History Main / BurnTheWitch

* In the Disney movie, ''WesternAnimation/{{The Hunchback of Notre Dame|Disney}}'', Esmeralda almost suffers this fate at the hands of Frollo after she refuses to submit to him. (She is not accused of being a witch in [[Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame the original book]]). [[note]] Well, if you want to get picky, she ''was'' accused by a young woman of being a witch, but she was ''charged'' with (and hanged for) being a murderer. [[spoiler:She is, of course, neither.]][[/note]] Interestingly, the crowd seems to rather be on ''her'' side and say so, no doubt at least partly due to Frollo's lengthy sack of his own city in order to find her.

* [[BurnTheWitch/LiveActionFilms Films - Live-Action]]

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]

* The passage of Exodus 22:18 from Literature/TheBible (and its quite popular King James variant mentioned as the page quote) was used to justify many a WitchHunt back in the bad old days. It should be noted, however, that the meaning of "witch" or "sorceress" back then primarily referred to someone who used bad and injurious magic, rather than all magic. And some scholars have argued that the passage really referred to poisoners rather than magic users.

The "swimming" of witches, one of the most famous methods of interrogating a suspected witch, had the virtue of being both pointless and redundant. Popular belief makes it out as a MortonsFork, saying that if the woman floated, that proved she was a witch, and they'd pull her out and kill her. If the woman sank, that proved she wasn't a witch... but she'd drown and still be dead. Actually the woman would be tied to a rope: if she did float, they would pull her out, and the fact would be regarded as incriminating. (Of course sometimes they wouldn't do this quick enough, and she'd still drown. "Floating" could also be achieved by trickery with the ropes). If she sank, they would pull her out and clear her of charges. The ducking stool is an unrelated, non-lethal device of punishment where a woman was dunked in cold water for being a public nuisance of some sort.

** In "[[http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/3ourladyschild.html Our Lady's Child]] / "Mary's Child", the titular Child is a Queen who once lived in Heaven but was kicked out of it for disobeying an order from the Virgin Mary ''and'', whenever the Virgin tried to confront her, refusing to admit her responsibility. The worst punishment is having her three babies taken away by the Virgin for ''yet again'' not wanting to admit her sin; she's mistaken for a witch/ogress who [[OffingTheOffspring killed and ate her kids]] and about to be burned at the stake as such, despite her husband the King's desperate attempts to save her, but at the last moment she repents and mentally admits her wrongdoings. The Virgin forgives the girl and pulls a BigDamnHeroes by summoning a magical rain to extinguish the pyre, then brings the children back and makes sure that the exonerated girl and her family will be happy forever.

* There are several similar fairy tales (Creator/GrimmBrothers' "Literature/TheSixSwans" and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Brothers "The Twelve Brothers"]], Creator/HansChristianAndersen's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Swans "The Wild Swans"]], [[Creator/AsbjornsenAndMoe Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe's]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Wild_Ducks The Twelve Wild Ducks]]" where a princess who's trying to break a spell over her brothers is under one or another circumstances accused of witchcraft (Andersen) or infanticide (Grimms, Asbjørnsen and Moe) and is almost burned at the stake, but her brothers save her and she manages to undo the curses over them. In "The Six Swans", the girl's accuser [[KarmicDeath gets burned as punishment.]]

* In the Disney movie, ''WesternAnimation/{{The Hunchback of Notre Dame|Disney}}'', Esmeralda almost suffers this fate at the hands of Frollo after she refuses to submit to him. (She is not accused of being a witch in [[Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame the original book]]). [[note]] Well, if you want to get picky, she ''was'' accused by a young woman of being a witch, but she was ''charged'' with (and hanged for) being a murderer. [[spoiler:She is, of course, neither.]][[/note]] Interestingly, the crowd seems to rather be on ''her'' side and say so, no doubt due to Frollo's lengthy sack of his own city in order to find her.

* ''Theatre/TheCrucible'', a play which has as its running theme the Salem witch trials, and was written, very tellingly, during the communist witch-hunts in America, is actually an aversion -- they don't burn the witches, instead hanging them, as was actually done in the trials.

-->'''Tristan:''' He must be a witch! [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail He turned me into a newt!]] ''({{beat}})'' I got better.

** Perhaps the first victim of witch-hunting in history we know the name of, was an ancient Greek woman named [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theoris_of_Lemnos Theoris of Lemnos]] (4th. century B.C.E./B.C.). She was executed with her children.

* UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc, who led the French army during UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar, was eventually captured by the Burgundians. She was put on trial for heresy in a KangarooCourt, was found guilty, and burned at the stake.

** After the Reformation witch-hunts gained rapid popularity on both sides of the fence, as religious paranoia rose to ridiculous degrees. Most of the witch-trials were performed by secular courts or minor clergy with little idea how to perform any actual investigation, though in Protestant countries even higher levels of clergy sometimes got themselves involved. Martin Luther was recorded saying something to the effect of: "I would gladly burn them myself."

* One of the first recorded convictions of witchcraft in Europe occurred in Ireland in 1324 and involved [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Kyteler Alice Kyteler]], a wealthy [[WidowWitch four-time widow]] accused by the local bishop and gossips of poisoning her former husbands for their estates, sacrificing animals to demons, heresy, sorcery and having sex with an incubus. In reality, she was probably only guilty of [[TheScrooge moneylending]], which piss-poor Middle Ages folk would have deeply resented. Something of an aversion, in that it was Kyteler's servant, [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique Jack Bauer'd]] into giving a possibly false confession, who was burned at the stake, while Kyteler herself fled to Europe and promptly disappeared from history. Her former house, in which authorities allegedly found such items as "body parts of an unbaptized infant; evil powders; communion wafers imprinted with satanic images; the fingernails and toenails of corpses boiled in the skull of a robber; candles made of human fat", is now a popular local pub.

* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5294 SCP-5294]] is described as a HumanoidAbomination physically similar to an elderly woman, which possesses a long, rodent-like tail, with a third eyeball at its tip. After being caught abducting several infants from their homes in the fictional settlement of [[SalemIsWitchCountry Brownsborough, Massachusetts]], she is executed by the townspeople, who first try burning her, which ultimately fails, so they resort to decapitating her instead, with dire results.

%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!

'''As a DeathTrope, several if not all Spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.'''

This trope is often the climax of a classical WitchHunt in media, with plenty of TorchesAndPitchforks to go around. These are not historically accurate, for the most part, being depicted in places and times when there were no witch-hunts, or misrepresenting ones that did occur. In particular, one of the most famous episodes of witch-hunting, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials Salem Witch Trials]], featured ''no'' burnings at all. The convicted were hanged — and indeed, those who "confessed" were held to answer more questions and freed when the hunt was stopped. In reality, in England and in English colonies like Massachusetts, burning at the stake was reserved for women commoner traitors[[note]]Noble traitors of both sexes were [[OffWithHisHead beheaded]]; commoner male traitors were [[RasputinianDeath hanged]], [[CruelAndUnusualDeath drawn]], [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill and quartered]][[/note]], women who killed their husbands (even in self-defense; this was seen as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petty_treason a form of treason]], hence the use of the same punishment) and for heretics. That said, there was some overlap, as heretics were often accused of witchcraft - and other way around - witchcraft was often[[note]]That is, by the 15/16th Century, almost everywhere outside England and its colonies, where witchcraft and heresy remained separate offences.[[/note]] considered a form of heresy.

* Music/{{Taylor Swift}}'s "I Did Something Bad" from her 2017 album ''reputation'' has the following lines: "They're burning all the witches even if you aren't one/They got their pitchforks and proof/Their receipts and reasons"

** Angela Wytte was also a near-victim (saved only by intervention of the king) , but was pushed over the DespairEventHorizon by the experience.
** [[spoiler: Dorian]] is burned as a witch. [[spoiler: or so everyone, including his twin Dani, thinks. In reality, Damian magically makes a wick-clone of his younger brother, and Dorian escapes.]]

* UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc, who led the French army during UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar, was eventually captured by the English. She was put on trial for heresy in a KangarooCourt, was found guilty, and burned at the stake.

[[caption-width-right:320:[[Music/AliciaKeys She's just a girl and she's on fire...]]]]

