Abigail Williams

Abigail Williams was an accuser during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, which led to the arrest and imprisonment of over 150 innocent people, charged with the crime of witchcraft. She appeared as the tertiary antagonist in the 2010 Disney film The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Role in the film
Abigail Williams was actually a witch who had accused others of witchcraft to divert attention from herself, which resulting the Salem Witch Trials. Her actions and crimes against humanity caught the attention of Balthazar Blake, who sealed her into the Grimhold so she could do no more harm. Because of this, although she would have most likely been over 400 years old by the time she was released, her physical appearance resembled that of a little girl. Narrator of the movie implies however, that another reason of her imprisonment was due to her, at one point before her imprisonment within the Grimhold, was on league with Horvath in their hunt for Grimhold that held Morgana.

Eventually, she was set free by Maxim Horvath, who sent her to capture Becky, Dave's love interest. She obeyed the sorcerer and dutifully did as she was asked but in spite of her loyalty, Horvath betrayed her by draining her powers and amulet.

Real life
Abigail Williams, as noted above, was a major figure in the Salem Witch Trials, where, in a fit of hysteria, the Salem villagers killed over 150 people via "Guilty until Proven Innocent" trials. Namely, she along several other little girls ended up acting as "witnesses" to the so-called witchcraft committed by the populace. After the trials, she was lost from the historical documents as no one knows what has happened to her after the trial. It was implied that she became a prostitute in Boston and and lived in a lower class house and eventually died. Her role in the witch trials was also repeated in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, which detailed the Witch Trials as an allegory towards McCarthyism at the time of the play's development. In real life, Abigail Williams was at best in her pre-teens when it happened, and was not known to have interacted with the barkeep John Proctor outside of being in the same community, but The Crucible significantly aged her up to be in her teens as well as add in a subplot with Proctor committing adultery with her, as a means to add more drama to the story. Her appearance in the 2010 film was closer to her estimated real-life age than to her age in The Crucible.