#tldr; probably some did practice folk magic but definitely not all of them

[anglerflsh]

Statistically it's very well possible that at least some of the people killed actually were, in some way or other, doing something akin to witchcraft, if that's what you mean; discarding the direct evidence of confessions for a second because of the whole... torture thing, especially in higher courts or in more historically pagan places there were people who'd practice folk magic and could therefore be considered actual witches instead of someone accused of witchcraft.

It's kind of like the very stereotypical image of the village healer getting hanged for practicing folk medicine, people did believe in that, after all - except a lot of the time the folk magic was something like "let a sparrow rot under your covers and feed it to your husband so he doesn't leave" (which, like, by 1500s standards isn't that far from what the doctors did to be honest, just with more prayers).

And there were also people who used that folk magic for actual malicious purposes, kind of like how old italian women will try to curse other people with the 'evil eye' even now! They were probably a minority of the accused, though. The thing is, there isn't a clear line traced between what was a common tradition or superstition that near everyone did and what was instead considered folk magic/witchcraft. There isn't even a clear line between general magic and maleficium, malicious magic: in some periods only the latter was persecuted, etc, etc., so it's quite hard to tell exactly where the 'person actually practicing magic' ends and the 'poor sap accused because her neighbourg thinks she's catty' begins

okay this is gonna haunt me for the rest of the night but were witches real. i know that they hanged like a bunch of innocent women back in the day but were some of them real or none of them were really a witch. bc i know that crops and farm animals dying might've been taken as a sign that the land is cursed or something who doesn't know any better, or did they legitimately just. kept blaming people here and there for that