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5294 SCP-5294]] is described as a HumanoidAbomination physically similar to an elderly woman, which possesses a long, rodent-like tail, with a third eyeball at its tip. After being caught abducting several infants from their homes in the fictional settlement of [[SalemIsWitchCountry Brownsborough, Massachusetts]], she is executed by the townspeople, who first try burning her, which ultimately fails, so they resort to decapitating her instead, with dire results.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': Various factions present at [[spoiler:Eren's tribunal are rather paranoid about him (understandably) and want him dissected but then start accusing Mikasa of being a Human Titan too (much less understandably). Mikasa quickly puts a stop to this by demonstrating just how good she is at slicing things, which scares her would-be accusers off]].
* In ''Anime/BelladonnaOfSadness'', [[spoiler:this is what happens to the protagonist, the GirlNextDoor-turned-HotWitch Jeanne. Her husband Jean tries to rescue her, but he ends up turned into a HumanPincushion]].
* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'':
** This almost happens to Casca during the Conviction arc after her corrupted child summons several ghosts to protect her from Bishop Mozgus's ColdBloodedTorture at the Tower of Conviction, which drained him in the process. She's rescued by Isidro, who later becomes one of Guts's new set of TrueCompanions.
** [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior As a child]], Lady Farnese often took [[{{Pyromaniac}} great joy]] in assisting her town's burning of heretics.
* Vincent narrowly escapes getting hung for witchcraft in ''Manga/{{Bizenghast}}''. Later, we get Maphohetka, who definitely had some kind of supernatural ability, as evidenced by her surviving being stabbed in the chest, and is an antagonist to Dinah. In her defense, Maphohetka may be innocent of whatever she was accused of (since the exact nature of Bizenghast's misfortune is never revealed) and the townspeople do actually verge on the "evil and bigoted" side (keeping up their witch lynching traditions well into the late 19th-early 20th century).
* In ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'', back in the Middle Ages, the immortal woman Fraulein Kreutune was tried as a witch and sentenced to various forms of torture and execution, including being burned. Since she was immortal, none of them worked.
* ''Anime/CodeGeass'':
** ''Code Geass'' has this when a mystical trap causes Lelouch to see images of C.C.'s past, including multiple gruesome "deaths" -- one of which was, of course, burning at the stake. Justified in that C.C. is both [[HealingFactor immortal]] and [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld ageless]], plus she became immortal when she was a servant/slave girl in medieval times, meaning she ''did'' indeed live through the time when people were doing this sort of thing. It doesn't help matters that official sources both inside and outside the anime call her a witch.
** It also happens to Joan of Arc and Jeanne the Witch (who later becomes C.C.) in ''Manga/CodeGeassNightmareOfNunnally''. [[spoiler:Nunnally herself almost]] suffers the same fate.
* ''Anime/GrimmsFairyTaleClassics'':
** The episode that features ''Literature/TheSixSwans'' (mentioned below) has Princess Elise falsely accused of killing and eating her son by her WickedStepmother (who, in this version, [[CompositeCharacter is also]] the local HotWitch). She's tied up to a cross and about to be burned when she's rescued by her brothers, who then put on the magical shirts she made to undo their curse and return to their human forms; the youngest Prince/Swan returns the unharmed baby to her. Then the Witch tries to summon a powerful wind... [[KarmicDeath and reignites the witch-burning pyre, burning herself to death instead]].
** Averted in the ''Brother and Sister'' episode, where the WickedStepmother runs away and averts being burned. She's mentioned to have eventually died off-screen.
* In ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'', Asia Argento was praised by the Church for having HealingHands. Unfortunately, when it was discovered that her power works on everybody, including devils (she healed the devil Diodora Astaroth while thinking he was human, and he in fact planned this to alienate her from the Church), the Church accused her of gaining the power by a DealWithTheDevil and ordered her execution. Luckily, she meets the heroes.
* This is the ultimate fate of [[spoiler:the local BadassPreacher Colette ''and'' her followers]] in ''Manga/InnocentsShounenJuujigun'', since [[spoiler:she ran an underground church that offers godliness to those that would be unable to afford it under the strict rules of the Catholic Church]].
* Minoru Murao's manga ''Manga/{{Knights}}'' opens with an attempted witch burning, as a [[CorruptChurch corrupt priest]] is accusing the 13 year-old [[TokenMiniMoe Nina]] of witchcraft. He fails, and Nina is [[RescueRomance rescued]] by the [[MeaningfulName Black Knight]] and his [[MsFanservice might-as-well-be-naked companion]]. Later, the protagonist (and [[KnightInShiningArmor knight-in-training]]) Mist reveals it was merely a plot to seize her noble family's assets, since the Church is entitled to a witch's property without justification or investigation.
* In ''Anime/MahouTsukaiChappy'', when Chappy and her brother Jun come to Earth, they decide to not tell anyone about their powers to avert being burned at the stake.
* ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'':
** Evangeline says that despite being a [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]], she often had to escape such burnings during the middle ages, occasionally getting caught. She laughs about it as something highly amusing these days (the listeners were understandably horrified).
** There is also Asuna [[http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/2/06/ threatening]] to expose Negi early in the manga.
* ''Manga/PhantomThiefJeanne'', as a series whose protagonist is the reincarnation of Joan of Arc, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urYuIvZ2seg includes]] a scene that features Joan's fiery martyrdom.
* In ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'', [[spoiler:Joan was one of the ''Puella Magi'' and the GrandFinale of the TV series shows her with her Soul Gem in her hands as she's about to be burned at the stake]].
* In ''Anime/RageOfBahamutGenesis'', as Joan of Arc is about to be publically burned, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94LB3KTGQMI the crowds try to save her]] and fight the local knights for her. [[spoiler:Joan is so broken by her ordeals ''on top'' of watching the populace being hurt for her sake, she [[DespairEventHorizon gives in to despair]] and [[FaceHeelTurn inhales the demon's concoction]], which turns her into a {{Tykebomb}} of a demon and flies away with one objective: slay the Archangels holding Bahamut's seal.]]
* In ''Manga/SoulEater'', there are only two kinds of witches -- the stereotypical doomsday witches which are hunted down due to their destructive nature, and the [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire cute friendly witches]], which are also hunted down due to their destructive counterparts.
* In ''Manhwa/TheTarotCafe'', Pamela's mother (a midwife) was accused of witchcraft after the baby she was delivering and the child's mother both died. She confessed to witchcraft just so that she could plead for her daughter's safety and was burned at the stake. Pamela was later accused of witchcraft because she could see the future and because she rejected a creepy old priest's advances on her. Because she'd been exposed to the blood of a dragon, she was immortal and survived. A later story has her kidnapped by a group of religious fanatics who use her tarot cards as proof that she's a witch and try to kill her. Seeing as she's immortal, they don't succeed.
* [[DarkMagicalGirl Sally Schumars]] almost went through this in the ''Anime/WeissKreuz'' CD dramas, but [[spoiler:Farfarello]] rescued her.
* Going by the flashbacks, the eponymous ''Anime/WitchHunterRobin'' (with firestarter powers) was a normal, devout girl who got burned at the stake for being a witch. Or maybe that mysterious old lady was just messing with Robin's mind. In modern times (in Japan) they just get captured and shipped off... and, as the heroes learn to their disgust, drugged, put into PeopleJars and [[HumanResources used to make]] [[PoweredByAForsakenChild the anti-witchcraft drug]]. Either way, it all apparently stems from a long-standing prejudice against them, even though most people have forgotten where it came from to begin with.
* In ''Manga/AWitchsLoveAtTheEndOfTheWorld'', witches were persecuted out of fear by humans after coexisting for many years. The manga's opening ExpositionDump shows witches being killed this way in witch hunts. [[spoiler: In a subversion, the only named character to die in a witch hunt so far, Iris, was actually killed after an unspecified method of torture.]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/AmethystPrincessOfGemworld'': In ''Crisis on Infinite Earths'' #11, she was surrounded by a mob accusing her of being a witch and thinking the red skies are her doing. Fortunately, other mystic heroes came to her rescue.
* A recurring element in the ''ComicBook/BlackMagick'' series:
** In the first issue, a man who knows that Rowan possesses true magical power attempts to kill her by setting fire to her, because that is the traditional method used to kill witches. [[InvertedTrope She uses her abilities to redirect the flames to him instead]].
** Backmatter in the series includes journal writing and musings from a member of a witch hunting organization from the sixteenth century, and he reflects on the first time he saw a woman being burned as a child. This woman was ''not'' a witch, but had been falsely convicted by the zealotry and paranoia of the Catholic Church, and he had been brought to the burning by his father and grandfather [[NeverHurtAnInnocent so that he would never allow himself to make such a mistake himself]].
* The ''ComicBook/{{Chick Tract|s}}'' dealing with the Salem witch trials is called ''[[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1078/1078_01.asp Satan Comes to Salem]]'', but the Satan he refers to is not in the form of witches. Instead he blames wicked Puritans that have innocent Christians hanged for witchcraft. Perhaps surprisingly (given the comics' usual tone), Chick elaborates that "to justify the execution of witches...they used the Old Testament law [[Literature/TheBible (Exodus 22:18)]], but never considered New Testament grace [[Literature/TheBible (Matthew 5:44 & John 1:17)]]."
* ''ComicBook/LesCompagnonsDuCrepuscule'':
** Carmine and the knight are accused of witchcraft - a sentence which also applies to Mariotte and the actors (which go into hiding). The two former are burnt at the stake. At the beginning of the story, the villagers invoke it against Mariotte, effectively dooming themselves in the process.
** Mariotte is also captured by a mob in volume two, invoking the same trope.
* In ''[[Franchise/{{Batman}} Detective Comics]]'' #49, a ThemeSerialKiller attempts to kill one of his victims by reenacting Joan of Arc's execution by burning at the stake. The victim is saved by Jim Gordon who is wearing the Bat-suit at the time.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'', Hansel (of "Literature/HanselAndGretel") develops an obsession for burning witches after shoving the one from the story into her own oven. When he escapes to the Mundane world he is disgusted to find the witch survived, and the amnesty laws prevent him from doing anything to her. So, he travels to Europe and spearheads dozens of 'witch-burnings' because he can't do anything about the ''real'' ones in the world.
** The spin-off novel "Peter and Max" has the same witch threatened with a trial, to which she responds "[[BadassBoast The trouble with witch trials, is that once in a great while you actually capture a real one. And then the spectacle never turns out the way you anticipate. Often the one who ends up hanged, or drowned, or burned, isn't the one in the docket]]." Given the power she demonstrates throughout the series, this is not an empty threat from her, though it's possible that a less powerful practitioner might have legitimate reason to fear a trial.
* Agatha Harkness, babysitter for the ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' and the most powerful member of a MageSpecies, has this happen. It's only a minor inconvenience, though, and she goes around as a ghost for a while before eventually resurrecting herself.
* After the Monster leaves Antarctica in ''ComicBook/TheFrankensteinMonster'', the first thing he is greeted with when he comes in contact with civilization is a woman tied to a mast of a burning boat. He thinks she is victim of superstition, but it turns out she is actually a werewolf.
* Parodied in an issue of the ''ComicBook/{{Futurama}}'' comic book when Bender gets sent back through time into a Salem-esque area where townsfolk, having run out of witches to burn for their sour milk, spoiled crops and bitter wives, have started hunting ''robots''. Of course, being prejudiced morons, they asked the robots for a list of their weaknesses, and promptly got handed a book of such "facts" such as "robots feel no pain when their hair is cut", "robots are ticklish" and "robots float in water". Once the final test is complete, they try burning the poor sap, only to find ponds aren't easily set aflame. This gets the guy trying to do this some suspicious looks. Bender steps in and tries telling the townsfolk that their deeds are wrong, only to clue them in on the ''real'' robots. One SmashCut later they're both being burnt alive. [[spoiler:Of course, being robots, they don't burn at all.]]
* In ''ComicBook/LoriLovecraft: The Big Comeback'', an actress playing a witch in a film is tied to a pyre for a scene when a demon causes the pyre to ignite for real: burning her to death.
* In one article ''Magazine/{{MAD}}'' suggests that the convicted Salem witches did a music tour before their executions.
* In one story arc in ''ComicBook/MadameXanadu'', flashbacks reveal how Madame Xanadu's lesbian lover was burned as a witch by UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition. The executioner takes pity on her and snaps her neck before lighting the pyre.
* Averted in an issue of ''ComicBook/MarvelTeamUp'' in which Spider-Man time-travels to Salem and tries to save the victims of the Witch Trials. He fails but the witches were not burned (he finds them hanged, which is historically accurate).
* ''ComicBook/{{Melusine}}'': Even though Mélusine is generally trying to help the local villagers with her magic, a group of them are always trying to subject her to this. The pastor is the most persistent of them.
* Almost happens in an old ''ComicBook/{{Mickey Mouse|ComicUniverse}}'' comic where Mickey and Gyro Gearloose are transported back to Puritan times and Gyro uses his lighter to start a fire, getting him and Mickey accused of using witchcraft.
* ''ComicBook/{{Monstress}}'': As a way to anger her, Maika tells Lady Sophia that the devastation of Constantine happened when the Arcanics burnt five witches at the stake. While what happened in Constantine was caused by something else, there may be some truth to Arcanics burning witches, because Sophia took the bait.
* The ''Film/NationalLampoon'' did a brutal comic-book parody of ''Series/{{Bewitched}}'' where Samantha and Endora are practicing really dark magic, ending with their irate neighbors burning them at the stake - along with Darrin, whose dying words are "I never should have married you!"
* ''ComicBook/NemesisTheWarlock'': Torquemada and his Terminators purge humans condemned as traitors by throwing them into a great fire in the Earth's core. Nemesis foils their plans by rigging a dimension portal to send the rebels to safety.
* ''ComicBook/RedEars'' #33 has a play on this. A mob is ready to sentence a woman to death, she then asks what she's been accused of. The leader of the mob screams out that she loves sex, multiple men at once, women, sodomy, fellatio.....cue the mob tying up the leader instead, freeing the woman and having a huge gangbang.
* ''ComicBook/RiversOfLondon'': In ''Body Work'', both instances of possession, in the present and 1929. have origins related to this. [[spoiler:The possessed BMWs in the present come about because the Mapstone sisters and their friends burned an old ducking chair that a woman drowned in while being tried for witchcraft, and the 1929 incident came about because four wizards made an impulsive attempt to dispel a haunting at a monument to people who died by burning.]]
* In a ''ComicBook/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' comic, Sabrina thinks that her aunts had a great life in the "good old days" and as a result is given a magic mirror that can let her go back in time to colonial Salem. This trope is pretty much averted while there. Sabrina first comes across a witch stuck in the stocks and releases her. Sabrina is then put in the stocks herself for not stopping the witch's escape and is released by a perverted dude who demands a kiss for saving her. She's caught turning him into a toad and has to escape an angry mob that calls for her to be hanged.
* In ''ComicBook/SalemsDaughter'', Darius influenced the people to start one of these.
* The ComicBook/ScarletWitch was mistaken for an actual witch when her mutant hex power first manifested by way of accidentally setting a barn on fire while working as a farmhand, and her boss whipped up a mob of villagers to burn her at the stake along with her brother ComicBook/{{Quicksilver}} (said boss conveniently left out the part where he tried to rape her and ''that'' was when her powers lashed out). The villagers would've succeded if not for timely intervention of ComicBook/{{Magneto}}, who used his rescue to guilt them into joining his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. An issue of ''Avengers West Coast'' shows an alternate reality where Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were indeed burned at the stake.
* In ''ComicBook/TheScorpion'', Armando's mother was burnt as a witch by the Inquisition for misdirecting a priest from the church and his Christian duties.
* In ''ComicBook/SevenSoldiers'', ComicBook/KlarionTheWitchBoy nearly gets burned by the women of Limbo Town after trying to warn them of the impending invasion by Melmoth, because the Croatoans have long been taught that there is no world beyond theirs.
* The Pat Mills comic ''ComicBook/{{Sha}}'' is all about the spirit of a young witch who was wrongfully burned at the stake in the fourteenth century awakening in her reincarnation in TheFuture to seek revenge against the KnightTemplar demons who killed her.
* In ComicBook/ShadeTheChangingMan, Shade and his companions are nearly burnt at the stake when they travel back to Puritan New England, where the natives mistake the Madness for the Devil's own sorcery. It doesn't help when they find out Lenny's last name is Shapiro, calling her [[ValuesDissonance "filthy Jewess."]]
* In ''ComicBook/SoulsearchersAndCompany'' #2, Janocz's tribe attempt to burn him at the stake for being a cursed shapeshifter, in accordance with ancient gypsy law.
* In ''ComicBook/SupermanBatman'' #72, a group of crazed religious fanatics kidnap ComicBook/LoisLane and attempt to burn her at the stake. They [[GodGuise think Superman is God]] and seek to punish Lois for "rejecting" Superman for the "mere mortal" Clark Kent and thus failing in her "duty" to give birth to the messiah. Fortunately, she is rescued by The World's Finest.
* A bleak story from the ''[[ComicBook/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Tales of the Slayers]]'' collection features a reluctant Slayer who nonetheless saves her town from an army of marauding vamps... and for her pains is burned for witchcraft by the townsfolk. The [[UngratefulBastard townsfolk]] pay for their stupidity when the Slayer's Watcher, out of revenge, opens the town's gate, letting the remaining vampires in for the slaughter.
* In ''ComicBook/TarotWitchOfTheBlackRose'', the townies want to do it, and the fact that it happened in the past drives Raven's hatred.
* ComicBook/{{Nightcrawler}} of the ''ComicBook/XMen'' has this (actually, he's about to be staked, but it's the same principle) happening to him in his very first appearance - though the crowd thinks he is a demon, not a witch, due to his blue fur, pointed ears, fangs, and ''barbed tail''. Also, a number of their children had recently been murdered.

[[folder:Fairy Tales]]
* The WickedStepmother and WickedWitch from "Literature/BrotherAndSister" gets subjected to this at the end, after her [[spoiler:murder of the titular Sister ''and'' her replacement of her with her own daughter]] are revealed.
** In "[[http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/3ourladyschild.html Our Lady's Child]] / "Mary's Child", the titular Child is a Queen who once lived in Heaven but was kicked out of it for disobeying an order from the Virgin Mary ''and'', whenever the Virgin tried to confront her, refusing to admit her responsibility. The worst punishment is having her three babies taken away by the Virgin for ''yet again'' not wanting to admit her sin; she's mistaken for a witch/ogress who [[OffingTheOffspring killed and ate her kids]] and about to be burned at the stake as such, despite her husband the King's desperate attempts to save her, but at the last moment she repents and mentally admits her wrongdoings. The Virgin forgives the girl and pulls a BigDamnHeroes by summoning a magical rain to extinguish the pyre, then brings the children back and makes sure that the exonerated girl and her family will be happy forever.
* In [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penta_of_the_Chopped-off_Hands "Penta of the Chopped-off Hands"]], the jealous fishwife Nuccia causes lots of trouble to the titular Penta, a once FallenPrincess who had already gone through terrible ordeals (including the loss of her hands) but had managed to start rebuilding her life and marry a local King. She goes as far as writing a false letter from the King that condemned Penta to be burned at the stake, but the King's counselors believe that the King's out of his mind and they send her (and her son) to another realm instead. When the whole deception is revealed, Nuccia is the one burned instead.
* There are several similar fairy tales (Creator/GrimmBrothers' "Literature/TheSixSwans" and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Brothers "The Twelve Brothers"]], Creator/HansChristianAndersen's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Swans "The Wild Swans"]], [[Creator/AsbjornsenAndMoe Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe's]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Wild_Ducks The Twelve Wild Ducks]]" where a princess who's trying to break a spell over her brothers is under one or another circumstances accused of witchcraft (Andersen) or infanticide (Grimms, Asbjørnsen and Moe) and is almost burned at the stake, but her brothers save her and she manages to undo the curses over them. In "The Six Swans", the girl's accuser [[KarmicDeath gets burned as punishment.]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* In ''Fanfic/BreakingBoundaries,'' Koko seems to really want the witch hunt to happen and constantly does whatever he can to 'find' a witch and get them hung or burned. [[spoiler:Ironically, he is the witch]].
* The ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' fanfiction appropriately named ''Fanfic/BurnTheWitchMiraculousLadybug'' revolves around an [[MonsterOfTheWeek Akumatized person]] (appropriately called "Witch Hunter" and bearing full Inquisitorial regalia) who brainwashes a huge crowd of people to [[TorchesAndPitchforks literally go Medieval]] and hunt down [[ConsummateLiar Lila Rossi]] to burn her at the stake for her many, ''many'' crimes. The drama of the plot revolves around Marinette trying to protect Lila even when everybody else (because of the brainwashing) keep trying to convince her that [[AssholeVictim Lila deserves such a painful death]], even if that would mean [[WouldHurtAChild killing a teenager]] and [[ArchEnemy Lila]] [[UngratefulBastard doing jack to help]]. The plot also expands on Tikki's backstory, because it is canon that UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc was a previous Ladybug and Tikki considers her charge being accused of witchcraft and burnt at the stake [[MyGreatestFailure an immense failure on her part]].
* ''Fanfic/SoulmateSurvey'': After finding out that her crush and idol Adrien Agreste was matched up with another girl on the highly-acclaimed and scientifically accurate dating app Soulmate Searcher, Vivienne ([[LoonyFan who changed her name to Adrienne out of her obsession with him]]) is akumatized into Fandoom, who plans to burn Marinette at the stake for getting perfect compatibility with him.
* ''Fanfic/ChasingDragons'': During the height of the Upper Mander Rebellion, [[TheFundamentalist Septon Ryman's]] radical faction of the Faith starts burning those they deem heretics (which is basically all prominent nobles who refuse to convert to their teachings).
* In ''Fanfic/DestinyAfterandalasia'', Frollo successfully burns Esmeralda after he falsely accuses her of witchcraft. The entirety of the film is her DyingDream.
* The ''Series/DoctorWho''/''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' fanfic "[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/389111 A Fair Cop]]" portrays ''Franchise/StarTrek'''s NoTranshumanismAllowed as this, which is bad news for the Doctor's genetically enhanced companion Zoë Herriot.
* In one ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' fanfiction (taking place in a medieval AU), [[CuteWitch Jade Harley]] is almost burned at the stake, despite her insistence that she's a "good witch". Fortunately, [[TheStoic Dave Strider]] (a knight) manages to convince the townspeople to let her go.
* In ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' fanfic [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/27161710 I'm a doctor, not a freaking marshmallow!]] Dr [=McCoy=] ends up in this situation after a landing party goes wrong and he is captured by the primitive planet's natives. Unfortunately, PrimeDirective means they can't just beam him out...
* In ''[[Fanfic/MyLittlePonyAUFanficMutant Mutant]]'', Kittery Abigail is called a witch, and the mob is ''glad'' when she was killed by stray bullets when a member [[ShootOutTheLock Shot The Lock]].
* In the ''Manga/CardCaptorSakura'' fic ''Fanfic/ShadowOfTheDragon'', Takashi tells a story about witch burnings and trials... [[InnocentlyInsensitive which obviously makes Sakura uncomfortable]]. As a result, Chiharu mistakenly believes that he too has found out about Sakura's magic and chews him out for scaring her, only to discover that he was merely telling a story that Eriol informed him of back in elementary school and end up blowing the {{masquerade}} to him herself.
* The ''Literature/HarryPotter'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2868247/1/They-Burn-Witches-Don-t-They They Burn Witches, Don't They?]]'' is an AlternateUniverse fic set in the Middle Ages. The titular witch-burning involves the fire, a torturous Inquisition, and an angry mob.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3680245/1/Witch-Hunt Witch Hunt]],'' in an alternate universe set in Puritan times, Gaz is accused of being a witch and performing evil magic against her neighbors. Although she is highly unpleasant and anti-social, her brother Dib knows she is not a witch and tries his best to defend her. Her only defense is to sneer that she's not a witch and call everyone idiots for believing in them. She eventually gets burned at the stake.
** Similarly, in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13981875/1/Witching-Hour Witching Hour]]'', set in Medieval times, Gaz becomes suspected of being a witch after a series of strange events happen around her [[spoiler: [[FrameUp all arranged by Zim]]]]. The final nail in her coffin is when she's found in the woods surrounded by ritualistically slaughtered animals, covered in their blood; after this, she's seized, put through a KangarooCourt, and finally burned at the stake.

