Witches

This week's theme turns out to be timely, as a new two-part documentary is about to air on Channel 4, starting tomorrow evening. fronted by Suranne Jones, who grew up near Pendle in Lancashire. 'Suranne Jones: Investigating Witch Trials ' will be screened on Sundays 23rd and 30th June, looking into what happened at Pendle, Salem and beyond during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and quite why.

Historical research has identified over 110,000 trials and prosecutions for witchcraft in that period, the majority on mainland Europe. The last time the death penalty was served on a witch was in 1782 in Switzerland. I would imagine the documentary will make for interesting and probably uncomfortable viewing, considering how appallingly so many women were treated: arraigned, tortured and killed. It may also have something to say about the undercurrent of misogyny that persists to this day even in the most 'enlightened' cultures.

I hope it's been fairly obvious for a long while that a combination of fear and envy was at the root of the witch-hunting craze that swept Old World and New four hundred years ago. The argument that those zealous witch-finders had some ideological or religious justification for their crusade to "wipe out the race of witches" is just specious. Their "cleansing of the body politic" was a manifestation of misogyny, sadism and superstition.

Mistrust of differences in others, whether that's culture, language, race or religion, is a primal emotional response far more powerful than the socialising urge to accept, appreciate and even celebrate such differences. But where persecutor and persecuted share the same culture, language, race and religion, the only significant difference is gender. Those poor unfortunates were targeted primarily because of their sex. 

Not many men got arraigned. Something like 6,000 were prosecuted (or 6% of the total). But if you were a woman, particularly one of independent spirit, possibly living on your own and/or practising herbal medicine or midwifery, you were a prime target for men who found your self-sufficiency or lifestyle unnatural.

In the climate of terror that witch-hunting engendered, one of the saddest aspects was that women would inform against other women with no evidence or justification as a way of trying to deflect suspicion from themselves, to prove their own innocence.

And the things those supposed witches were accused of ranged all the way from having a face that could turn milk sour to murdering babies and drinking their blood. In between came talking to cats, concocting herbal medicines, bewitching men into into having affairs, making livestock barren, causing crops to fail, flying round on broomsticks, spreading plague and having carnal knowledge of the devil. (Nice work if you can get it.)

Of course the allegations were monstrous. Nowadays we'd call the perpetrators and disseminators of such nonsense deep fake propagandists and conspiracy nutters. How fortunate we are to live in enlightened times, free of the shackles of superstition, the taint of fear and prejudice!

Here's the latest from the imaginarium, predicated upon the ludicrous idea (popularised by men naturally and illustrated in the woodcut above) that women would willingly offer up their babies to the devil. As the witching hour approaches, this is meant to shock.

Babies For Satan

Groom us for devilry Satan.

Debauch our maiden innocence with lust.

Force us into unnatural acts

and defile us in ways we cannot conceive.

Further, impregnate us with your seed

and deprive us of salvation by this depravity

that as we bulge we may grow loathsome

in the eyes of God and our parents

- said no daughter ever!

Curse our little ones Satan.

Blacken their hearts, those born of our loins

suckled with our love. Poison their blood

with your sulphurous touch.

Possess also their minds with dark intent.

Fill them with hatred

and corrupt them absolutely to be 

wicked instruments of your evil design

- said no mother ever!

So what strange madness had taken hold

that got men believing their womenfolk

could abase themselves with a fallen angel?

And what were they fearing enough to say

stake them, pile faggots round their feet

and torch them for the good of their souls?

Not once, not ten times, just here or there 

but Europe wide a hundred thousand fold.

Who really bore the mark of evil then?

Thanks for reading, S ;-)