时间:2019-03-01 作者:英语课 分类:听播客学英语


英语课

   Do you know what a witch is? A witch is a woman who has magical powers (or, at least, other people think she has magical powers). In England, in the 17th century, witches were often treated very cruelly. Practising witchcraft 1 was against the law. Many witches were put to death. Of course, these poor women did not really have magical powers. They did not really practice witchcraft. They were often widows living alone with no family to protect them. Perhaps they had done something to annoy or frighten their neighbours. The neighbours then accused them of witchcraft, and the “witch” would then be arrested, and perhaps tortured or killed.


  But that was a long time ago. Surely it is many years since a woman was arrested and accused of being a witch. Well, not as long ago as you might think. The last occasion was in 1944, during the Second World War, and it happened like this. Helen Duncan, who came from Scotland, had a special gift – she was able to talk to the spirits of dead people. Or at least, she said she could do this, and plenty of people believed her. She held meetings, called seances, where people sat in a circle holding hands while she attempted to speak to the spirits of the dead. At one seance, the parents of a young sailor were present. Their son was missing, and they feared that he might be dead. Mrs Duncan spoke 2 to the spirit of the young sailor. She told his parents that he had died when a German submarine had attacked his ship. Now, the young man was indeed dead, and his ship had indeed been attacked by a submarine, but the government had kept this secret. So how did Helen Duncan know? Was she a spy? Was she a witch? What other military secrets did she know? What else might she say? The authorities decided 3 that they had to silence her. She was arrested and accused of witchcraft. The court found her guilty and sent her to prison for 9 months.
  The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, thought that sending Helen Duncan to prison for witchcraft was “tomfoolery” (“Tomfoolery” is an old-fashioned word meaning silly nonsense). He visited her in prison, and a few years after the War had ended he persuaded Parliament to repeal 4 the old laws on witchcraft.
  So, if you want to be a witch in Britain today, you can be – thanks to Helen Duncan and Winston Churchill.

n.魔法,巫术
  • The woman practising witchcraft claimed that she could conjure up the spirits of the dead.那个女巫说她能用魔法召唤亡灵。
  • All these things that you call witchcraft are capable of a natural explanation.被你们统统叫做巫术的那些东西都可以得到合情合理的解释。
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
n.废止,撤消;v.废止,撤消
  • He plans to repeal a number of current policies.他计划废除一些当前的政策。
  • He has made out a strong case for the repeal of the law.他提出强有力的理由,赞成废除该法令。
学英语单词
alveolar-capillary membrane
atomic thermo-capacity
Baiso
bandlimitedness
base circle of cam contour
be on pins and needles
binder soil
blogaholics
bodgies
bottlenose dolphin
brubacher
Bundled service
cadmium compound
cavity field
circle segment
classical wave equation
Clinoril
conditionally exempt
crossotarsus simplex
damnworthy
data quality control monitor
demonstrative determiners
detrusion
Diplacrum caricinum
dis tressed
disodium EDTA
docking bridge
Doma Peaks
draft filly
elmina
empty one's plate
false incontinence
field road
firearm manoeuvre
flash desorption spectroscopy
fllium
ftp explorer
full buoyance
gatophobia
glymph
got up to kill
halpens
having it off
hop the perch
industrial solvent
klas
largest-capacity
late in life
lay emphasis up on
leonne
lime sower
limiting kinetic current
lindernia pyxidaria l.
lubrication oil sump
man load chart
Marienborn
MF
micrometer measuring rod
middle jiao
network army
nitrosoethylurethane
no-scope
odd half-spin representation
orchard cultivator
palisadian disturbance
perchlorovinyl resin
Perdices, Sa.de
Peverson
polyphyll
printer/plotter
recremental
return wall
rowlock bolster
rubber hydrochloride
Russianism
saxagliptin
sea connection
self-cleaning tank
sequence control of boiler ignition system
Siwalik Range/Hills
Slovomir
sodium silicate concrete
somatostatinomas
song of songs (hebrew)
spiny-stemmed
steering propeller
stepwise impulse
the yakuza
thought provoking
Tungufjall
two-level parametric amplifier
typhoid complicated with intestinal perforation
unboastfulness
under-glaze
unsinister
upper ideal
uriniferous tubulus (or renal tubules)
vertico-podalic diameter
Videhan
Vujicic
wrist fracture
zero gear