[[folder:Film — Animated]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013'', this is what Elsa and her parents' biggest fear as to what would happen to her should she lose control of her powers as detailed under the troll's vision. Out of fear of this happening, they close the gates and lock Elsa away in her room to hide away her powers and keep it a secret from everyone including her sister. Unfortunately it led her to a miserable life for 13 years which led to her inevitably reveal her powers in front of the whole crown during her RageBreakingPoint and upon realizing what she had done, she flees the kingdom and accidentally plunge the kingdom under an EndlessWinter, resulting in the citizens fearing their new queen, believing that she had intentionally abandoned her own kingdom to famine and starvation. Indeed it seems that they fear and detested her so much that after Anna gets frozen solid as a result of being accidentally struck by Elsa, their response to this is to appoint a foreign prince as their new ruler of the kingdom and immediately complied with his orders to sentence the former queen to death without even bothering to double-check on the legitimacy of his claim and upon seeing Hans about to execute their supposed wicked queen, they seem to have a look joy once the snowstorm has ended due of Elsa being informed of her sister's death because of her actions.
* The Chief of the Indians in ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'' threatens to do this to John, Michael and the Lost Boys if his daughter Tiger Lily, who he believes they kidnapped, is not returned by sunset.
-->'''The Chief:''' Heap big lie. If Tiger Lily not back by sunset...'''burn 'em at stake.'''
* In the Disney movie, ''WesternAnimation/{{The Hunchback of Notre Dame|Disney}}'', Esmeralda almost suffers this fate at the hands of Frollo after she refuses to submit to him. (She is not accused of being a witch in [[Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame the original book]]). [[note]] Well, if you want to get picky, she ''was'' accused by a young woman of being a witch, but she was ''charged'' with (and hanged for) being a murderer. [[spoiler:She is, of course, neither.]][[/note]] Interestingly, the crowd seems to rather be on ''her'' side and say so, no doubt due to Frollo's lengthy sack of his own city in order to find her.
* Averted in ''WesternAnimation/ParaNorman'', where [[BigBad the witch]] was executed by hanging. [[spoiler:Then played straight later, when an [[TorchesAndPitchforks angry mob]] decides to kill [[ISeeDeadPeople Norman]] like this, [[ComicallyMissingThePoint as hanging is too uncivilized]].]]
* Lampshaded in ''WesternAnimation/{{Rango}}'' when the CargoCult water pipe fails to produce water -- the first reaction of one of the townsfolk is to point to Rango and shout "Burn the witch!"
* In ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheWitchsGhost'', they believe the title character was a mistaken [[NewerThanTheyThink Wicca]] practitioner. She was actually a witch.

[[folder:Film — Live Action]]
* In ''Film/TheAddamsFamily'', Wednesday chose an ancestor who was executed in this fashion for a school project about role models. Naturally, her teacher was more than a little concerned. Morticia explains that the ancestor in question danced naked in the streets and enslaved a minister.
-->'''Morticia:''' But don't worry. We've told Wednesday, "college first."
* Subverted in ''Film/{{Agora}}'', where the philosopher Hypatia, after being caught by the Christians who considered her a witch, was only burned after she was dead. Note that there is still some debate on whether the RealLife Hypatia was burned alive or stoned to death, though the general view is the one shown in the movie, that first she was stoned and then burned.
* Parodied in the 1979 Disney comedy ''Film/ASpacemanInKingArthursCourt'', wherein the eponymous astronaut is to be burned at the stake. He knows his thermal-insulated spacesuit will protect him, but then the suit's airconditioner is accidentally turned off and he must sweat it out until his bonds burn through.
* Invoked in ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice''. [[spoiler:Lex Luthor knows that Superman is Clark Kent, so he kidnaps Martha Kent to force him to work for him. Luthor claims Superman is a devil, and since Martha is his mother, she must be a witch. The word "Witch" is etched onto her forehead and Luthor has a mook prepared to kill her with a flamethrower. Fortunately, Batman saves her.]]
* In ''Film/BlackDeath'', Ulric saves a woman from this fate by giving her a mercy-kill. This serves as his EstablishingCharacterMoment.
* ''Film/CityOfTheDead'' begins with a witch burning in 17th century New England. Ironically enough the film was made in the UK, with the entire cast as {{Fake American}}s.
* ''Film/CurseOfTheCrimsonAltar'': Lavinia Morley was burned for witchcraft, and this event is recreated in Greymarsh every Witch's Night, with Lavinia being burned in effigy.
* ''Film/DarkShadows'': Invoked by Barnabas, as an (empty) threat against Angelique. She is really a witch. But she is also a VillainWithGoodPublicity, and now living in an age where witches are no longer persecuted... unlike murderers, such as the vampire Barnabas.
* In ''Film/{{Elizabeth}}'', several Catholic priests are executed like this.
* In ''Film/GhostbustersII'' a judge laments that he is not able to sentence them to be burned at the stake, which he sees as an "illustrious, sterner justice".
* ''Film/HanselAndGretelWitchHunters'':
** Fire is the most reliable method for killing witches, and the antagonists led by the HotWitch Muriel are looking to produce a potion that will make them fireproof. [[spoiler:And [[BarrierMaiden Gretel]]'s [[BloodMagic heart and blood]] is one of the keys for it.]]
** Even more: [[spoiler:Hansel and Gretel's MissingMom Adrianna was a good witch, and ended up dying like this. In the meantime, her husband/the siblings' father was hanged]]. It turns out [[spoiler:Muriel set them up to be executed so she could reach for Gretel and use her for her plans]].
* ''Film/HawkTheSlayer'' meets the first of his RagtagBunchOfMisfits when he rescues a witch from a couple of peasants who want to burn her cursing their hogs. She was actually trying to cure them, but they're not in the mood to listen. She replays Hawk by using her magic to locate the rest of his group and teleport Hawk to each one.
* ''Film/{{Highlander}}'': When Connor [=MacLeod=] first discovers he is an immortal back in ancient Scotland, he's proclaimed a witch, and burning is mentioned as an option. (In the end, he's just run out of town by a howling mob instead.)
* Averted, of all places, in ''Film/HocusPocus'', where the three witches are hanged by the townsfolk just as they would have been in 17th Century Salem. (And the fact that they were ''actually guilty'' of witchcraft in this case.) They get better, but it's a little jarring to see historical accuracy in a movie about cartoonishly wacky witches. The revived witches are also locked in a large kiln and set on fire; the oven is a reference to "Literature/HanselAndGretel". They get better from that as well. The thing that finally kills them is sunlight, because the candle that brought them back only worked for the night of Halloween, and they were unable to obtain the potion that would have enabled them to survive.
* In the 80s-90s Icelandic film ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Juniper_Tree_%28film%29 The Juniper Tree]]'', the mother of two little girls, [[Music/{{Bjork}} Margit]] and Katla, is burned to death for witchcraft.
* In ''Film/TheManWhoKilledDonQuixote'', Toby thinks Alexei has strapped Angelica to cross and is planning to burn her as part of the Holy Week celebrations. [[spoiler:It is actually a delusion caused by Toby's slipping sanity. She is strapped to a cross, but what he sees as flames are just billows of cloth intended to simulate fire.]]
* Used straight -- and to hideously appropriate effect -- in ''Film/MarkOfTheDevil''. Within that film, several "witches" (all clearly innocent) are slowly burnt alive. This film presents various period tortures in historically accurate ways, which makes it rather disturbing...
* Played ridiculously straight in ''Film/{{Metropolis}}''. During the revolt, the workers burn [[RobotGirl Robot!]]Maria at the stake, since they decide she's to blame for the revolution ending badly. They were right... sort of. On a pyre made of [[IncendiaryExponent burning automobiles]], no less!
* ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'' has the infamous "Witch Trial" scene where a rather vocally pyromaniac mob accuses a woman of being a witch and Sir Bedevere attempts to use logic to ascertain whether she actually is one.
* In ''Film/TheNameOfTheRose'', Brother Salvatore and Brother Remigio are burned at the stake as scapegoats by Father Bernardo Gui, leader of the Inquisition. Gui also tries to burn a local peasant girl, but she is rescued by [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized rebellious peasants]] who manage to kill Gui in the resulting chaos. In the book, Gui prevents this from happening by simply having the three of them transported away and executed elsewhere, where no rescue attempts can occur.
* This is basically what started the terror for the series ''Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet''. The families of Elm Street, justifiably, hunted down a child-killer and general bad guy who got OffOnATechnicality only to have him come back later rather upset about all of it.
* Averted in ''Film/TheOldGuard'', which correctly shows Andy and Quynh being hung as witches. However this doesn't work because they're immortal, so the trope is lampshaded when they assume their captors [[KillItWithFire will try burning next]]. Turns out they have a [[AndIMustScream far worse fate in mind...]]
* ''Film/TheOmegaMan'': After the Family capture Neville and put him through a KangarooCourt for "heresy" (namely, being a normal human and a scientist), they try to burn him at the stake in Dodgers Stadium. Fortunately, he's saved by Lisa and Dutch.
* Full Moon Entertainment's movie version of ''Film/ThePitAndThePendulum1991'', taking place during UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition, naturally invokes this trope a couple of times. Of particular note is a scene where an old woman, soon to be burned at the stake, manages to ingest some conveniently placed gunpowder before hand. This results in a very messy explosion once she catches aflame. In RealLife, sacks of gunpowder were sometimes tied around the necks of those condemned to the stake as an act of mercy.
* Averted in ''Film/PracticalMagic'', which begins with the (failed) hanging of the main characters' female ancestor. She was exiled instead.
* In ''Film/RedRidingHood'', everyone thinks Valerie is a witch because [[spoiler:she can understand the Wolf and everyone thinks the Wolf only wants her]], so she is offered up as a HumanSacrifice.
* Happens to Wanda Grubwart in ''Film/ScoobyDooCurseOfTheLakeMonster'', when she was alive in the 1800s.
* Averted in ''Film/SeasonOfTheWitch'' which shows three accused women being hung off a bridge, then lowered into the water to drown just in case they survived the NeckSnap. Unfortunately for the priest carrying out the ritual, one of them is NotQuiteDead.
* Done in the ''Film/SilentHill'' movie twice on screen, and another one is mentioned. The ones on-screen were an adult and an 8-year old girl, and the burning of the 8-year old (and her surviving) is what sets off the plot of the movie. What's even worse is that they don't bother to put her burned, half-alive body [[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090607071432/silent/images/4/42/Sharon249.jpg off-screen]].
* Subverted in ''Film/SolomonKane''. The villagers attempt to burn the witch, but the witch uses magic to not only survive, but burn the village and its inhabitants.
* ''Film/TheTempest2010'': Antonio spread rumours that [[GenderFlip Prospera]] used BlackMagic to kill her husband despite "knowing that others of my sex have burned for far less".
* In ''Film/TheatreOfDeath'', one of the sketches in the theatre involves Dani being burnt at the stake as a witch. For a moment, it looks as is Nicole is intending to burn her for real.
* Played straight in the [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 MSTed]] movie ''Film/TheTouchOfSatan,'' where the heroine's sister is nearly burned at the stake after being accused of witchcraft... in 19th-Century California.
-->'''Mob''': BURN THE WITCH! BURN THE WITCH!
-->'''Mike''': Oh, and Go Packers too, but mostly burn the witch.
* In ''Film/UpTheChastityBelt'', Lurkalot is accused of being a witch after having been seen flying (ItMakesSenseInContext). First he is dunked in the well till he confesses to being a witch, and then is placed on a pyre to be burned. The villagers have trouble lighting him because he is so waterlogged.
* The titular character in ''Film/ValerieAndHerWeekOfWonders'' is nearly burned at the stake for being accused of witchcraft. When told to repent, she childishly sticks her tongue out with a huge grin on her face.
* The (pseudo)historical/horror movie ''Film/WitchfinderGeneral'', which definitely played fast and loose with history. Justified, in that burning was something new that Matthew Hopkins was trying out. The most common form of execution is hanging.
* In ''Film/WitchWayLove'', it is explained that some witches and sorcerers found ways around this problem. As a result, they can't die upon being burned and liquefy instead.

