From the book Witches and Wicked Bodies
By Deanna Petherbridge & The National Galleries of Scotland
From the chapter Hideous Hags & Seductive Sorceresses
Pg 21
'Over the centuries witches have been either depicted as hideous and emaciated old crones with long dugs and wild hair intertwined with writhing snakes, or as beautiful seductresses who 'bewitch' unwary men with their dangerous charms.
Witch hags are identified with the emblematic image of Invidia (Envy) who stalks the earth eating her heart out with jealousy of the fortunate and vents her malevolence by causing storms, fires, and natural disasters and by raising tempests at sea. Witches are so envious of fertile and sexually attractive young mothers that they sour their milk, cause miscarriages, substitute changelings in the cradles and even cannibalise babies or use their body parts for making evil potions. They render men impotent and kill livestock.
The myth of the beautiful sorceress who lures, seduces and casts spells upon innocent men was prevalent in the classical world and the Renaissance. Figures such as Circe, who enchanted Ulysses and turned his men into beasts, or the sorceresses Alcina and Armida, have inspired operas, poems, theatrical performances and artworks over the centuries. Like the cabbalistic Lilith whose 'dangerous' hair entwines men, and the biblical Eve who promotes primal sin, such evil women, the familiars of serpents, utilise their sexuality to ensnare men for malevolent purposes.'
To draw a parallel using a contemporary reference - I watched the movie The Witch last week, and both of these types of witches were featured.
----- SPOILER ALERT by the way.. ----
The film centers around a puritan family who move away from their community and start a fresh life on their own farm. Pretty soon everything heads down hill as they're plagued by a witch who lives in the forest nearby. The film seems to be pretty accurate in reflecting the beliefs of the time, as well as the emphasis on faith and the repression of the Christian religion.
The oldest daughter, Thomasin, was distrusted and targeted by her family as they blamed her for the supernatural goings on. Moments in the film stress that this was due to her gender, and the fact that she was growing into an attractive young woman. At the end of the film, she has lost faith in God and joins the side of the Devil.
The first encounter with the witch is as a rotten old hag that lived in the woods. She steals a newborn from a family, and later is seen cutting off the child's body parts, bashing them up with a pestle and mortar and smearing the mixture over her skin. She fits the typical description, with a hunched posture and long lank hair.
A hare appears through the film too, on a few occasions. I interpreted that it was either a reference to the witch's familiar, or possibly the witch herself. It was thought that witches could shape shift, and with the appearance of the hare before something bad often happened, it could have referred to this.
I found this from a website called Myth & Moor, written by Terri Windling - an artist and writer interested in myth, folklore, fairy tales and the ways they are using in contemporary arts.
"As Christianity took hold across Europe, hares and rabbits, so firmly associated with the Goddess, came to be seen in a less favorable light -- viewed suspiciously as the familiars of witches, or as witches themselves in animal form. Numerous folk tales tell of men led astray by hares who are really witches in disguise, or of old women revealed as witches when they are wounded in their animal shape. In one well-known story from Dartmoor, a mighty hunter named Bowerman disturbed a coven of witches practicing their rites, and so one young witch determined to take revenge upon the man. She shape-shifted into a hare, led Bowerman through a deadly bog, then turned the hunter and his hounds into piles of stones, which can still be seen today."
http://windling.typepad.com/blog/2014/12/the-folklore-of-rabbits-hares.html
(Refer back to this site to see if there are examples of the contemporary use.)
The second time the witch is seen in full detail is when she takes the form of a 'seductive sorceress', luring and kissing a young boy before he falls ill with a fatal mystery infection. Again, this is reflective of the traditional concepts of the witch in one of her forms.
The devil appeared toward the end of the film, to seduce a young woman and convince her to sell her soul. The final scene showed a witches sabbath with a group of women, nude, floating or flying around a fire. The film ends on a dark note, but with a sense of liberation and acceptance, something previously unavailiable to Tomasin in the Puritan home.
"She became a witch in part because her beliefs were so fervent that in absence of one religious covenant, Tomasin immediately sought an alternative from the only kind of replacement she knew. And the culture that bred her to be meek, subservient, and imminently guilty due to her sex pushed her to be that what they feared most: feminine and dangerous. Thus our 21st century understanding of the medieval and early modern fears about witchcraft (strong women) greater informs this nightmarish fever dream taken from the most hideously perverse Puritan superstitions."
www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/the-witch/253108/explaining-the-witch-ending
No comments:
Post a Comment