I have always been fascinated by witches and now I understand why.

It must have been at the age of five when I had first encountered a character of a witch.
At first, I was scared of this magical creature, thinking that it is an embodiment of evil. At
least, that was what society had taught me and what I had strongly believed in until I came
across the term “misogyny”. And so, with the basic knowledge of the concept, I tried to
understand why witches had caught my attention. Now I know why. Not only is the history of
this so-called monster rather appealing, but also the symbolism plays a crucial role in the
witches’ phenomenon.

One should establish, though, what is this witch creature that found itself in the
position it occupies now? As Rosemary Ellen Guiley (2008: 11) states:

Witches have never enjoyed a good reputation. Almost universally since ancient
times, witchcraft has been associated with malevolence and evil. Witches are
thought to be up to no good, interested in wreaking havoc and bringing misery to
others. Individuals who used the magical arts to the divine and heal often took
great pains to call themselves something other than “witch”

Ronald Hutton analyses the definition of the word in his book, The Witch, and observes that
there are at least four different forms of it. However, he believes that the one coined in 1978
by Rodney Needham is the standard one: “someone who causes harm to others by mystical
means” (Needham, quoted in Hutton 2017: 10). It can be seen that witchcraft intertwines with
evil wrongdoings, that it aims to cause harm. It was not always the case, but with Christianity
came the persecutions of pagans. And as Hutton (2017: 29) proves: “women were put to death
for practising magic at Cologne in 1075, Ghent in 1175, in France in 1190 and 1282 and in
Austria in 1296”.

One might wonder why is witchcraft associated mostly with women, and the answer to
this question may be found in Malleus Maleficarum. This treatise, also called the Hammer of
Witches, was written by Heinrich Kramer, an individual who used this publication as an outlet
for his hatred towards women. Kramer associated all vices with women, which was quite
common in his times. Kramer (2014: 162) states, basing his assumption on the Book of
Ecclesiasticus, that “every evil is small compared to the evil of a woman”. The clergyman
then quotes Seneca (2014: 163):
 A woman either loves or hates. No third thing has been given. For a woman to cry
is a lie. Two kinds of tears are kept in the eyes of women, one of true grief and one
of treachery. When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil thoughts.

The treatise provides the readers with three reasons why women are more superstitious
than men. Among these reasons are loose tongues, the tendency to be easily impressed upon,
and being prone to believing everyone and everything (Kramer 2014). Kramer (2014: 167)
finds justification in women being more inclined to evil wrongdoings in the first defect:

Indeed, just as the result of the first defect, that of intelligence, is that they commit
the renunciation of the Faith more easily than do men, so too the result of the
second, namely irregular desires and passions, is that they seek, think up and inflict
various acts of vengeance, whether through acts of sorcery or by any other means.
Hence, it is no wonder that such a large number of sorcerers exists in this category

It is not far-fetched to state that placing women in the position of the default gender that
practices witchcraft comes from misogyny. People looked for a source to blame, and as it
miraculously happens, quick-witted and independent women were the perfect fit.

It can be no surprise then, that powerful women in media are often portrayed as
witches. Hazel Cills, draws attention to the fact that many feminists tend to romanticise
witchcraft (Donahue 2015). This can also be seen in the interest that many modern feminists
have for the character of Yennefer of Vengerberg from The Witcher series. In the Time of
Contempt (2013: 100), Sapkowski describes her as follows:

He knew those wild, black curls and the obsidian star on a velvet ribbon. What he
didn't know and had never seen before was the face. It was a face of rage and fury,
the face of the goddess of vengeance, destruction and death

This account sheds light on the fact that witches possess tremendous powers. Yennefer was
considered beautiful, but that is not always the case when it comes to the portrayal of a typical
witch. As Kathryn Rountree (1997: 212) describes:

She was a warty, black-clad old hag who lived alone in the depths of a forest,
snared and dined on juicy children, and turned those who displeased her into toads.
She presented an image of menace, cunning, pure evil.

The image evoked by Rountree reminds me of the witches present in fairy tales my parents
read to me when I was little- an evil hag wanting to ruin the princess’s bright future with a
 wealthy aristocrat. That was a witch that I was used to, but Yennefer and other characters I
came across later on showed me a different version of a witch. Therefore, these two opposing
descriptions, the one by Sapkowski and Rountree prove to us that there is no one fixed type of
a witch. They are not entirely evil, nor good. They do not practise the same kind of magic,
they are complex figures, mistreated and misunderstood by society.

Taking into account all the factors that played a role in shaping the modern idea of a
witch, one can get grasp why this “monster” had to go through many torments. History shows
that men tend to blame women for the sake of it. Powerful women are not desired in society,
which needs subordination from the “weaker” gender and so such individuals are often called
witches. So are the feminists. Tish Thawer (2015: 10) evokes a quote by an unknown author
that can describe feminists in a powerful way: “We are the granddaughters of the witches you
weren’t able to burn”.

References:

Donahue, Anne T. 2015. “‘We are the weirdos’: how witches went from evil outcasts to feminist
heroes”, the Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/aug/28/witches-evil-
outcasts-feminist-heroes-pop-culture) (date of access: 30 Dec. 2021).

Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. 2008. The encyclopedia of witches, witchcraft and wicca. New York:
Checkmark Books.

Hutton, Ronald. 2017. The witch : a history of fear, from ancient times to the present. New Haven ;
London: Yale University Press.

Kramer, Heinrich. 2014. Malleus Maleficarum [The Hammer of Witches]. (Translated by Christopher
S. Mackay.) New York: Cambridge University Press

Rountree, Kathryn. 1997. “The New Witch of the West: Feminists Reclaim the Crone”, The Journal
of Popular Culture 30, 4: 211-229. (date of access: 3 Nov. 2019).

Sapkowski, Andrzej. 2013. Witcher : The time of contempt. New York, Ny: Orbit.

Thawer, Tish. 2015. The Witches of BlackBrook. Divide, Colorado: Amber Leaf Publishing.