[[folder:Literature]]
* Averted in the ''[[Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo 1632]]'' series, on account of the uptimers not being fans of it. In one short story, "A Witch to Live" a down-time noble wants to burn an accused witch in an American town, and won't take no for an answer. He gets shot.
* In Federico Andajhazi's ''The Alchemist'', this is how [[spoiler:Inés de Torquemada and her daughters]] die, though in a subversion they suffocate in the pyre rather than burn to death.
* In Laurell K. Hamilton's early ''Literature/AnitaBlake'' books, where the supernatural is known to exist, there is occasional mention of the last time a witch was burned in the U.S. -- in the 1950s. It was captured on photograph, and the photographer got a Pulitzer Prize out of it. Anita wonders if a Pulitzer makes the nightmares easier to live with. Possibly justified, as popular assumption might have been that witches were burned in that universe, much as it is in ours.
* In ''[[Literature/AuntDimity Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch]]'', as the villagers get involved in the story of the seventeenth-century "witch" Margaret Redfern, the spectre of this is discussed, including the popular belief that the "swimming" of witches, was a MortonsFork. The vicar's wife Lilian Bunting also describes other methods of interrogation/torture, condemns the very idea of torturing other people for such specious reasons, and is visibly distressed at the prospect that the villagers will learn that such was Margaret Redfern's fate.
* Emelius, in ''Literature/BedknobAndBroomstick'', is subjected to the dunking stool, then has to be rescued from the post by Miss Price.
* The nomadic tribes in ''Literature/BuryingTheShadow'' aren't fond of [[DreamWeaver soulscapers]] and are known to lynch them if agitated.
* In Creator/RobertEHoward's Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian story ''Literature/TheHourOfTheDragon'', Orastes nearly met this in the BackStory.
-->''I was cast forth from my order because of my delving in BlackMagic. But for Amalric there I might have been burned as a magician.''
* Creator/DavidDrake's short story "The Dancer in the Flames" involves a witch who reaches through time while being executed in this way and contacts an officer in the Vietnam War via his pyromania. It ends badly for him.
* Sorcha from Juliet Marillier's ''Literature/DaughterOfTheForest'' nearly falls victim to this trope; her husband only manages to get her off the stake at the last possible second.
* In Creator/PatriciaCWrede's ''Literature/DaughterOfWitches'', the main character's parents are burned as witches. Understandably, this gives her serious issues about her own magical powers.
* In the Literature/DeptfordMice book ''The Crystal Prison'' Audrey Brown is nearly burned for witchcraft. The village leader begs the mice not to do such a barbaric thing... so they agree to hang her instead. She's saved at the last minute by Twit.
* In ''Devonsville Terror'' by Ulli Lommel the only actual witch of the three women killed suffers that fate.
* From Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''
** ''Literature/CarpeJugulum'':
--->'''Oats:''' Well... your colleagues keep telling me the Omnians used to burn witches...\\
'''Granny:''' They never did.\\
'''Oats:''' I'm afraid I have to admit that the records show --\\
'''Granny:''' They never burned witches. Probably they burned some old ladies who spoke up or couldn't run away. I wouldn't look for witches bein' burned. I might look for witches doin' the burning, though. We ain't all nice.
** ''Literature/IShallWearMidnight'', sadly, proves that Granny's surmise is incorrect: The Cunning Man, at least, ''did'' successfully capture and condemn at least one genuine witch in his lifelong career. She pulled him into the fire to die with her. Too bad that wasn't the end of the matter...
** According to other Tiffany Aching books, this also used to happen in some parts of the Chalk. The suspected witch in the barony was just kicked out of her cottage and left to starve. It may bear mentioning that this incident inspired Tiffany to become a witch herself to make sure nobody dared try that again.
** In some other areas they follow the advice in the ''Maganevatio Obtusis'' (''Witch-hunting for Dumb People'') and drown them... after supplying them with soup, a nice cuppa, and a good night's sleep, since the book says all these things will render them powerless. The book was written by traveling witch (and strong swimmer) Miss Tick.
** Played with in ''A Tourist's Guide to Lancre'', which notes that "It's not a proper Witch Trial without a big bonfire afterwards"... meaning of course, that once witches have demonstrated their skill in an organised competition, it's nice to have a bit of a carnival atmosphere and baked potatoes.
* ''Literature/DoctrineOfLabyrinths'':
** Witches who practice non-sanctioned magics are burned at the stake by the wizard-dominated government of Marathat; however, their official crime is "heresy" rather than witchcraft per se.
** A more standard occurrence affects the travelers in Kekropia's backward southern duchies, where the annemer, or magic-free, peasants will happily burn any magic-user they can get their hands on.
* During his apprentice years, the wizard Raistlin Majere from the ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}} Chronicles'' was almost burned at the stake by a bunch of enraged and superstitious villagers after he had tried to expose a fake cleric as a charlatan. He was rescued just in time by his twin brother, the fighter Caramon, and the rest of the main characters. That incident didn't really help improve Raistlin's [[DeadpanSnarker cynical nature]].
* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': In ''Literature/WhiteNight'', Harry and Murphy encounter someone who is using the passage in the Literature/BookOfExodus which says "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" to justify killing magic-users. Harry tells Murphy ([[ShownTheirWork accurately]]) that the original phrase in Hebrew meant "someone who casts harmful spells," or, in other words, only kill people who use dark magic, but that King James changed it to just witches in general when he translated the Bible because he didn't like them. The White Council of Wizards' own approach to people who use black magic is completely in line with the older meaning: Their punishment for a first offense is usually decapitation, and ignorance of the laws of magic or having good motives is no excuse. It's possible to be spared, but only if another wizard speaks up for them, agrees to train them and ensure it never happens again, potentially at the cost of their own life if they do relapse.
* ''Literature/{{Eldraeverse}}'': The [[https://eldraeverse.com/2012/06/23/trope-a-day-outgrown-such-silly-superstitions/ seeress Merriéle]], founder of the Church of the Flame, was executed in Somáras by the traditional fire of purification, resulting in her ascension via a pillar of light and flame that not coincidentally turned the city of Somáras into the bay of Somáras. Modern eldraeic hypotheses suggest that either she was carrying a {{Precursor|s}} artifact that contained antimatter or the [[DeusEstMachina Transcend]] somehow traveled back in time to inspire her "visions" and nuke her executioners from orbit.
** Incineration is still the Empire of the Star's preferred method of capital punishment, though they reserve it for crimes that cannot be recompensed like murder rather than silly notions like "heresy", and they prefer to use a fusion torch.
* K.A. Applegate's short-lived ''Literature/{{Everworld}}'' series gives a reason for why witches are burned or hanged in the eponymous alternate world: their blood is poison to crops, which means no one can really afford a beheading.
* In Creator/HPLovecraft's "Literature/TheFestival", the unburned corpse of a wizard (or, presumably, a witch) can give rise to [[TheWormThatWalks a walking humanoid mass of worms]], which collectively become host to the dead spellcaster's mind when they consume its rotting flesh. Why it's necessary to burn such people ''alive'' is not explained, however.
* Inverted in Creator/JohnVarley's ''Literature/GaeaTrilogy'', where the Coven, a space colony founded by lesbian separatists, adheres to an extreme offshoot of witchcraft: one grown so intolerant, in its isolation, that suspected ''Christians'' are burned at the stake.
* {{Averted|Trope}} in ''Gallows Hill'' by Creator/LoisDuncan. The protagonist is actually writing a paper about the Salem Witch Trials at her new high school. She learns through research and visions that in a former life she was Betty Parris, the delightful little child that set the trials in motion. And all her new classmates? The reincarnated souls of all the innocent women she accused, which were hanged.
* ''Literature/GoodOmens'':
** Agnes Nutter was burned at the stake but, in a twist, [[ThanatosGambit filled her underwear with as much gunpowder and nails as she could]], [[TakingYouWithMe causing an explosion which destroyed the whole village]]. The authors ShownTheirWork and it's {{lampshade}}d that witch burning was ''not'' common in England, although it's [[BlackComedy ascribed to]] the English just being "crass and indolent race, unlike Germans or Scots."
** Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell is asked by the angel Aziraphale if he has ever read Literature/TheBible. The only part Shadwell has read is the above verse. Well, he glanced at the following verse once -[[spoiler:''[[BestialityIsDepraved "which was about putting to death people who lay down with beasts]] ]] - but he had felt that this was rather outside his jurisdiction"''.
* In Creator/NeilGaiman's ''Literature/TheGraveyardBook'', one of the ghosts Bod befriends was killed as a witch for tormenting the town. They were partly right: she ''was'' a witch, but she hadn't hurt anybody... until they killed her, that is.
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'':
** Referenced in the first chapter of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban''. On the rare occasions where {{Muggles}} managed to catch a real witch, they used a flame-freezing charm to protect themselves -- then pretended to be dying in agony. It was noted that the charm made the flames 'ticklish', such that some wizards would purposely allow themselves to get caught repeatedly. This ended less enjoyably when witch hunters caught other {{Muggles}}.
** ''Literature/TheTalesOfBeedleTheBard'' mentions that a wizard or witch ''could'' be killed if they lost their wand. Specifically, it was stated that the ones most at risk were young magical children who hadn't yet learned to control their abilities. In his annotation to "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot", Dumbledore notes that during the European witch hunts, witches and wizards considered using magic to help Muggle neighbors like "volunteering to fetch the firewood for one's own funeral pyre".
%% Much can be said -- and has been said -- about how the position presented in ''Prisoner of Azkaban'' makes light of the deaths of wrongly accused Muggles. However, this is not the place for comments on that, so please don't add them.
* Averted in Anthony Esler's ''Hellbane'', where the witchfinder's victims are hanged. (And HALF of them were actually practicing witchcraft.) However, witchcraft qua witchcraft was not yet a capital offense in Elizabeth's reign.
* At first averted in ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'', as in Lyra's world the prejudice against witches doesn't seem to go beyond considering them evil (in fact, some witches did join the church), though in the second book it's implied that, in other worlds, witches are in fact burned.
* Played with in Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/JobAComedyOfJustice''. In an AlternateUniverse where the dominant religion is Wicca, the young Wiccan convert ''rejects'' the flame her parents worship because "fire means the way they kill us."
* The philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who was a materialist and did not believe in witchcraft, nonetheless argued in his book ''Leviathan'' that witches were justly punished, as if ''they'' believed it, their attempts to harm people with magic were still criminal (apparently he felt all accusations were true), much like a person who tries to shoot somebody dead with a gun that turns out to be unloaded.
* In ''Literature/LoreLay'' by Clemens Brentano, Lore Lay is accused of sorcery. When she stands trial before the bishop, she asks to be burnt as a witch, because she does no longer want to live.
* The non-fiction ''Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds'' by Charles Mackay[[labelnote:*]][[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518 Available]] at Project Gutenberg[[/labelnote]] has a section that details some of the enduring memories and records of the men, women, and children who were killed because of the hunt for witches, often purely on malicious accusations. The inhabitants in a small area in the north of Germany at Würzburg, who refused to bow to the Catholic Church or pay taxes to the nobles who illegally claimed the land, were accused of witchcraft and killed in many ways, including burning at the stake.
* ''Literature/MsWiz'' has an episode involving time travel. Nabilla first references that Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake as a witch, but when she and Ms Wiz get sent back to an Elizabethan village - the girl they accuse of being a witch is about to be ducked. They think her stutter is actually "devil talk".
* In Creator/HermannHesse's ''Narcissus and Goldmund'', which takes place during TheBlackDeath, a young woman who nearly had this fate is found by Goldmund.
* The perpetrator of ''[[Literature/TheRowanGantInvestigations Never Burn A Witch]]'' only burned one Witch at the stake, but he also hanged one, drowned another, and tried to kill the narrator, a practicing Witch himself, by hanging.
* ''Literature/TheOneWhoStartedFires'' plays with this trope, by having the title character undergoing [[SelfImmolation self-immolation]] without intending to.
* ''Literature/ThePower'': Early on, some people burn girls with the Power as witches. Sister Veronica at the convent also proposes doing so, but she's killed before anything can happen.
* In Creator/MarkTwain's ''Literature/{{The Prince and the Pauper}}'', the switched Prince Edward witnesses how two low-class women were executed like this merely for not professing Anglicanism. Their daughters try to self-immolate themselves as well so they won't be orphaned. The epilogue says that Edward, once he's restored to his proper place and made King, had the orphaned girls located and made sure they'd be well looked after.
%%* Pulled off at the end of ''[[Literature/ThePowerOfFive Raven's Gate]]''.
* In the ''Literature/RealmOfTheElderlings'' series, Witted people who are caught are hanged over water, chopped to pieces and burned. Superstition holds that this is done because otherwise their spirit might escape or even allow them to come back to life. It's considered a horribly evil thing to do by those of Old Blood, but the Wit ''does'' allow this to happen under very specific circumstances.
* ''Literature/TheRedemptionOfAlthalus'' features a village priest who made a habit of this. His latest target actually ''has'' unusual (but not evil) powers, but that's not why he's targeting her -- the priest exclusively burned beautiful young women, because he reasoned that, as a moral person, [[NeverMyFault only witchcraft could be to blame]] if he struggled with his vow of celibacy over feeling attracted to someone.
* In ''Literature/TheRedTent'', [[TheMedic a midwife]] named Inna loses a (very young) woman and her child [[DeathByChildbirth during delivery]], despite her best efforts. The father goes berserk and accused Inna of being a witch, killing his wife and child ForTheEvulz, and strangles her, threatening to take her to the village elders. Inna flees, knowing that despite being the most respected midwife in the area, it won't go well with the elders because their leader has a beef with her for refusing to marry his son. To prevent being executed as per this trope, she joins up with her apprentice Rachel and [[YouCantGoHomeAgain leaves the village]].
* ''Literature/TheRifter'': According to the laws of the Payshmura theocracy, burning is the penalty for witchcraft (along with quite a few other crimes). There are lots of burnings. Metal posts for doing so line the Holy Road, and it’s even become a standard finale to the Harvest Festival.
* In Creator/RudyardKipling's ''Literature/TheSecondJungleBook'', the villagers, having [[WitchHunt driven out Mowgli as a witch]], decide that his adoptive parents are also witches.
-->''But meantime the village had got hold of Messua and her husband, who were undoubtedly the father and mother of this Devil-child, and had barricaded them in their own hut, and presently would torture them to make them confess they were witch and wizard, and then they would be burned to death.''
* ''Literature/ShadowPolice'': In ''Who Killed Sherlock Holmes?'', the Circle of Hands includes a symbolic witch-burning as part of the ceremony to open their conference. This shows that they understand very little about the actual supernatural world, and are running mostly on partly-remembered rituals and traditions.
* Discussed in the Literature/SimonArk short story "The Witch is Dead". When the eponymous witch is found burned to death inside her locked trailer, TheWatson wonders if she was burned for being a witch like at Salem. Simon points out that the witches at Salem were hanged (with one pressed to death).
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'':
** Daenerys Targaryen burns the witch Mirri Maz Dur alive. Unusually, Mirri Maz Dur was actually guilty of the crime[[note]]Using magic to kill Dany's unborn child in the womb[[/note]] she was accused of (although [[WellIntentionedExtremist she may have been justified]]). Also, the choice of burning as a punishment was not based on the traditional method of killing witches, but rather Dany's family affinity for fire.
** The [[InvertedTrope trope is then inverted]] from Book 2 with the introduction of Melisandre, a fire-worshiping witch that burns the effigies of what she deems "false gods", as well as the "heretics" that speak against her and her beliefs.
* ''Literature/{{Spellbreaker}}'' have the titular hero coming across a ruined village where a young woman suspected of being a witch is being tried for witchcraft and will soon be set on fire. As it turns out, she's innocent, and the accuser is the true sorceror.
* ''Literature/SplitHeirs'': Clootie gets misblamed as the culprit behind Arbol's supposed transformation to a girl (she was [[RaisedAsTheOppositeGender actually always female]]), with being burned alive one punishment suggested. Before, they'd threatened Lady Ubri with it (since she first was blamed) and any Gorgorian woman around as well. He's saved though.
* A subversion occurs in ''Literature/ASwiftlyTiltingPlanet'' when a Native American woman who has married a Welsh settler in Puritan America is denounced as a witch and sentenced to be hanged. The evidence against her: that she didn't scream during childbirth.
* In ''Literature/TalesOfWyre'', this is the Inquisition's preferred punishment for heretics.
-->'''Brey:''' As unrepentant apostates, heretics, idolaters and blasphemers, ...I am authorized to inform you that the entire adult population of [[spoiler:Trempa]] will be condemned to burn.
* In ''Literature/TerminalWorld'', tectomancers are regarded with fear and suspicion by the superstitious and must conceal their distinguishing birthmarks or risk being burned.
* ''Literature/TheThieftakerChronicles'' takes place in the pre-Revolutionary American colonies where suspected witches are still hanged or burned. This makes life obscenely difficult for the actual [[InsistentTerminology conjurers]] hiding around.
* ''Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch'' by Dorothy K Haynes. Beatrice tricks the intellectually disabled Jinnot into accusing Beatrice's love rival of witchcraft; the woman is "ducked" to test whether she is a real witch, and drowns. Subsequently, Jinnot comes to believe that she herself is a witch, and tries to use her "powers" to curse Beatrice. When Beatrice's baby dies suddenly after a visit from Jinnot, Jinnot is instantly suspected of witchcraft, and thrown into the river. She is terrified and thinks she'll drown - but she floats, and is summarily burned as a witch.
* In Mika Waltari's ''The Wanderer'', the protagonist's wife is accused of witchcraft. She is the first woman he's ever met who loved him (back), but being a rather naive 16th century man, he doesn't dismiss the possibility of her being a witch until he witnesses the trial, which is a turning point for his life and he becomes more cynical. The trial itself plays this trope straight, although instead of the swim test, they use more conventional torture methods. And of course, she gets burned in the end, but only after "confessing" that her accomplice was the witch catcher who caught her. (Which causes a chain reaction as the witch catcher "confesses" that pretty much everyone he's had troubles with is an accomplice and a servant of Satan.)
* In Creator/AnneRice's ''[[Literature/LivesOfTheMayfairWitches The Witching Hour]]'', Lasher, the spirit that haunts the Mayfair family for centuries, is originally conjured by a woman in a small Scottish town. When the locals attempt to burn her for a witch, she unleashes Lasher on them, who wrecks the town and kills the inhabitants.
* Creator/DianaWynneJones uses this trope in her book ''Literature/WitchWeek''. The main characters are all afraid of being outed as witches, and one even goes to the lengths of burning himself with a candle to remind himself to be careful not to use magic.
* In ''[[Literature/SwordOfTruth Wizard's First Rule]]'', a mob confronts Zedd, Richard, and Kahlan, attempting to burn Zedd on charges for witchcraft. After the obligatory "men are warlocks, women are witches" reference, Zedd invites the mob to mention exactly what they think a warlock is capable of doing. After several relatively innocuous suggestions, such as the ability to turn a cow's milk sour, the mob begins to embellish its examples when its earlier ideas did not seem sinister enough. After over an hour of this, Zedd puts a stop to it, [[GoYeHeroesGoAndDie applauding the mob's courage for daring to confront what must surely be an unstoppable Faustian demigod who kills by the hundreds and drinks blood by the liter]]. The mob meekly apologizes and attempts to flee, though not before Zedd convinces them that he's made their privates disappear. They got better.
* The Lotus Guild in ''[[Literature/TheLotusWar The Lotus War]]'' trilogy have a nasty habit of burning Yokai-kin (people who can talk to animals, but sometimes interpreted more broadly as anyone with supernatural abilities) alive. They do have an ulterior motive for this beyond simple fanaticism: [[spoiler: the Guild are really an ApocalypseCult, and the blood of Yokai-kin can purify the land rendered uninhabitable by the hell-plant the Guild cultivate.]]
* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'': The Whitecloaks and their stronghold nation of Amadicia criminalize use of the One Power or simply training in the [[WizardingSchool White Tower]], and see all Aes Sedai as witches. Since only women can channel without going mad, this creates a ReversePsychology effect in Amadicia where men are more trusted than women to be healers even though male channelers are more dangerous, simply because the perceived threat of female channelers is far more present. In the past, the Whitecloaks managed to kill one [[TheArchmage Amyrlin Seat]], although a formal execution was considered difficult considering that she could actually channel the One Power. Instead, they had to opt for simply murdering the Amyrlin and [[DeadGuyOnDisplay hanging her body in the Fortress of the Light after she was already dead]].

