Another point requires consideration if we would arrive at a just judgment on the Salem upheaval. It is frequently stated, and still oftener assumed, that the outbreak at Salem was peculiar in its virulence, or, at all events, in its intensity. This is a serious error, due, like other misapprehensions, to a neglect of the history of witchcraft as a whole. The fact is, the Salem excitement was the opposite of peculiar,--it was perfectly typical. The European belief in witchcraft, which our forefathers shared without exaggerating it, was a constant quantity. It was always present, and continuously fraught with direful possibilities. But it did not find expression in a steady and regular succession of witch trials. On the contrary, it manifested itself at irregular intervals in spasmodic outbursts of prosecution. Notable examples occurred at Geneva from 1542 to 1546;[102] at Wiesensteig, Bavaria, in 1562 and 1563;[103] in the Electorate of Trier from 1587 to 1593;[104] among the Basques of Labourd in 1609;[105] at Mohra in Sweden in 1669 and 1670.[106] In the district of Ortenau, in Baden, witchcraft prosecutions suddenly broke out, after a considerable interval, in 1627, and there were seventy-three executions in three years.[107] From the annals of witchcraft in Great Britain one may cite the following cases:--1581, at St. Osith’s, in Essex;[108] 1590-1597, in Scotland;[109] 1612, at Lancaster,[110] and again in 1633;[111] 1616, in Leicestershire;[112] 1645-1647, the Hopkins prosecution;[113] 1649-1650, at Newcastle-on-Tyne;[114] 1652, at Maidstone, in Kent;[115] 1682, at Exeter.[116] The sudden outbreak of witch trials in the Bermudas in 1651 is also worthy of attention.[117]