From the Navajo to the Zande, different cultures have a variety of representations of witches. Ask a group of people steeped in Western culture to describe a witch, however, and patterns will emerge: a witch is female; she is either old and unsightly or young and alluring; she is malicious; she is solitary (with the exception of her feline companion); she cackles through the night on a broomstick; she brews potent potions in a steaming cauldron.
How did this image become so central to our cultural imagination? Our story starts in the ancient world, where many of our modern-day witch tropes may have originated. The Witch of Endor and her ability to summon the dead are featured in the Bible, and many of the goddesses in Greek mythology have arguably witch-like attributes, particularly Circe. Indeed, these female figures were agents of chaos and misfortune.
It wasn’t until the mid-1400s, however, that witch hysteria gripped Europe. The Malleus Maleficarum (or “The Hammer of Witches”), a 1484 treatise written by two inquisitors for the Catholic Church, Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, enlightens readers on how to find, interrogate, and punish witches for their liaisons with the devil. The book labeled witchcraft as heresy, giving the church leverage in its persecution of marginalized groups. It was also deeply misogynist, asking questions such as, “Why is it that Women are chiefly addicted to Evil superstitions?” After the Bible, it was the most popular read for the following two centuries.
Writers have exaggerated the scope of witch hunts during this time period, but around 110,000 people were tried for witchcraft, less than half of whom were ultimately executed. As Europeans colonized the Americas, they brought the systematic persecution of witches to Mexico, tying indigenous religious traditions to satanic behavior. In New England, the much-discussed Salem Witch Trials resulted in the death of 20 people between 1692 and 1693, long after witch hunts had ebbed in Western Europe.
By the late 18th century, witch trials in Europe had become few and far between, and Anna Goldi’s execution as a witch in Switzerland in 1782 drew harsh condemnation. Today, we are left with many competing theories about the true origins of witchcraft and the historical, political, economic, and socio psychological drivers of witch hunts.
Hats, Cats, and Brooms: Witch Iconography
There are also a variety of colorful, fascinating assertions about why witches accessorize as they do. Cats, particularly black ones, are the most commonly cited animal mediums for witches. With their glowing, vertically slit eyes, nocturnal habits, and sneaky movements, writes Abigail Tucker for the Washington Post, they are reminiscent of snakes, animals that Satan frequently appears as in the Bible.
And what about the black hats? Until the 1500s, brewing was primarily women’s work, and with the ubiquity of fermented wheat throughout much of Europe, this activity was considered part of their work in the household. Laken Brooks writes that when women began to sell beer, they would wear tall, pointed hats to be easily located in crowded marketplaces as they stirred their frothy cauldrons. Indeed, Brooks argues that much of the iconography we associate with witches today originates from these female brewmasters, including cats, which dutifully kept mice away from wheat. The degree to which this is true is contested, with many scholars maintaining that witches were not associated with the pointy black hats we think of today until hundreds of years later. In any case, with the 16th century came the condemnation of witchcraft and the enforcement of stricter gender roles, and alewives all but shrinking from their power in the public sphere.
And the broomsticks? It seems odd and impractical that witches would choose cleaning appliances for transportation. Well, in this very entertaining article from The Atlantic, Megan Garber explains that ergot, a fungus that can grow on rye bread, acts as a powerful hallucinogen in small doses. Along with other hallucinogenic plants, people in the Middle Ages and Renaissance used ergot for recreational purposes, but simple ingestion often caused nausea and other side effects. Enter balms that could be applied topically with…broomsticks! The groin was the most receptive area for application, and several accounts of witchcraft investigations detail witches getting high and “flying” on their brooms.
Witches Today
Today, hats, cats, and broomsticks are popular Halloween items, and an estimated 5 million adults dressed as witches for the holiday in 2019. Perpetuating some of the historical stereotypes and doing away with others, witches in pop culture have immense magical powers but are often good, from Sabrina to Hermione Granger. Real modern-day witches, the majority of whom practice Wicca, strive to live in peace with nature and humanity, and to disassociate themselves from historical stereotypes. In the U.S. today, the number of Wiccans is said to be between 100,000 and 1.5 million (other sources put it at about 730,000, more than the number of Unitarians).
Why has this number grown so much in recent years? Wicca is just one approach to witchery, and some see identifying as a witch as a form of resistance against Christian patriarchal oppression. Times of turmoil and uncertainty also result in disenfranchised populations seeking sources of power and control outside of the conventional ones, or members of a society turning to witchcraft as an explanation for events that are difficult to explain. The commodification of witchcraft and the rise of witch influencers on platforms including Instagram and TikTok has attracted attention.
From the Bible to beer and the Malleus Maleficarum to mediums, it is a difficult task to trace the history of witches. One thing is for sure: witches will continue to occupy a space in our cultural narrative for a long time to come.
Did I get anything wrong? Anything to add? Did you, too, spend your childhood putting Bugles on your fingers and pretending to be a witch? Let me know!