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/AmericanHorrorStory'':
** On ''[[Series/AmericanHorrorStoryCoven Coven]]'', the Salem Witch Trials are {{discussed|Trope}}, and a present day witch is burned at the stake for having the ability to bring people back from the dead. [[spoiler:The witches also burn their own at the stake if they are convicted of murdering another witch.]]
** More witches are burned in ''[[Series/AmericanHorrorStoryApocalypse Apocalypse]]''.
* In an episode of ''Series/{{Bewitched}}'', the characters are transported back in time to old Salem. Someone ends up tied to a stake with kindling piled around their feet before the episode is out. Ironically, it was Darrin who ended up accused of witchcraft for having used a match. ''Bewitched'' spent several episodes in Salem, either 4 or 8. It was a sizable chunk of that season.
* The ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' episode "[[Recap/BlackadderS1E5WitchsmellerPursuivant Witchsmeller Pursuivant]]" had fun with this trope. The titular "witch-hunter" convicts Edmund and his associates of witchcraft in an absurd KangarooCourt, and they are sentenced to be burned alive. However, the Queen provides them a doll that resembles the Witchsmeller, who catches fire himself while they're unharmed. The episode implies that the Queen is the real witch.
* In an episode of ''Series/TheBorgias'', Cesare and Machiavelli witness the burning of an accused witch by peasants outside Florence. Savonarola is later burned as well, but for heresy.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''
** In "[[{{Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E11Gingerbread}} Gingerbread]]", Buffy, Willow, and Amy are almost burned at the stake in a WitchHunt organized by Buffy's own mother because of a demon posing as two dead children who reappear every fifty years to use MoreThanMindControl to convince a town to kill the "bad girls" (witches). The demon is European, so the burning is actually accurate. Oddly enough, the (averted) burning takes place ''inside'' the city hall. Apparently the ventilation system is ''really'' good. [[AirVentPassageway And has really big air vents.]] Of course, the demon that was orchestrating the whole thing didn't care if its mob asphyxiated itself. The more dead, the better.
** Anya, a former vengeance demon who was alive during the actual Salem witch trials, notes that real witches could use their powers to escape. "So, really, it was only bad for the falsely accused -- and, well, they never have a good time." This was shown in "Gingerbread" when the only qualified witch [[ForcedTransformation turns herself into a rat to escape]] (unfortunately she stays that way for three years, as no-one knew how to turn her back). Willow (who's only dabbling in witchcraft at the time) is left tied to the stake along with Buffy.
** {{Averted|Trope}} in the episode "The Witch", but a deleted line in the shooting script had Giles consulting his books on the best way to find a witch, only to come up with the drowning test. He admits that his [[TomeOfEldritchLore texts are somewhat outdated]].
* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'':
** "The Witch Is Back", had the Halliwell sisters' ancestor burned at the stake in Salem. The same mistake is made in the second or third episode, in a documentary that Piper watches on TV.
** "Morality Bites" had the Halliwells traveling forward in time to keep Phoebe from being burned at the stake after they did something that would have led to massive witch hunts in the future.
** {{Subverted|Trope}} in "All Halliwell's Eve" when the sisters are sent back in time to colonial Virginia. When they are accused of being witches, they are hanged.
** In the fourth season finale dealing with a modern witch hunter, the witch he targets is to be burned at the stake. Of course in this case, she doesn't know about her powers and therefore can't fight back. The Charmed Ones - who can - are tricked into thinking ''she'' is the witch hunter.
* Referenced in ''Series/ChewinTheFat'' where Ronald, "the second worst actor in the world", lands a movie role as a Puritan villager demanding the burning of an accused witch. As usual he ruins the scene despite having no lines.
* ''Series/CriminalMinds'': The [[VillainOfTheWeek Unsub]] of "In the Blood" is obsessed with the Salem Witch Trials and believes that he is killing witches. His first few victims are either crushed or hanged, and the team manage to stop him just before he burns a woman at the stake. The episode does point out that no one was burnt to death at the Salem trials.
* ''Series/{{Cursed}}'' is full of witch-burning of the Fey by the Red Paladins, either torching entire villages, or chaining them up and burning them at the stake to make their point.
* An episode of the first season of ''Series/TheDeadZone'' television show had Smith going through a small town where a murder with satanic vibes had been committed. Since he displays knowledge of the crimes via his powers, they think he did the murder. They put him on trial for witchcraft so he can't leave the town while they search for evidence to pin him with. An angry mob ends up carrying him out of the courtroom to burn him at the stake for the murder, because a child and her mother was involved, and another girl was missing.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E5TheDaemons "The Dæmons"]], the Doctor is nearly burnt at the stake by Morris Dancers. He's saved by the local "white" witch.
** The Sisterhood of Karn attempts to execute the Doctor by burning him at the stake in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius "The Brain of Morbius"]].
** Tegan is nearly burnt at the stake as a sacrifice in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E2TheAwakening "The Awakening"]]. By Civil War recreationists.
** It's not literally burning at the stake, but the Doctor is nearly thrown out of the airlock in a Burn the Witch moment in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E10Midnight "Midnight"]].
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E6TheWomanWhoLived "The Woman Who Lived"]]: The immortal Ashildr mentions the residents of one village she lived in tried to drown her as a witch after she saved them from scarlet fever. She held her breath and swum away undetected.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E8TheWitchfinders "The Witchfinders"]] involves a lot of suspected witches being drowned in a ducking chair by a landowner leading a frenetic witch hunt. [[spoiler:At least some of the victims are being killed because the landowner, who's possessed by an evil alien she thinks is {{Satan}}, is trying to save her own skin.]]
* ''Series/{{Farscape}}''. When Noranti (an AmbiguouslyEvil but definitely cuckoo old woman who likes playing with potions) is introduced to the series, D'argo (who as an alien should not be aware of this trope) suggests burning her.
--> '''Crichton''' (confused): You ''burn'' your old people?
--> '''D'argo''': No, it just sounded like a good idea.
* In the ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' episode "Safe", River incurs the wrath of the settlers of Jiangyin when her [[PsychicPowers mind-reading powers]] are misunderstood as witchcraft. Interestingly, the village elder doesn't believe in witchcraft, but when [[YouKnowTooMuch she reveals he killed the previous elder he loudly changes his mind]]. She is about to get burned at the stake along with her brother Simon when the BigDamnHeroes show up in the [[TropeNamers moment that named the trope]]. Amusingly, Mal agrees with the townsfolk that River's a witch. His objection is that she's also [[TrueCompanions part of his crew]].
-->'''Mal:''' Yes, but she's OUR witch. ''[[[DramaticGunCock KA-CHINK!]]]'' So cut her the hell down.
* ''Series/ForeverKnight''. In "For I Have Sinned", VampireDetective Nick Knight is shown to have witnessed Joan of Arc's burning for heresy, and feels guilty for fleeing when she called on him to hold up a cross for her to gain courage from. The VillainOfTheWeek is a religious SerialKiller who ends up tying a woman to a cross and lighting it, so Nick has to FaceYourFears and rescue her.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** {{Invoked|Trope}} by Daenerys as both a punishment for deceiving her and for a bit of BloodMagic of her own. [[spoiler:Mirri Maz Duur tells Daenerys she will use magic to heal her husband Khal Drogo from sepsis, which technically she does, but she also renders Drogo permanently comatose and causes the stillbirth of their son Rhaego (due to a prophecy that Rhaego would conquer the world). Daenerys has Mirri tied to Drogo's funeral pyre and throws her dragon eggs in as well, using her as a human sacrifice to hatch them.]]
** {{Inverted|Trope}} by Melisandre, a witch who burns people. Axell Florent is burned by Melisandre along with two others for worshipping the Seven in secret.
* In ''Series/{{Good Omens|2019}}'', just like in the original novel, the witch Agnes Nutter is burned by the townsfolk of Tadfield, Oxfordshire, and Witchfinder Major Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer. It's pointed out that much of what she's done was to help her townsfolk (curing sickness, trying to improve their overall health by introducing jogging), but they're all {{Ungrateful Bastard}}s and decide to burn her. Knowing it's coming, she prepares herself and leaves behind a book of prophecies for the next 350 years, before walking out and allowing herself to be burned, though not before filling her skirts with gunpowder and roofing nails, turning herself into a claymore mine.
-->'''Agnes Nutter:''' Gather thee right close, good people. Come close until the fire near scorch ye, for I charge ye that all must see how the last true witch in England dies. And let my death be a message to the world. Come. Come. Gather thee close, I say. And mark well the fate of those who meddle with such as they do not understand.\\
'''Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer:''' ''[spotting the gunpowder]'' Oh, bugger.\\
''[BOOM]''
** When Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell is sending Newton Pulsifer (the above-mentioned Witchfinder Major's modern-day descendant) to Tadfield, he equips him with the usual implements of a witchfinder, including kindling to burn any witches he finds. Newton protests, but Shadwell is insistent. After Newton is brought to Anathema Device's cottage, she knows exactly who he is from her ancestor's prophecies, and the first thing she does it take away his kindling before admitting she's a witch herself.
* In ''Series/{{Highlander}}: The Series'', Duncan [=MacLeod=] escaped being burned. His also-immortal buddy was not so lucky. Apparently, when you can regenerate, being burned continually for hours is enough to drive you AxCrazy.
* Spoofed in a sketch from ''Series/HorribleHistories'' called "Wicked Witches". The sketch is an advert for Witch-finders Direct who claim to find some innocent woman and blame your misfortunes on her and have her burnt to death. They might also send witches' cats to prison.
-->'''Witch-finder:''' Do you have a cat?\\
'''Old woman:''' Yes.\\
'''Witch-finder:''' Then thou art a witch!
* ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'':
** Averted in "Out of Time". Sara is stranded in Virginia during the Salem Witch Trials and accused of being a witch for "corrupting" the local women ("In my defense, they were happily corrupted"), and is nearly hanged by the locals. Complete with cries of "Hang the Witch!", which while possibly more accurate, is sadly a lot less catchy than "Burn the Witch!"
** Played with in "Witch Hunt". Constantine and Sarah point out that there was never any real magic in Salem, and they hanged witches instead of burning them. But now a time travel mishap means there ''is'' real magic in Salem, and Zari pisses off the townsfolk enough that they decide to bring back burning.
* ''Series/LunaNera'': Pietro's father TheWitchHunter interrogates and burns Ade's grandmother on the Bishop's orders.
* ''Series/MacGyver1985'': In "Good Knight, [=MacGyver=]", Sir Duncan attempts to burn Merlin at the stake after framing him for attempting to murder King Arthur.
* In ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'', people who are suspected of being witches are either burnt at the stake or beheaded.
** In "The Mark of Nimueh", Gwen is falsely accused of witchcraft, and has to be saved by the other characters.
** "The Witchfinder", where Gaius is almost burnt at the stake.
** In "Queen Of Hearts" Merlin escapes being burned at the stake when disguised as an old wizard using magic (it makes you wonder why more don't do that, or can't).
* There was a whole episode of ''Series/MidsomerMurders'' (series set in a fictional English county) about burning witches; at the end, a descendant of a woman executed for witchcraft in 17th century told Barnaby that they never actually burned witches in the village, they just hanged them. Hanged, hanged, hanged. In England at least, burning was strictly reserved as a punishment for men committing heresy. However, for centuries it was on the statute books that for capital crimes women should be put to death by burning whereas men should be hanged.
* ''Series/MotherlandFortSalem'':
** A reenactment of Sarah Adler being condemned to death at Salem is portrayed through an {{in universe}} play (more accurately, they're shown hanging accused witches, not burning them). She saves herself using magic however.
** Later on, Scylla mentions over a thousand women or girls were burned by a German city as witches in 1761 (after the witch burnings had stopped with our world there, but they [[AlternateHistory diverged]]). She also says just last year a woman also was burned in the Philippines, so it still hasn't gone away entirely (however, this may have been a lynching, not a legal penalty).
** In the first season finale, the Camarilla burn several captured witches at the stake.
* An episode of ''Series/MurderSheWrote'' revolves around a woman who was burned for being a witch ([[ArtisticLicenseHistory yes, in Maine]]), her present-day descendant, and a con artist who's pretending to be the witch's ghost to drum up publicity for an unscrupulous writer. Unfortunately, she's killed, and her body is in a building that burned down, leading people to think her death was about suspicions of witchcraft. [[spoiler:It wasn't. The real descendant's fiancé found out his fiancée's "sister" was a fake and killed her, then placed her in a building that was then burned by the writer.]]
* A friend of Peggy in ''Series/MysteriousWays'' survives what should have been a fatal motorcycle accident in Uganda, where she is trying to convince the local population to use modern medicine instead of witch doctors and the like. She is accused of being a witch because of her miraculous survival and blamed for a disease that threatens to destroy the village. The witchcraft accusation is mostly a smokescreen to get rid of her since the more traditional members of the tribe do not agree with her attempts to change their ways; Declan, Peggy, and Miranda travel to Uganda to save her from her fate.
* Toward the end of the first season of ''Series/OnceUponATime'', Regina has a nightmare that the residents of Storybrooke remember who they are. All the people she's cursed tie her to a tree, and Emma executes her with a sword provided by David as Henry tells her she did this to herself. It turn out that it was AllJustADream, [[spoiler:but when the residents remember who they are just a few days later, their reactions to her aren't horribly different]]. They don't actually burn her in the dream, but the imagery is definitely there, complete with several residents wielding torches.
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "A New Life", Daniel attempts to convince the other members of the religious community that they are being deceived and that Father is an alien. He is sentenced to burn at the stake by the assembly after Father frames him for attacking his own wife Beth, killing Jacob and trying to kill Father. With Thomas' assistance, he manages to escape before the sentence is carried out but he is later killed by the aliens, shapeshifters who have all assumed Father's form. The episode ends with Thomas, who has been condemned as a traitor for helping Daniel to escape, being burned at the stake as his frantic warnings about Father's true nature fall on deaf ears.
* ''Series/{{QI}}'' skewers this, with Alan expressing the opinion that witches were burnt, and Creator/StephenFry explaining that, regardless of what you might have read in books - "and I use the term 'books' very loosely" - like ''Literature/TheDaVinciCode'', two people may have been burnt for witchcraft, ever, and most accused witches were found not guilty.
** Stephen Fry jokingly shouted "Burn the witch!" when Victoria Corin's "anxiety dream" (in which Stephen Fry asked the panel, "Why was [[Literature/AliceInWonderland the March Hare]] so important to the Aztecs?") came true.
* When someone starts murdering members of a coven in the ''Series/RizzoliAndIsles'' episode "Bloodlines", the first victim is burnt at the stake.
* BBC series ''Series/RobinHood'':
** The midwife/healing woman Matilda is accused of witchcraft and dunked in the village pond. Somewhat {{subverted|Trope}} in that her accusers don't really ''believe'' she's a witch, but in fact want her to ''use'' her healing abilities to save the life of a political enemy. She refuses, and into the water she goes...
** In a later episode, the outlaws are deemed heretics and nearly burnt at the stake.
** In the audiobook ''The Witchfinders'' Kate is nearly burnt as a witch.
* {{Subverted|Trope}} in ''Series/RobinOfSherwood'' where a suspected witch is sentenced to be hanged rather than burnt (and it is made quite clear that this is not a normal punishment, but is Guy of Gisbourne rigging the evidence against her as revenge for her refusing his advances).
* ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'':
** [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] in an episode where Sabrina's class visits Salem; everyone was given a little slip saying if they were a witch or not, and were supposed to find the witch. Sabrina loses hers without reading it. After all the predictable accusation hijinks goes down, the teacher announces that nobody had a slip that said "witch", as a lesson to the class about crazy witchhunts. Sabrina finds her slip on the bus home, which says "witch" on it. Salem... is not a good place for witches. It's also worth noting that when Jenny is "found guilty" of being a witch, Mr Pool says "you can pretend we hanged her" instead of burning. He was with the history teacher after all.
** A flashback to Zelda's time in the Middle Ages shows that the villagers found out about her being a witch, and accused her of making the crops fail. So she was ducked down a well to the degree that "to this day I don't care for swimming."
** A straight example in Season 4's ThanksgivingEpisode, where the aunts conjure up 17th century pilgrims to cook Thanksgiving dinner for them. Naturally they're superstitious, and one gag has them tying Salem to a stake as if they're about to burn him.
* ''Series/{{Salem}}'': Mostly {{averted|Trope}}; as in the actual witch trials, convicted witches are sentenced to hang, with the exceptions of the Barker family and Giles Corey, who is pressed to death (to coerce him into entering a plea), as he was in real life. Hale says his entire family was burned at the stake, but Mary's response indicates this was in Europe, which is where it was historically used.
* In ''Series/{{SiempreBruja}}'', Carmen travels forward in time while being burned at the stake as a witch. She ends up in a hospital with burned feet.
* {{Subverted|Trope}} in ''Series/SleepyHollow'': The grave of Ichabod's wife Katrina indicates that she was burned as a witch, but in truth, this never actually happened: [[spoiler:she's really stuck in Purgatory and the grave is meant to mark the location of the Headless Horseman's head]].
* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'''s fourth season features the story of Margerite Isobel Theroux, a witch burned alongside two accomplices in 17th Century France. She comes back to possess her descendant, Lana Lang, to exact vengeance against the descendants of the woman who sentenced her to death. Which involved Kryptonian artifacts, for whatever reason.
-->'''Isabelle:''' ''[in Lana]'' We don't have time for this.\\
'''Madeleine:''' ''[in Chloe]'' Time is the only thing we do have. Isn't that what you said right before the angry mob set us on fire?\\
'''Isabelle:''' ''[in Lana]'' You're really not gonna let that go, are you?
* ''Series/SorryIveGotNoHead'': The fate of anyone accused of being a witch by the Witchfinder, which is anyone who annoys or inconveniences him. This all happens [[RuleOfFunny in the present day]].
* In the first few episodes of ''Series/StargateSG1'' season 9, this happens to Vala twice and Daniel once. Luckily it was just their minds inhabiting host bodies, so they came out of it okay for various reasons. The first time, to Vala alone, wasn't even for any good reason, either. She forgot a prayer and was accused of being possessed. Things sort of went downhill for the duo (and the galaxy) after that.
* In one ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode, [[TheCaptain Captain Kirk]] is declared to be a "witch" (that's what you get for appearing out of thin air and talking to a disembodied voice called "Bones").
* {{Parodied|Trope}} in the ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "False Profits" when the townspeople decide to ''honor'' their three deified Sages by sending them back up to Heaven on "wings of flame" as the prophetic poem central to their religious canon instructs them.
* The original-series ''Series/{{Survivors}}'' has the community start down this road in the episode "The Witch", but, mercifully, saner heads rein in the hysteria before the (innocent if slightly strange) victim gets tied to a stake.
* On ''Series/TrueBlood'', the villainess Antonia is the ghost of a witch burned at the stake during UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition thanks to vampires within the Catholic Church.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "A Message from Charity", Squire Jonas Hacker tells Charity Payne that he will have her burned as a witch after she manages to fight off [[AttemptedRape his attempt to rape her]].
* In ''Series/{{Voyagers}}'', Bogg winds up tied to a stake when he shows up during the Salem Witch Trials ([[WaybackTrip or a variant thereof]]), but the judge explicitly states that this is "without precedent in these colonies"; the other accused are sentenced to imprisonment and hanging.
* ''Series/TheWheelOfTime'': Eamon Valda burns a captured Aes Sedai from the Yellow Ajah at the stake, in keeping with his belief that they're evil witches deserving of death.
-->Because we humans are meant to be of this Earth. To struggle and fight for everything we have. The Creator never meant for us to have access to so much power. You witches make a mockery of our very existence, walking like gods amongst men. The idea that the One Power comes from anywhere other than the Dark is absurd. So I have been called to stamp it out. Woman by woman by woman.
* {{Invoked|Trope}} in the BBC/Starz series ''Series/TheWhiteQueen'', when Margaret Beaufort refers to the fact that Queen Elizabeth (Elizabeth Woodville, not the more famous daughter of Henry VIII) had so far produced only daughters for King Edward IV: "That one produces only more witches for burning." This seems rather cruel since she's hoping for the deaths by fire of three adorable little girls. Of course, in the series, the [[MageSpecies Woodville women]] ''[[MageSpecies are]]'' [[MageSpecies all witches]], although none of them are ever burnt for it. In RealLife, Elizabeth and her mother were both accused of witchcraft at different times, but the accusations were of course not actually true, nor were either of them or Elizabeth's daughters ever burnt to death.
* ''Series/{{Witchblade}}'': UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc was burned for heresy rather than witchcraft, but the series shows that she was a wielder of the Witchblade and seemingly went to her death when it abandoned her.
* ''Series/WitchesOfEastEnd'': In some of Joanna's flashbacks, it's shown that her daughters were burned as witches in earlier eras.
* ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'' season 6: Elijans (expy Roman Catholics in AncientGrome) burn Xena's mother as a witch due to her tavern being haunted.
* {{Discussed|Trope}} in ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "Chinga" which is set in New England and the Salem trials receive a ShoutOut. Jane, a former SadistTeacher who was sacked, would very much like to invoke this trope for Polly's mother and burn her at the stake -- for being an attractive woman and having an autistic daughter who Jane sees as a CreepyChild. Jane, Jane... it was Polly's PerversePuppet that was the real problem.

