What better October topic than a brief look at witches!

Witches have always been associated with evil. In the Old Testament, Exodus 22.18 admonishes, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” although the term “sorceress” is often used instead of witch. Witches had magical powers that could be used for malevolent purposes. According to historian Jeffrey B. Russell, in the Middle Ages, “Heretics, Jews, and witches are among the most prominent of Satan’s human helpers.” Psychology professor Sheldon Cashdan, exploring the impact of fairy tales, writes that, “…the witch lives not only in the pages of a fairy tale but in the deepest reaches of our minds.” No wonder witches figure so prominently in Halloween revelries.

 

The Medieval Witch as a Negative Character

 

Act I, Scene I of William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth begins with three witches. It is fitting that the witches are accompanied by thunder and lightening. When not in gloomy, dark castles like Dorothy’s Witch of the West, they are frequently depicted around a cauldron, predicting death and calamity. “Hover through the fog and filthy air,” Shakespeare’s witches exclaim. The bard knew something of witches; the year the play was written was 1606 and in England the devil was very real theologically as were his helpers.

 

In the early 1600’s, Europe’s witch hunts were still active and both Catholics and Protestants pursued the accused women relentlessly. In his Table Talk the Reformer Martin Luther relates the story of a witch who, at the urging of the devil, caused a loving husband to murder his wife. “You are worse than I am,” the devil remarked. Luther was a product of the Late Middle Ages, equating the activities of witches with the devil, using the analogy of idolatry and Canaanite religious practices in the Old Testament.

 

Catholics also had firm beliefs governing witches and their nefarious ways.  The 1486 Malleus Maleficarum was meticulous in detailing witchcraft and how to deal with witches; it helped to define popular notions of witchcraft well into the next centuries.

 

The Halloween Cat and Historical Witchcraft

 

Witches mimicked Church feast days with unholy celebrations, consorting with Lucifer and flying through the skies. Historian Robert Darnton writes that, “Witches transformed themselves into cats in order to cast spells on their victims.” His study of French social and cultural history demonstrates that cats were always associated with witches and with evil, hence their  prominent role in Halloween celebrations. According to Darnton, “Cats possessed occult power independently of their association with witchcraft and deviltry.”

 

Cats were also associated with sexuality, mating with the devil in wild orgies. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, written long after the Puritans hung their own witches in 1692, Goodman Brown sees his wife “Faith,” presumably about to be initiated into a coven of witches, many of whom were known to Brown. Frantically he yells to her to look to heaven. He finds himself back in the village.

 

Was it a dream? The implications of sexuality were clear and the marriage was never the same. Witches destroy trust and the most sacred bonds between two people in love, much like the witch in the Luther story above. No wonder the Witches’ Sabbath was a mockery of Christian liturgy: the devil is always the Anti-Christ, the evil facing the good in the cosmological equilibrium of spiritual demeanor.

 

Fairy Tale Witches Across the Cultures

 

Both Darnton and Cashdan place importance on the role of a witch in fairy tales. Whether a hag or an ogress, the witch was determined to destroy youth and innocence. In a traditional Russian fairy tale, the witch – Baba Yaga, is dreadful, with “steel teeth.” But she is defeated by the innocent ingenuity of a child. The same could be said of the Hansel and Gretel story, although the French version of the tale features an ogre. Very often witches were evil stepmothers.

 

The Chronicles of Narnia, written by C.S. Lewis in the mid-20^th Century, feature the “White Witch,” a clever but evil woman who placed Narnia in a type of frozen state but is ultimately killed by Aslan. The fantasy tales have Christian connotations including resurrection and the triumph over evil. Another modern witch is the Wicked Witch of the West, conceived by Frank Baum but popularized in American culture by Margaret Hamilton who played the witch in the MGM classic The Wizard of Oz (1939).

 

Surrender Dorothy!

 

The Wizard of Oz features several witches. The Witch of the East is killed with the arrival of Dorothy; Glenda is the “Good witch of the North.” In the movie, Dorothy is startled, telling Glenda that she thought witches were old and ugly. This is the common, popular view of witches and why witch costumes appear on Halloween. Nobody wants to be a “good witch” like Glenda on Halloween.  

 

Additionally, most witches are female, a conclusion taken from the European witch craze but one with roots in antiquity. Glenda corrects Dorothy and then brings up the issue of broomstick travel. Witches fly through the air. Dorothy, however, must follow the “yellow brick road,” ever cautious of the remaining evil witch who has a travel advantage. Anthropologist Anthony Aveni argues that “…the witches’ broomstick is a negative spin on the maypole…” associated with May Day celebrations, “…the reciprocal in time of Halloween…”

 

Witches in Ancient and Modern Times

 

Tracing the origin of witches at Halloween, Aveni refers to a Babylonian cuneiform text that linked the arrival of “evil ghosts and witches” at certain times of celebration, generally associated with agricultural events like the harvest. Witches, according to the ancient text, use their powers to communicate with the dead. Interestingly, the Old Testament Witch of Endor (I Samuel 28.3-25) was also thought to be able to commune with the dead.

 

The American Halloween witch probably has roots in colonial witchcraft beliefs. When Halloween was eventually transformed into one of the nation’s most colorful and popular holidays, the witch became a staple. In the Disney film Hocus Pocus (1993) Max Dennison (Omri Katz) tells his classmates that “everybody knows” Halloween was “invented by the candy companies.” This, of course, elicits vocal opposition: no interloper from California is allowed to debunk the Halloween magic of Salem, Massachusetts, especially concerning witches.

 

The history of witches is long and colorful. At times tens of thousands lost their lives during witch hunts. Witches are entwined with deeply rooted superstitions and the ability to practice magic. These characteristics probably developed when perceptions of religion and God first impacted mankind, long before the birth of civilization.

 

References:

 

Aveni, Anthony. The Book Of The Year: A Brief History of Our Seasonal Holidays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003

Cashdan, Sheldon. The Witch Must Die: How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives. New York: Basic Books, 1999

Darnton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History. London: Allen Lane, 1984

Rogers, Nicholas. Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002

Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Lucifer: The Devil In The Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984

The Snow Queen And Other Tales. New York: Golden Press, 1961

Streich, Michael. Martin Luther and the Devil’s Domain: Witchcraft and Magic in the Popular Culture. University of North Carolina at Greensboro, unpublished thesis, 1990