Tony Robinson's Superstitions

2,000 years ago, religion was vastly different. Join us as we investigate some of the darker rituals of our pagan ancestors. Tony Robinson delves into Britain's past to scrutinise the diverse religious belief systems that were practised by its inhabitants centuries ago.

Today, witches are the stuff of fairy tales…but step back to the 16th and 17th centuries; everyone thought witches were terrifyingly real! Investigate the evil spells and dark rituals of witchcraft in Britain during the reign of the Tudors and Stuarts. Witches were a parody of a woman’s real role in society. They were thought to attend satanic covens where they would dance and sing backwards, make stews from human body parts and fly on a broom greased with the bones of dead babies

Featuring dramatic reconstructions, the opening programme examines our fascination with and terror of dead bodies. People in the past believed that even in death a body retained some vital force, and that the dead could rise from the grave to cause havoc among the living. Why did they believe this? What powers did they believe the dead had? And what did they do about it? Tony's journey takes him on a fascinating and sometimes humorous tour of some of the darkest recesses of the ancient mind, and brings him face to face with a plague-breathing zombie, a dead body that seems alive three weeks after it died, and the English monarchs who ate the bodies of their subjects.

Imagine a world full of demons who could enter your body and take control of it. A world populated by invisible spirits that would steal humans - and especially babies, leaving 'changelings' in their place. A world where inappropriate behaviour or mental illness was taken as evidence of possession by a devil, and a sign that your soul was damned to hell. For thousands of years this was the world our ancestors believed they lived in, and it was utterly terrifying. But why did they believe this? What did they think spirits were? And what did they do to try and defend themselves against them? With the aid of dramatic reconstructions Tony tries to answer these questions. He travels from Roman Britain to 19th-century Ireland; on the way he reveals the story of a woman who became possessed when she was enveloped in a white cloud, he learns how to perform an exorcism, summons up demons using mediaeval black magic, and reveals the horrifying story of a 19th-century woman who was killed by her husband because he thought she'd been replaced by a fairy.

Instead of blaming bacteria, viruses or failing organs, our ancestors blamed disease and illness on demons, sprites and God. They sought cures not in pills or plasters, but in prayer, potions and the paranormal. Disease was supernatural and was associated with evil; the body was a battleground between the forces of good and evil. Tony's journey back into this world begins in Saxon times 1400 years ago. He discovers how relics from a bygone culture led people to believe that ailments such as strokes and angina were caused by mischievous elves. Looking back to the Stone Age, Tony attempts to recreate a horrifying surgical procedure pioneered 6000 years ago, which involved cutting through a skull to expose the brain. The hole in the head provided an escape route for the evil spirits that had invaded the victim's body. Warding off sickness might just mean using heavenly fragrances but if your sickness was a divine punishment, treatment meant penance, flagellation, prayer and fasting