Posts Tagged ‘witch’
Witches are a permanent part of pop culture. They pop up in everything from fairy tales to horror movies. Witches can be good or bad, but usually they are bad. And the uglier they are the more we love them. Witches come in many different types of ugly but usually they need to have at least one mole, several warts, ratty black hair, and green skin. The image of the witch with green skin and a mole comes from the 1939 movie the Wizard of Oz, from the Wicked Witch of the West who torments Dorothy for killing her sister. The iconic image of a good witch also comes from the Wizard of Oz. Glinda, the Good Witch is the quintessential good witch with a poofy pink dress, pretty curls, and a sweet lilting voice.
Most people prefer bad witches though. Evil witches are the personification of all the dark desires that people have but would never act on. They have magical powers that they can use to get even with people who have hurt them. They get to wear black all the time. They are feared but have no fear, and are not ashamed to give in to their desires. Witches can be found in every culture, and have been a part of culture ever since record keeping began.
Some historians say that the stories of witches as modern people know them originated with powerful men who wanted to get rid of the Goddess worshipping religions throughout Europe. In order to scare people away from believing in these Goddess religions Christian church leaders and government officials spread stories about powerful witches who would hurt or kill people that they didn’t like and said that the Christian faith could save people from witches. In these stories the powerful goddesses of legend were turned into powerful witches who were out to destroy humanity and collect souls for the devil. Religious scholars trace the origin of the myth of witches back through the Bible to Lilith. Lilith was Adam’s first wife who fled the Garden of Eden rather than be subservient to Adam and spent her time trying to lure him into sin.
No matter where the origin of the witch myth came from it’s clear that witches are here to stay. Witch costumes are one of the most popular Halloween costumes because witches can be anything you want them to be. There are ugly witch costumes complete with fake moles and scars, sexy witch costumes with vinyl dresses, high heels, and black wigs, and there are pretty, feminine good witches in pink dresses and lots of glitter. You can make your own witch costume out of accessories that you put together yourself or you can buy a witch costume that will help you look like one of the witches that everyone knows like the Wicked Witch of the West or one of the many different witches in Disney movies Maleficent, the witch who curses Sleeping Beauty.
The image of a witch dressed in black with a big pointy hat riding a broomstick is an iconic Halloween image. But why are witches so closely associated with Halloween? There are a lot of reasons why the image of the evil witch became associated with Halloween, and most of them are rooted in Middle Age Christianity.
When the Christian Church in the Middle Ages started to take over as the dominant religion throughout Europe the leaders of the Church needed to find a way to get people to stop believing in old Pagan traditions and embrace Christian beliefs. In order to convince people to convert to Christianity they waged a negative public relations war against anything associated with Paganism. One of the things associated with Paganism was the practice of Witchcraft, or manipulating energies and using plants, herbs, and other natural materials to heal disease and to help growth. Usually witchcraft was practiced by women who worked as natural healers and were seen as being very wise and educated. In order to convince people to turn against Paganism the Church began a campaign against witches saying that witches were evil people who worked with the Devil and were using herbal potions and other mixtures to harm people, not to help them. The campaign worked and witches were hunted, tortured, and vilified.
When the Church wanted to stop the celebration of Samhain it used the same tactics that it had used against witches to make the celebration seem evil. Samhain was described by Church elders as the night when witches and the Devil would roam the Earth killing the innocent, stealing souls, and causing havoc. The stereotype of the witch that has come down through the centuries to modern culture developed from various practices and stereotypes throughout the years. The image of a wicked witch that most people have today was derived from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and the Wicked Witch of the West with her long black dress, black pointy hat, green skin, and mole. For many modern people the image of a wicked witch flying through the air on a broom with a pointy hat, black dress, and green skin like Margaret Hamilton in the Wizard of Oz movie is the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the word “witch”.
Witches are almost always ugly because they are evil, and evil is ugly. Unlike the vampire cult in literature and film which makes vampires seem like sympathetic, attractive, misunderstood creatures who still have human feelings and emotions witches are always portrayed as ugly, mean, evil creatures who want to harm humans. Witches will always be associated with Halloween because they are supposed to be minions of the Devil, and Halloween is the Devil’s holiday for some Christian sects. Even though today Halloween is considered a secular holiday when Paganism and Christianity were both fighting for control as the dominant religion in Europe Halloween was a religious holiday. The Church tried to end the holiday by scaring people into not celebrating so that the witches wouldn’t get them but they never quite succeeded. Their image of the witch as an evil force to be reckoned with who flies out on Halloween in search of victims still endures though.