This week we take a look at some very shady figures ....
Aleister Crowley was an English poet, painter, novelist, magician and mountaineer - most famous, or notorious, as a perceived devil-worshipper or 'occultist' - an image that he was quite happy to encourage. He has been described as 'the wickedest man in the world'.
The Hellfire Caves are a network of man-made chalk and flint caverns which extend 260m underground near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. They were a meeting place of the Hellfire Club in the mid-1700s - an association of upper class rakes and radicals.
Britain has a long history of labelling people as witches, and has legislated accordingly to deal with them. Scotswoman Helen Duncan (1897 – 1956) is best known as the last person to be imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act of 1735 when she was convicted in 1944.
Echoing earlier stories of a cloven-hoofed devil, the mysterious appearances of Spring Heeled Jack terrorised the country for more than 60 years in the 19h century, and the facts about his existence remain unclear.
The trial of the Pendle Witches is one of the most notorious witch trials of the 17th century. In 1612, twelve people in the Lancashire town were accused of witchcraft, with one dying in custody, and eleven going to trial. Ten were executed at Lancaster Castle.
Alexander "Sawney" Bean was a mythic cannibal, said to be the head of a 45-member clan in Scotland in the 16th century that murdered and then ate over 1,000 people over 25 years.
