.
Q: Who is Hogwarts’s Transfiguration professor?
A: Minerva McGonagall.
Q: Which witch leads the Death Eaters alongside Voldemort?
A: Bellatrix Lestrange.
Q: What broom model does Harry receive in his first year?
A: A Nimbus 2000.
Q: Which musical tells the backstory of Elphaba and Glinda?
A: Wicked.
Q: Who wrote the novel that inspired Wicked?
A: Gregory Maguire.
Q: What is Elphaba’s signature song in the musical?
A: “Defying Gravity.”
Q: Why does witch trivia require careful context?
A: History, religion, folklore, fiction, and living spiritual practices use the word differently.
How Did You Score?
If spectral evidence, Hecate, Baba Yaga’s mortar, the Weird Sisters, Jadis, Samantha’s nose, Manon, and Elphaba all behaved themselves, your witch trivia is properly enchanted. I missed one broom question and have chosen to blame airport turbulence.
Ellie Ewert is the founder and author of RandomTrivia.co, blending her passion for research with years of experience in content creation to deliver accurate, engaging, and well-sourced trivia. Dedicated to providing readers with trustworthy and entertaining facts, she applies meticulous fact-checking and SEO expertise to ensure every article meets the highest standards. Read more about our high standards in our Editorial Guidelines.