[[folder:Music]]
* In some versions of the ballad "Young Hunting" ([[Literature/ChildBallads Child 47]]; a.k.a. Earl Richard/ Love Henry) the lady gets punished this way for killing her lover. Certain versions also include her trying to pin the murder on her maid, who gets acquitted because she won't burn no matter what the king's men try.
* Music/CreatureFeature mentions this and many other tortures in their song "Here There Be Witches".
* Music/CultureClub's "The War Song" has the line "Like a Philistine, we're burning witches too."
* "Am I Evil?" by Diamond Head (and covered by Music/{{Metallica}}), in which the singer's mother is burned as a witch, setting him on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge that ultimately [[HeWhoFightsMonsters consumes him]].
* Music/{{Dragonland}}'s "Fire and Brimstone" has a female elf [[spoiler: actually the elven Queen]] being about to be burned at the stake, considered a witch, and saved by the protagonist.
* "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Burn Witch Burn]]" by Music/EgoLikeness.
* "The Curse of Jacques" from Music/GraveDigger's ''Knights of the Cross'', which is about Last Grandmaster of Knights Templar Jacques de Molay, who was burned at the stake during the order's downfall.
* "Burning Times" by Music/IcedEarth refers to the witch hunts.
* The Swedish song "I Lågornas Sken" (In the Fires Light) by Nordman is about a young girl judged to burn at the stake.
* "Burn" from Music/KingDiamond's solo album ''The Eye'' depicts a burning of alleged witch. The eponymous pendant from the title is later found from her ashes.
* "Words of the Witch" by Music/{{Lonewolf}} is a scathing condemnation of the Salem witch trials.
* "Burn the Witch" by Music/QueensOfTheStoneAge.
* Music/{{Radiohead}}'s [[Music/AMoonShapedPool "Burn the Witch"]] features imagery themed around this as a metaphor for paranoia and distrust in modern society. The song had actually been in the works for well over a decade before its eventual release in 2016, and out-of-context lyrics from it were subtly tossed around in promotional material during the 2000's.
* "The Curse", intro track to Music/RunningWild's ''Black Hand Inn'' opens with a trial where a man is condemned to be a heretic and is subsequently burned at the stake.
%%* "Deathaura" by Music/SonataArctica. The BittersweetEnding helps to soften the emotional blow, however. %% Zero Context Example
* Music/{{Taylor Swift}}'s "I Did Something Bad" from her 2017 album ''reputation'' has the following lines: "They're burning all the witches even if you aren't one/They got their pitchforks and proof/Their receipts and reasons"
* Music/{{Venom}}'s "Don't Burn the Witch" from ''Black Metal''.
* The Music/{{Vocaloid}} song "Witch", sung by Megurine Luka and a few other Vocaloids, has this happening to Luka's character. [[spoiler:She escapes, in probably [[GainaxEnding the most confusing way ever]]]].
** In "Flames of Yellow Phosphorus," Rin's character is burned at the stake for killing her father. Subverted because they're not accusing her of witchcraft, they're doing it because she [[{{Irony}} committed arson]].
* "Burning The Witches", the title track from the debut album by Warlock, released in 1984.
* Witchfinder General, "Burning a Sinner". Also, "Witchfinder General".
* Both subverted and played straight with two songs off the Music/RobZombie album 'Educated Horses'. 'American Witch' subverts the trope with the line "We all hang high - 20 innocents" (referencing the twenty victims of the Salem Witch Trials), while 'Lords of Salem' plays it straight and subverts it with the line "Burn me and hang me".
* "Witches Burn" by Music/ThePrettyReckless is about a woman who's finished with the misogynistic Puritan society she lives in and is fine with being being burned as a witch for murdering the men who've wronged her.

[[folder:Mythology and Religion]]
* The passage of Exodus 22:18 from Literature/TheBible (and its quite popular King James variant mentioned as the page quote) was used to justify many a WitchHunt back in the bad old days. It should be noted, however, that the meaning of "witch" or "sorceress" back then primarily referred to someone who used bad and injurious magic, rather than all magic. And some scholars have argued that the passage really referred to poisoners rather than magic users.
* The legendary origin of the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythrina_crista-galli ceibo]]'' tree and flowers is tied to this trope. It says that as the Spanish ''conquistadores'' explored the lands of what's now UsefulNotes/{{Argentina}}, the Guarani tribe opposed them fiercely; one of their biggest enemies was Anahí, an ActionGirl who used to be an ugly but kind FriendToAllLivingThings MysteriousWaif, but TookALevelInBadass to defend her people. When the Spanish finally captured poor Anahí, they burned her at the stake; according to different versions either [[DefiantToTheEnd she sang a last song as she burned to death]] and her charred corpse became a ''ceibo'' tree in the morning, or the flames refused to touch Anahí and she slowly turned into into a ''ceibo'' in front of the conquerors.
* Defied in Myth/NorseMythology, when the gods try to kill an evil witch named Gullveig by burning her. Three times they tried...
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* Being burned at the stake is mentioned to be the fate of most "witches" (read: people with supernatural powers) caught by either the Inquisition, after being tormented at its hands, or the people of certain countries in ''TabletopGame/AnimaBeyondFantasy''. Since in that game spellcasting can be done even tied and/or gagged, presumably the chains and the like used to hold the victim would nullify their powers.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Atmosfear}}'': Anne de Chantraine was an innocent burned alive at the stake due to accusations of witchcraft as a teen.
* In ''TabletopGame/TheChroniclesOfAeres'', the human kingdom of Hesmoor was once part of the [[AntiMagicalFaction Imperium]], and so still is ruled by a brutal order of witchfinders dedicated to hunting down and slaying all mages and magical creatures they can find.
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
** The generic module "The Apocalypse Stone" has a sort of {{subver|tedTrope}}sion. The player characters come upon a town where they are about to "burn the witch". They must (to pass a test of character they don't know about, anyway) find out the truth about her guilt. At first it appears she is innocent, and the missing child she's accused of killing can be found elsewhere - but looking into it more carefully reveals that yes, she is still a witch who's into human sacrifice and worships a devil. Even if the burning takes place, the local good-aligned community leader intends to quickly strangle her under the cover of smoke instead, so that's another aspect that's subverted.
** Played straight with the Order of Seropaenes from the sourcebook ''Tome of Magic'', with the [[UnequalRites binder]] playable class standing in for the witch.
** Occurs in the backstory of Vecna, a half-fiend necromancer and demonologist who ascended to become first a lich and then a full-fledged god. One of the first things he did after mastering his powers was come back to the city where he was born, and from which he was exiled when they tried to burn him at the stake and only succeeded at killing his mother. He effortlessly slaughtered every last one of them, save for the city's leaders; them he spared because they had dared to offer their own lives in exchange for the lives of their citizens.
* In ''TabletopGame/FadingSuns'' this used to be the Urth Orthodox Church's policy with psychics, but after the Eskatonic Order showed that their powers could fight the Symbiots the Church began to grudgingly accept "Penitent" psychics. Though the [[ChurchMilitant Temple Avesti]] still likes to go on Witch Hunts, making them extremely unpopular among the populace, at least one Avestite has been burned at the stake for accusing a well-loved [[ActualPacifist Amalthean]] healer of heresy.
* The ''Literature/FightingFantasy'' gamebook ''Spellbreaker'' contains a notable subversion in that the witch hunters are the ''good guys'', fighting against an evil coven of witches and warlocks that are trying to free a powerful demon from its mystic prison. The reader can even encounter a supposed witch-burning, although the young woman about to be burned is actually innocent, and the warlock is actually the inquisitor who's about to burn her, having framed her as a way of throwing suspicion off himself.
* House Karanok in ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' burns every arcane caster they can get their hands on. Presumably, they haven't yet gotten their hands on Elminster. Why? They still ''exist''.
* Creator/GamesWorkshop games:
** The majority of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' magic users end up in this manner. Unusually for this trope, many of the witches actually ''are'' in contact with malign supernatural beings. In one piece of background material a witch hunter burns a 6-year-old girl at the stake because her parents went to a mad scientist to heal her broken leg and ended up mutated as a result. The witch hunter got her drunk because he knew that she was an innocent who just had the misfortune to have the traveling doctor be an insane lunatic, but she couldn't be allowed to live because of the mutations.
** In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' is actually somewhat nuanced on the subject. There's a distinction between ''psykers'' and ''witches''. Psykers have an innate connection with the warp. There's always a chance they could be possessed, but they can (provided that they're strong enough, and receive the proper training, and are lucky not to attract a dangerous demon) avoid anything demonic and even work for the Imperium in rare cases. ''Witches'', on the other hand, are those who deliberately use rituals and spells to draw power form the warp, usually by making some pact with some malevolent warp entity or daemon. Also, inquisitors and witchhunters are very numerous and diverse. Some of them are diehard witch-burners, others are compromising pragmatists, others are severe radicals who will use witches for their own purposes. In fact, the Imperium needs psykers, Astropaths for communication and Navigators to guide starships through the [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace Warp]], and just about every branch of the Imperial military uses sanctioned psykers, there are even many Inquisitors who are psykers. While those who are too weak to use for those purposes can be fed to the GodEmperor. So, needless to say, a lot of Inquisitors try to take psykers who aren't involved with Chaos alive. If a witch is deemed dangerous enough however, they'll [[EarthShatteringKaboom burn the whole planet]] just to be safe. Outside of the Inquisition itself this distinction is almost completely unknown, and all psykers get lumped together as witches; the more sophisticated might avoid using the term for sanctioned psychers out of politeness.
** In ''TabletopGame/{{Necromunda}}'' the religious fanatics of [[TheTheocracy House Cawdor]] and members of the [[TheFundamentalist Cult of Redemption]] possess an intense loathing of psykers and Wyrds, believing that the best fate for such witches is immolation by [[FireBreathingWeapon flamer weaponry]]. During the 1st and 2nd Edition of the game Redemptionist Crusade even had a rule that they would automatically burn any Wyrd they capture at the stake unless their comrades could rescue them.
* ''TabletopGame/HunterTheReckoning'' implies repeatedly that the Salem and Inquisitorial witch hunts were both justified and effective. Of course, in the Old World of Darkness, that's not entirely ridiculous.
* The ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' zigzags this trope. In general, practitioners of arcane magic are feared and shunned in all save a few of the most "enlightened" Domains, such as the comparatively high-magic land of Darkon, but people actually being dragged to the stake and burned by a lynch mob generally doesn't happen without a lot of provocation or unless you're in one of the more backwater regions. Played straight with the domain of Tepest, which is based on a combination of Witch Trials Salem and Grimm Fairy Tales -- their Darklord is even a coven of hags called the Sisters Mindefisk. Unusually, their ire is directed less at magic-users and more at [[TheFairFolk fey]], whom they live in terror of; "witches" are people who are willingly in league with the fey, although they're so backwards that they can't identify that MagicAIsMagicA and so anyone who practices non-clerical magic is a "witch" in their eyes. Burning them is justified because the [[EvilVersusEvil malevolent inquisition]] steadily amassing political power has its roots in the domain's worship of a sun god named Belenus. Tepest is regarded as one of the most backwards and primitive domains in the Demiplane of Dread.
** Tepest features heavily in the 2nd edition module ''Servants of Darkness'', which gives [=PCs=] the opportunity to derail this {{trope}}, proving an accused woman's innocence by exposing the evil fey creature which is truly to blame for the misfortunes plaguing a Tepestani village. This is referenced in the 3e sourcebook covering the Tepest region, which reveals that the head of the Tepestani Inquisition was actually shaken so much that he has since tried to stamp down the anti-fey and anti-witch hysteria that his organization is building its power around.
* This is the core concept of the party game ''TabletopGame/Werewolf1997''. There are monsters hiding in the village and killing people at night, but you can't tell them from the innocent villagers by looking at them. What's the solution? Grab a pitchfork or a torch, form a lynch mob, and tie a rope to the old hanging tree.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': After the First Mendevian Crusade, the demons of the Worldwound changed tactics and began corrupting crusaders and sending cultists to infiltrate them, leading to the capture of the Crusade's forward base Drezen. The Crusaders responded by forming an Inquisition, which uses burning as a main form of execution. And while ProperlyParanoid, they've burned a lot of innocent people along with the guilty.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theatre]]
* ''Theatre/TheCrucible'', a play which has as its running theme the Salem witch trials, and was written, very tellingly, during the communist witch-hunts in America, is actually an aversion -- they don't burn the witches, instead hanging them, as was actually done in the trials.
* In ''Theatre/FiniansRainbow'', Sharon is charged with using witchcraft to [[ColorMeBlack turn a white man black]], and her lover Woody of aiding and abetting her, in accordance with a 17th-century state law against witchcraft. ("Don't you think it's a little obsolete by now?" Woody says.) The pair are saved from the flames by the JustInTime reversal of her wish.
* The opera ''Königskinder'' has a witch who is burned by a rampaging PowderKegCrowd sometime in between the second and third acts.
* ''Theatre/TheLadysNotForBurning'' by Christopher Fry. The evidence against her is laughable, but the town's officials can see she's well-to-do, and if they convict her, they can confiscate her property. But there's that pesky ex-soldier who insists he ''murdered'' the man she supposedly bewitched....
-->''"Though we administer persuasion with great patience, she admits nothing. And the man won't stop admitting. It really makes one lose all faith in human nature."''
* Part of the {{Backstory}} in Creator/GilbertAndSullivan's ''Theatre/{{Ruddigore}}''; the ancestor of the Baronets of Ruddigore was cursed by a witch he was burning.
* ''Theatre/IlTrovatore'' by Verdi, anyone? Everything began with a witch burning, and the daughter of one of the UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} victims taking revenge for it...
* ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'''s "March of the Witch Hunters" is pretty self-explanatory. The citizens of Oz hunt for Elphaba, egged on by Madame Morrible.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Just one of the many things the Inquisitors of the Citadel in ''VideoGame/AdventureQuestWorlds'' like to do to people. One of your quests on the chain involves rescuing witches who have been put to the torch.
* In ''VideoGame/AkatsukiBlitzkampf'', it looks like [[spoiler:the original Mycale]] was subjected to this. [[spoiler:She found a way to cheat on death, however: [[GrandTheftMe having her soul take over the bodies of several different women]] through the years. In the story proper, her latest host is a 14-year-old girl named Kati.]]
* In the InteractiveFiction Creator/HPLovecraft-inspired ''VideoGame/{{Anchorhead}}'', the founder of the American Verlac clan, Croseus, got his entire family accused of witchcraft, and only he and his youngest daughter escaped being burned.
* The backstory of Partinias, the [[ThePowerOfLove Arcana of Love]] in ''VideoGame/ArcanaHeart'', talks about how she was burned as a witch in the middle ages because [[ActualPacifist she criticized violence and tried to spread compassion]] during a time when Europe was covered in war.
* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII: Shadows of Amn'':
** Maybe not a witch per se, but the game features a mob threatening to burn Viconia at the stake in the middle of Athkatla. As the protagonist, you can choose either to save her (incurring the ire of the mob in the process), or to be a jerk and let her die. It was originally part of an initial decision for Viconia to be infected with Lycanthropy, but they still went with it after they scrapped the werewolf idea. Since she's still a [[EvilCounterpart drow]] elf and a priestess of very nasty goddess Shar, they have a pretty natural reason to try to burn her.
** There is a +4 magical staff in the game which is stated to be the remnant of a stake at which a powerful witch was burned. It is stated that with her last breath, the witch caused the fire to burn down the entire village.
* An achievement in ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooieNutsAndBolts'' called "Burn the Witch" involves shooting the antagonist Gruntilda in the town square with the laser you get near the end of the game. Naturally, [[ContractualImmortality since you have to fight her later]], the laser doesn't do anything except irritate her.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Blasphemous}}'', this is common practice in Cvstodia. One of the bosses is named Quirce, Returned by the Flames. He was burned at the stake for heresy, but then rose again from the ashes. [[FateWorseThanDeath So they burned him again. And again. And again.]]
* Very present in the ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' series, especially in the 1470s stories.
** As detailed by ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight Symphony of the Night]]'', Lisa's burning at the stake inspired Dracula to destroy humanity.
** When a similar fate struck a woman named Rosaly, Hector was inspired to seek revenge in ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaCurseOfDarkness Curse of Darkness]]''. Julia from the same game was a witch in hiding.
** As was Sypha from ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaIIIDraculasCurse Dracula's Curse]]'', who went so far as to take up the SweetPollyOliver approach.
** Later games in the series suffered witches more politely, and by the time of the ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow Sorrow]]'' games, one of them directly works for the church. (Said witch is a descendant of the aforementioned Sypha Belnades.)
* ''VideoGame/ConquestsOfTheLongbow'': Invoked by the Abbot towards Marian. You will have to rescue her from this. How well you handle this determines the ending you get.
* In ''VideoGame/CrusaderKings II'', your peasants and the Christian Church will want you to torch random women for being witches; not doing so will displease them. If you have the ''Monks and Mystics'' DLC and have [[MagicRealism turned on supernatural events]], [[ProperlyParanoid don't dismiss them without investigating first]]; a freakishly large number of "sinful" traits (like the SevenDeadlySins, "Possessed", "Cruel", or especially "Impaler") is an indication that they may, in fact, deserve to be set alight.
* Invoked in ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc''. When Celestia "Celes" Ludenberg is proved to be the one who first manipulated Hifumi into killing Kiyotaka and then killed him, she is sentenced to execution via being burned at the stake. This is actually the ''perfect'' way to die in Celes's opinion, as WordOfGod said that she wanted a very romanticized and dramatic death like those in the novels, so she is rather gleeful ([[StepfordSmiler at least publically]]) as the pyre is lit under her feet and she waits for the fire to consume her, hands steepled and looking up dramatically... But since her executioner is '''[[{{Troll}} Monokuma]]''' after all, he then subverts the trope via summoning a huge firefighter truck at the very last moment ''and [[DeathByAmbulance ramming it into Celes's pyre, killing her]]''.
* The Fanatic from the Crimson Court DLC of ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' will do this to anyone afflicted with the Crimson Curse, no matter how they got it or what they do with it. He'll also do this to anyone who so much as associates with someone who's cursed; as you can well imagine, this guy is quite insane. The only way to stop him from trying to burn your heroes at the stake is to destroy his pyre, but [[BerserkButton that just]] [[TurnsRed makes him even madder]].
* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{Darklands}}''. When you defeat and capture a witch during a special encounter, you get many options to deal with her, but killing is not one of them.
* In the backstory of the ''Franchise/DragonAge'' games, Andraste was burned at the stake after her husband betrayed her to the Tevinter Imperium. The leader of the Imperium, Archon Hessarian, felt pity for Andraste in her final moments and drove his sword into her heart so she wouldn't suffer any longer. He became the first convert to the Chant of Light and helped spread it over Thedas. The Blades of Mercy are enchanted replicas of Hessarian's sword and are considered badges of honor in the Imperium. An inversion, as Andraste was burned ''by'' witches (well, mages).
* In ''VideoGame/Drakengard2'', Manah is accused of being a witch, and she did break one of the seals, so she's captured by the hero, and the guy he's working for burns her. She does have magic, however, and escapes, and later joins you.
* In ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'', [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]] are near-universally feared, loathed, and ostracized throughout Tamriel. They are often killed on sight wherever they are found. The [[KillItWithFire use of fire is common]], as the majority of vampire bloodlines have a [[BurnTheUndead weakness to it.]]
* In ''VideoGame/EternalChampions'', this was the cause for Xavier's death. There's even a smoldering stake in the immediate background of his stage that you knock your opponent into.
* It's never witnessed, but ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' says that the Roivas family was persecuted upon coming to America and often burned for witchcraft, but enough survived to have descendants in the form of Maximillian, Edward and Alexandra, among others.
* In the ''[[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy Family Guy Video Game!]]'', one of Brian's levels requires you to get by a trio of police officers by knocking a witch hat onto one of them, causing the other two to mistake him for a witch and set him on fire.
* Not completely true to the trope, but when ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'''s Rinoa is discovered to be a Sorceress, she is sentenced to put into stasis. Of course, she gets [[BigDamnHeroes saved by the hero]] at the last moment.
* It's implied that this was attempted with Witch Princess from ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonDS''. Witch Princess mentions that in the past [[spoiler:Keira]] called her evil and got others to attack her home. She survived but [[spoiler:put Keira into a coma and imprisoned her ''deep'' within a mine]]. Witch Princess had planned on [[spoiler:removing her eventually]], but she forgot to [[spoiler:and thus Keira was left there for centuries. She would have stayed like that for a long time if not for the protagonist finding her]].
* In ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' ''IV'', a necromancer named Gauldoth is wrongfully accused of being a child murderer, and a town guard named Mardor attempts to have him burned. Gauldoth flees the town, returns several months later with an army, besieges the town, and captures it. One of the first things he does is have Mardor arrested... [[DeathByIrony and executed by being burned at the stake.]]
* ''VisualNovel/TheHouseInFataMorgana'':
** [[spoiler:Michel]] impaled to death and then crucified for three days and finally burnt at the stake as he was accused of being a devil's child due to [[spoiler:being intersex and thus believed to be cursed]].
** [[spoiler:The White-Haired Girl]] is killed as a result of this in the [[spoiler:second]] door.
* ''VideoGame/JeanneDArc'', naturally (see RealLife example below). In a twist, however, it is not Jeanne who suffers this fate, as she's [[NeverFoundTheBody currently missing]] and [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat presumed dead]]. Rather, the girl who's burned at the stake is her best friend Liane, [[ReplacementGoldfish who had been forced to impersonate her by the French commanders]] [[ElCidPloy in order to keep morale up]]. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IF4bQOSKQQ Poor Jeanne struggles to bring herself back just in time]], but when she gets to Rouen, Liane has already been killed. [[spoiler:For worse, Jeanne and Liane's ''other'' childhood friend Roger also can't save her, and has a FaceHeelTurn out of despair.]]
* Referenced in ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'', an achievement titled "Burn the Witch" is obtained by setting fire to the Witch boss zombie. It's also arguably one of the most effective ways of dealing with one if you have someone to run.
* The BigBad of ''[[VideoGame/LegendOfLegaia Legaia 2: Duel Saga]]'' was the victim of a witch hunt, which is what made him into the monster he became. You visit his home village later on in the game, and the place still bears the mark of his retaliation.
* This turns out to have been the fate of the vengeful spirit in ''VisualNovel/TheLetter''. She was accused of having used witchcraft, including using it to kill Lady Charlotte's husband, and was sentenced to be burned at the stake, a fate that she took to silently.
* ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonVsAceAttorney'': The city of Labyrinthia is rather hardcore when it comes to witches: any young girl suspected of witchcraft is immediately put on trial, then punished by [[CruelAndUnusualDeath being locked up in an Iron Maiden-esque cage and plunged into a pit of fire]]. It doesn't help that much like people in the medieval ages, the citizens are very superstitious, quick to refer to anything they don't understand as "magic", and rather stubborn, which leads to many innocent young ladies being burned to a crisp. Eventually [[spoiler:subverted when it is discovered that this is actually [[DeathFakedForYou an elaborate scam used to smuggle the accused witches out of the city]] and brainwash them into being slaves. In addition, the Judge delivers a stay of execution for the culprit of one case as Phoenix had argued that she had not committed any crimes, and he expresses relief when he learns that no one was actually executed, suggesting that he had doubts about the whole thing]].
* In ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryIV'', the suspicious townsfolk go on a WitchHunt after the gravedigger goes missing, capturing a gypsy and accusing him of being a werewolf. If you don't set him free in time, he gets burned at the stake, but not before he [[GypsyCurse curses you and the entire town]], causing game over. If you free him, you find out that he really was a werewolf, although innocent of what he was charged with.
* Played with in ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'': during a visit to [[LovecraftCountry Solomon Island]], it's revealed that the infamous [[HauntedHouse Black House]] is the direct result of an impulsive witch-burning back by an angry mob; the accused didn't want to leave her house and actually be burnt at the stake, so the crowd ended up just burning it to the ground with her inside it. Lore reveals that the "witch" was indeed a mage, but was innocent of the crimes she was accused of and mainly [[HeroWithBadPublicity a victim of a smear-campaign]] by TheIlluminati, who didn't appreciate her turning down their membership offer.
* In the backstory of the 2010 version of ''VideoGame/{{Splatterhouse}}'', Dr. West's wife (who CameBackWrong thanks to his experiments) was strapped into a Wicker Man-esque effigy to be burned as a witch by the citizens of Arkham. Then the [[EldritchAbomination Corrupted]] interfered and [[FromBadToWorse things got out of hand]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Starbound}}'' has the Glitch as a race born of an experiment to test out how civilizations advanced, who got stuck in MedievalStasis when their programming bugged out. The response of the rest when one figures it out and turns self-aware? This trope.
* ''VideoGame/TheSuffering'' reveals that while it was still settled by the Puritans, Carnate Island suffered a spate of witch-burnings that began when [[CreepyChild three little girls]] accused several of their fellow villagers -- [[KidsAreCruel as a joke]]. Centuries later, these three children live on as the [[UndeadChild Infernas]], the personification of all those on the island that were burnt at the stake. Lampshaded by Consuela, who notes that burning was non-existent among Puritans in other parts of America.
* ''VideoGame/TearRingSaga'':
** This can happen to [[spoiler:Rennie]], if neither Runan nor [[spoiler:Mintz]] arrive in time and seize the castle she's about to be publically executed. If they do, she joins their group some chapters later.
** In the backstory, [[spoiler:[[BrotherSisterTeam Zeek and Karla's]] parents and sisters]] were executed like this, kicking off their DarkAndTroubledPast.
* Used almost exactly by angry mob in the outskirts area of ''VideoGame/TheWitcher'' (the first real area in the game). The witch in question is most likely harmless, although her exact morals are certainly questionable (''especially'' if you have the uncensored version, in which she appears nude and smeared with blood on her card), and the player has the choice of sleeping with her (which happens rather frequently in this game) or not, and then a second choice between allowing the villagers to kill her or saving her. If Geralt saves her, the player later has to fight off most of the important villagers (while fighting a hell hound variant).
** By ''VideoGame/TheWitcher3WildHunt'', the AxCrazy [[TheCaligula King Radovid]], betrayed by his treacherous adviser, the sorceress Phillip Eilhart, [[ANaziByAnyOtherName is out to exterminate every last magic user he can get his grubby fingers on]]. Anti-magic pogroms are going full-force in Novigrad and the surrounding countryside, conducted officially by his army of witch-hunters and the [[CorruptChurch Church of the Eternal Fire]].
* Averted in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', in which Lucille Waycrest is nearly hanged for witchcraft. Witches are a very real threat to the people of Drustvar, but Lucille is the victim of a misunderstanding, and you must clear her name.
* In ''VideoGame/TheXFilesResistOrServe'', one storyline features Mulder and Scully travelling to a small town to prevent several girls' execution in this manner.
* ''VideoGame/YesYourGrace'': A BanOnMagic in the third act of the game quickly becomes a literal WitchHunt, and results in [[spoiler:Princess Lorsulia]] getting burnt at the stake.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* Mye and Hex were drowned as witches proving their innocence in ''Webcomic/CharbyTheVampirate'' before being resurrected as zombie slaves by an actual magic user.
* In ''Webcomic/TheCummoner'', Vilga is condemned just for admitting to being a witch. She manages to escape [[DistractedByTheSexy in her own fashion]].
* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'':
** It is stated that minor Sparks in rural areas were often treated as witches and burned. Considering the fact that a Sparky "witch" could probably make those herbal concoctions work, and that Sparkyness usually equals at least periodic insanity, they were probably on the money as often as not.
** Also subverted. Early in the story, the protagonist is told that girls with the Spark are especially vulnerable, and tend to just... disappear. Readers later find out that, rather than being killed as witches, most of them were probably kidnapped by Sturmhalten soldiers, so that Prince Aaronev, a Spark himself, could use them for his experiment to bring back the Other. Including his own daughter.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Hooky}}'' this is a risk for witches, despite being illegal.
** [[spoiler: Dani]] was narrowly rescued from a pyre after being mistaken for a child-killing witch.
** Angela Wytte was also a near-victim (saved only by intervention of the king) , but was pushed over the DespairEventHorizon by the experience.
** [[spoiler: Dorian]] is burned as a witch. [[spoiler: or so everyone, including his twin Dani, thinks. In reality, Damian magically makes a wick-clone of his younger brother, and Dorian escapes.]]
* Celina, a witch in ''Webcomic/{{Imp}}'' has her house burned down after a priest visits her home town and convinces them she's a devil worshiper.
* In ''Webcomic/KnightsOfBuenaVista'', Weselton's role in ''Frozen'' has been upgraded, from bigot against sorcerers, to apparent witch hunter.
** [[spoiler:This is a SubvertedTrope. He doesn't hunt magic users to stop evil. He does it because he's a [[PowerCopying Mage Reaver]], and this provides a cover for his actions.]]
* In ''Webcomic/LatchkeyKingdom'', the citizens of Hilla blame the [[CourtMage Castle Witch]] (currently Svana) and start grabbing torches and kindling every time there's a crisis. "Lenne gets a Hat" reveals that to become a licensed witch in Hilla, you need to be able to accept your death gracefully or else be [[RunOrDie very fast]].
* In ''Webcomic/NoRestForTheWicked'', the villagers [[http://www.forthewicked.net/archive/03-05.html blame Clare]] for their disappearing children and intend to burn her.
** On the other hand, Perrault [[http://www.forthewicked.net/archive/03-63.html reminds]] November of this after they found [[LosingYourHead cutting the witch's head off didn't work]].
* In ''Webcomic/OurLittleAdventure'', [[http://danielscreations.com/ola/comics/ep0097.html Angelo's Kids do this to their opponents.]]
* ''Webcomic/ScandinaviaAndTheWorld'':
** A variation occurs in [[http://humon.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2avbmz this]] comic in which Denmark and Norway sit Sister Finland ("the witch") on a burning maypole as part of a midsummer celebration.
** [[https://satwcomic.com/what-comes-around-goes-around Another comic]], illustrating the early Church's stance on witchcraft, had King Europe accuse Queen Europe of being a witch, only for the Pope to burn ''him'' for heresy.
* In ''Webcomic/SomethingPositive'', a young woman [[https://somethingpositive.net/comic/trolling-for-goths-pt-3/ boasts of having been burned to death in Salem]] in another life for [[AnachronismStew being a Wiccan]], but that [[HeroicSacrifice she died praising Wicca and the Goddess]]. Davan, of course, [[DeadpanSnarker tears her story apart]]. In three panels.
* In ''Webcomic/WelcomeToChastity'' the town Chastity used to be the site of many witch burnings. Turns out one of the women burned was an actual witch. She revived herself and got some payback on the town inhabitants.
* In the world of ''Webcomic/{{Witchy}}'', everyone has some degree of magic power, but society burns witches who possess too much power.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
%%* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbYlvTyc28I&feature=relmfu This]] from ''WebVideo/FiveSecondFilms''. %% Weblinks are not examples
* Being burned as a witch is Film/MaryPoppins's nightmare according to a ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' Photoplasty: [[http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_334_24-nightmares-famous-fictional-characters_p24/#8 24 Nightmares of Famous Fictional Characters]].
* The hunting and burning of witches is the one of the main themes of the online roleplaying game ''VideoGame/TheInquisitionLegacy''.
* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5294 SCP-5294]] is described as a HumanoidAbomination physically similar to an elderly woman, which possesses a long, rodent-like tail, with a third eyeball at its tip. After being caught abducting several infants from their homes in the fictional settlement of [[SalemIsWitchCountry Brownsborough, Massachusetts]], she is executed by the townspeople, who first try burning her, which ultimately fails, so they resort to decapitating her instead, with dire results.
* On the ''Website/NightmareProject'', one dreamer has a nightmare where his wife is raped and then burned by an angry mob lead by a witch-like crone.
* In ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries'', said word-for-word multiple times by [[CloudCuckoolander Tristan]], who [[RunningGag remains convinced]] that Duke Devlin is a witch.
--> '''Tristan:''' He must be a witch! [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail He turned me into a newt!]] ''({{beat}})'' I got better.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'': The Cavalier attempts to burn Batman and Green Arrow at the stake in "Bold Beginnings!". Not that he actually thinks they are witches, but it is a DeathTrap in keeping with his criminal motif, which is TheCavalierYears.
* In ''WesternAnimation/Castlevania2017'', Dracula's wife is burnt at the stake as a witch for the crime of being a woman interested in science. Dracula ain't too happy about that, and returns one year after she's killed to rain down bloody vengeance on the town of Wallachia, both [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge figuratively]] and [[RainOfBlood literally]]. The bishop who did the deed later tries to defend himself.
-->'''Bishop:''' [[NeverMyFault She was a witch!]]\\
'''Blue Fangs:''' ''[[SarcasmMode Lies?]]'' [[GodIsDispleased In your house of god?]]
* Sam is captured and almost burnt on the stake in the ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' episode "Infinite Realms" when the gang arrive in colonial era Salem, Massachusetts for no reason other than the possibility that her Gothic appearance looks much like the witch type. Vlad, disguised as a pilgrim, eggs on the crowd, which doesn't help her cause at all.
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': You hear that? A girl solved a math problem. You know what that means? A WITCH!
* ''WesternAnimation/HomeMovies'' - at the Medieval Faire, [=McGuirk=] is talking on his cell phone - faire organizer Lynch swipes it away from him. [=McGuirk=] starts yelling "He has a PHONE! BURN him!!!" Several faire goers advance on Lynch with torches.
* Episode 13 of ''WesternAnimation/IlEtaitUneFois'' features the Hundred Years Wars and Joan of Arc, and almost at the end there's a scene featuring a traveler that tells the cast about her execution.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuestTheRealAdventures'' episode "Ice Will Burn," the people from the underground caverns threaten to throw Jessie and Katrina to the smoldering lava as {{Human Sacrifice}}s, thinking they are witches.
* The ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'' episode "To Switch a Witch" features the gang going to Salem, MA, on Halloween, and ending up having to save a friend who is accused of being a witch. A mob of townspeople forms and wants to burn the accused witch at the stake, and this was what, in the 1970s?
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** Played for laughs. During a [[KentBrockmanNews news report]], viewers learn that Springfield has the lowest science scores in the country. Cut to [[TorchesAndPitchforks angry mob]] surrounding Principal Skinner who is tied to a stake:
--->'''Skinner:''' I'm telling you people, the Earth revolves around the Sun!\\
'''Grampa Simpson:''' Burn him!\\
''[a photographer snaps a picture of Grampa Simpson]''\\
'''Grampa Simpson:''' You've stolen my soul!
** There was also a [[WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror Halloween special]] that took place in the time the WitchHunt happened and Marge and other women were accused of witchcraft and were tied to the stake. Lisa pointed out that if they were witches, they could use their powers to escape. She quickly shuts up when Homer threatens to add her to the pyre. Of course, Marge ''really was'' a witch. It's that kind of episode.
** A group of Wiccans were accused of blinding people in Springfield, and were going to be drowned in a lake. It turns out the reason people turned blind was because Homer and some rednecks threw moonshine into Springfield's water source.
* In the short film "Jungle Drums", one of the ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheatricalCartoons'', Lois Lane had to endure being tied to a stake as part of an interrogation by Nazis in Africa.[[note]]The Nazis did have operations in Northern Africa, though they didn't venture far enough south to deal with jungles.[[/note]] Taken captive after her plane crashes she's held tied to a chair and threatened with fire by Nazi operatives if she doesn't answer any questions. Naturally being Lois she declines to answer and they tie her to the stake and prepare to burn her until Superman arrives to save the day.
* In the short, "Day For Knight" from the ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' episode, "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS1E59BraveTalesOfRealRabbits Brave Tales of Real Rabbits]]", when Buster is summoned to rescue Babs, he is in the middle of saving Shirley the Loon from having this happen to her. He abandons Shirley to take on this other mission, [[BrickJoke which comes back to bite him by the very end]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Translation:
** Interestingly, the passage quoted at the top of this page, from the King James Version, is actually a rather iffy translation. The term "witch" is a more recent invention of the English language, and of course no particular method of execution was prescribed. The word used in the original language roughly translates to "sorceress" with "[[MindRape one who twists the minds of others]] for personal gain" connotations. Though rulers described as serving God often stamped out ''all'' practitioners; this is why Saul had trouble finding one when he decided to actually consult one.
** Another translation renders the word as ''prostitute''. Sacred prostitutes often served the god(desse)s of the nations opposing Israel. They were seen as trying to tempt God's people away from him. Some may have practiced sacred rites.
** It's also possible that the original word was ''poisoner'', as there was overlap between the Greek and Latin words for "poisoner" and "witch"; King James was [[TheWitchHunter rather obsessed with witchcraft]], which may have influenced the translation.
* In UsefulNotes/AncientGreece and AncientRome, there were things that ''could'' be considered witch-hunts[[note]]Keep in mind that our modern conception of what a "witch" is [[NewerThanTheyThink actually developed around the Reformation era]][[/note]], but their word for "witch" could also be translated as "poisoner" (see, the above section on the KJV). In fact, it's possible they were interchangeable concepts back then.
** Perhaps the first victim of witch-hunting in history we know the name of, was an ancient Greek woman named [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theoris_of_Lemnos Theoris of Lemnos]] (4th. century B.C.E./B.C.). She was executed with her children.
** Livy ([[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0155%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3D18 Ad Urbe Condita Libri VIII, xviii]]) records an instance of 170 women being burned for poisoning (witchcraft?), who were blamed for causing mass illness. Livy records that this is the scale of this persecution was never before seen in Rome at that point.
** In 81 B.C.E./B.C., the Roman legislator Sulla passed the ''Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficiis'', which prohibited occult practices along with posession of harmful poisons.
* UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc, who led the French army during UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar, was eventually captured by the English. She was put on trial for heresy in a KangarooCourt, was found guilty, and burned at the stake.
* In RealLife, the methods for dealing with suspected witches varied greatly between areas and eras:
** During [[TheHighMiddleAges the Middle Ages proper]] witchcraft wasn't a major crime -- 'cunning folk' were practitioners of low-level magic that were generally not persecuted legally, unless they were accused of cheating their customers out of the supposed effects of the magic sold. Lethal magic was treated essentially as a subsection of poisoning, and punished accordingly with death, though not by burning, while lesser offenses could only lead to a fine or corporal punishment. Only with TheLateMiddleAges and TheCavalierYears, especially with the publication of the infamous ''[[Literature/MalleusMaleficarum Malleus]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum Maleficarum]]'' did the mass witch hunts begin. Prior to this, the Church's position was largely that witches were not even real - or rather, that magic was not real, simply illusions of the Devil[[note]]In fact, belief in witches was condemned as Pagan and worthy of capital punishment at the Council of Paderborn (785 C.E./A.D.)[[/note]]. The ''Malleus'' itself was banned when it came out as the heretical ravings of a lunatic, but unfortunately enthusiastic amateurs got a hold of it anyway, causing a boom among both Catholic and Protestant laymen.
** After the Reformation witch-hunts gained rapid popularity on both sides of the fence, as religious paranoia rose to ridiculous degrees. Most of the witch-trials were performed by secular courts or minor clergy with little idea how to perform any actual investigation, though in Protestant countries even higher levels of clergy sometimes got themselves involved. Martin Luther was recorded saying something to the effect of: "I would gladly burn them myself."
** In England and America, witches were usually simply hanged, and sometimes burned ''[[RasputinianDeath post mortem]]'' to prevent them from coming [[TheUndead back as undead]]. However, in continental Europe, burning alive was a very popular method of execution for witches and heretics alike -- the distinction between the two was often narrow, to say the least. Not until Henry IV's statute "De Heretico Comburendo" was burning authorized in England as a punishment for heresy, and this sentence was rarely passed. Interestingly enough, getting convicted of witchcraft didn't mean an automatic death sentence. In England and Wales, the vast majority of those accused of witchcraft were pardoned. Apparently people liked a good trial, but couldn't be bothered to actually carry out the sentence.
** UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition actually refused to do this after the late-16th century, and even before then they were rather lax on witchcraft, very rarely ending in true executions. The Grand Inquisitor himself pronounced the tales of mass "sabbats" unlikely and unsupported by any evidence (it was considered much more credible that testimonies of people hosting Satanic meetings in the woods were probably just lustful sinners celebrating regular orgies, sometimes with the help of rudimentary [[HookersAndBlow party drugs]]), and stated that any person claiming to be a witch was either a liar or clinically insane. Even if declared witches, most accused actually survived with only "minor" torture and fairly small official punishment; execution itself was so rare that it caused its few cases, such as the UsefulNotes/ZugarramurdiWitchTrials, [[StreisandEffect to be spectacularly publicized]], which probably contributed to the legend that the Inquisition was having its hands full on the witch-killing topic. The Inquisition was more concerned about Jews and Moors, in particular the remnant population of Muslims in Spain: Castile-Leon had only conquered Granada in 1492, so the region and its Muslim people were something of an ongoing problem for the Christian rulers until the last of them were ethnically cleansed in the early 17th century. That said, this probably didn't stop non-Royal and non-Church town authorities (i.e. about 2/3 of all towns) or angry mobs from holding witch trials and hanging 'witches', despite the Inquisition's efforts to impede it.
* In Iceland, from 1625-1683, 21 people were executed by burning after being accused of witchcraft (which could include just keeping magical talismans in their homes). All but one of these people were male, as men were believed to be the only people capable of being witches in Icelandic society. There's an interesting, albeit somewhat cheesy, museum dedicated to Icelandic witchcraft in the 17th century in the town of Hólmavík, in the West Fjords.
* A common misconception, even in Massachusetts, is that the victims of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were burned, when in fact, most were hanged, with the exception of Giles Corey, who was pressed to death (i.e., had a large board the size of a door laid on top of him and then rocks were piled onto the board, till he suffocated. He got special treatment because he refused to enter a plea and was found in contempt of court. [[DefiantToTheEnd He just told them to add more weight]]). He was actually trying to spare his family the loss of his property, which would happen on a conviction of witchcraft (as was inevitable). Under common law, no trial could be held if the accused would not enter a plea. "Pressing" under heavy stones was the method used to force this out of one that refused to. Giles died, but he did so legally innocent and his family inherited his land.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbain_Grandier Urbain Grandier]], a French Catholic priest in Loudun who was accused of a diabolical pact and causing a whole convent of nuns to become possessed. His case is notable in having inspired a book by Creator/AldousHuxley (''The Devils of Loudun''), a film by Creator/KenRussell (''Film/TheDevils''), and an opera by Krzysztof Penderecki (''Die Teufel von Loudun'').
* In Sweden, about 300 "witches" were burned between 1668 and 1676. Most of them admitted to having committed witchcraft, and were rewarded by being decapitated before the burning. The only one to be burned alive was Malin Matsdotter, to whom this was punishment for refusing to admit anything. Before she was burned alive, she noticed that one of her daughters (the one that had accused her) stood in the crowd and told her and everyone present that her daughter now belonged to the devil. She (reportedly) did not scream when she was burned. It was probably due to a sack of gunpowder being placed around her neck out of mercy.\\
\\
The Swedish trials ended with the church, who had been against the trials from the beginning but forced to prosecute them due to the sheer number of accusations, declaring that all witches had forever been exorcised from Sweden. They then proceeded to publically torture and burn [[HoistByHisOwnPetard some of the accusers]] (most of which where in their teens!) saying that they were the last remaining witches.
* In Germany, the trial of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pappenheimer_family Pappenheimer family]], considered to be ''the worst witch trial'' in German history. Don't read the article if you have a weak stomach. [[spoiler:The parents and the eldest sons were to be executed together with two other men. The bodies of the men were torn six times each with irons, Anna's breasts were cut off and rubbed in the faces of her adult sons, the skeletons of the men were broken on the wheel, the father was subjected to impalement on a pike, and finally, they were burned at the stake. ]]
* The Würzburg witch-trials. Over the course of six years, ''nine hundred people'' were burnt as witches in Germany, including many children, some as young as ''four''.
* One of the first recorded convictions of witchcraft in Europe occurred in Ireland in 1324 and involved [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Kyteler Alice Kyteler]], a wealthy [[WidowWitch four-time widow]] accused by the local bishop and gossips of poisoning her former husbands for their estates, sacrificing animals to demons, heresy, sorcery and having sex with an incubus. In reality, she was probably only guilty of [[TheScrooge moneylending]], which piss-poor Middle Ages folk would have deeply resented. Something of an aversion, in that it was Kyteler's servant, [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique Jack Bauer'd]] into giving a possibly false confession, who was burned at the stake, while Kyteler herself fled to Europe and promptly disappeared from history. Her former house, in which authorities allegedly found such items as "body parts of an unbaptized infant; evil powders; communion wafers imprinted with satanic images; the fingernails and toenails of corpses boiled in the skull of a robber; candles made of human fat", is now a popular local pub.
* An utterly bizarre example occurred with the death of the two last [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_auk Great Auks]]; apparently the last two individuals were killed because their capture occurred at the same time a storm came, leading the sailors to think the birds were witches.
* In Denmark, a holiday based around the history of burning witches (St John's Eve) has been a tradition. Of course, no real person is used, but a scarecrow-like-doll that looks like a stereotypical witch is burned instead. It's also more like a bonfire with a doll stuck in it.
* A similar folk tradition exists in the Czech Republic, on the [[UsefulNotes/{{Walpurgisnacht}} Walpurgis Night]] (30th of April).
* [[http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/05/amnesty-calls-for-action-after-new-guinea-witch-burnings/ 2013 goings-on in Papua New Guinea]].
[[/folder]]

* In one article ''Magazine/{{MAD}}'' suggests that the convicted Salem witches did a music tour before their executions. While this article does take liberties with history, the picture of the accused witches singing as they're being ''burned at the stake'' is a case of CriticalResearchFailure.

** Anya, a former vengeance demon who was alive during the actual Salem witch trials, notes that real witches could use their powers to escape. "So, really, it was only bad for the falsely accused -- and, well, they never have a good time." This was shown in "Gingerbread" when the only qualified witch [[BalefulPolymorph turns herself into a rat to escape]] (unfortunately she stays that way for three years, as no-one knew how to turn her back). Willow (who's only dabbling in witchcraft at the time) is left tied to the stake along with Buffy.

'''Demon:''' ''[[SarcasmMode Lies?]]'' [[GodIsDispleased In your house of god?]]

* In ''ComicBook/LeScorpion'', Armando's mother was burnt as a witch by the Inquisition for misdirecting a priest from the church and his Christian duties.

* The ComicBook/ScarletWitch was mistaken for an actual witch when her mutant hex power first manifested and would have been burned at the stake by Balkan villagers along with her brother ComicBook/{{Quicksilver}} if not for timely intervention of ComicBook/{{Magneto}} (who much later was revealed to be their father). An issue of ''Avengers West Coast'' shows an alternate reality where Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were captured by the villagers and burned at the stake.

** Similarly, in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13981875/1/Witching-Hour Witching Hour]]'', set in Medieval times, Gaz becomes suspected of being a witch after a series of strange events happen around her [[spoiler: [[FrameUp all arranged by Zim]]]]. The final nail in her coffin is when she's found in the woods surrounded by ritualistically slaughtered animals, cover in their blood; after this, she's seized, put through a KangarooCourt, and finally burned at the stake.

* This is the core concept of the party game ''TabletopGame/Werewolf1986''. There are monsters hiding in the village and killing people at night, but you can't tell them from the innocent villagers by looking at them. What's the solution? Grab a pitchfork or a torch, form a lynch mob, and tie a rope to the old hanging tree.

* In ''Fanfic/{{Destiny}}'', Frollo successfully burns Esmeralda after he falsely accuses her of witchcraft. The entirety of the film is her DyingDream.

* This is the core concept of the party game ''TabletopGame/{{Werewolf}}''. There are monsters hiding in the village and killing people at night, but you can't tell them from the innocent villagers by looking at them. What's the solution? Grab a pitchfork or a torch, form a lynch mob, and tie a rope to the old hanging tree.