Though not a woman himself, French historian Jules Michelet (1798 - 1894) played a key early role in that. The women’s movement evolved the witch further. During the Romantic period, for instance, witches featured prominently in Gothic fiction. When the witch laws ended, the West clung on to the idea of witches, who now carry a dark lustre. Some witches can harm you by simply looking in your direction, but others must swap parts of their body (usually their blood) for the service of those occult powers.
She perhaps wants to harm you because she’s envious, or because you’ve been rude to her outside a shop one day. When I sleep my spirit slips away from my body and dances naked with the Devil.” from The Witch, Robert Eggers (2015)įocusing on the time when most witch marks were made, a witch is someone who can do harm simply by wanting to do harm, by using a power intrinsic to her body or by calling on a larger, darker power in the cosmos.
Later it meant women who were meant to cooperate with the devil or other evil spirits. It originally referred to men who practise witchcraft but 200 years later referred to female magicians and sorceresses.
The definition of witch changes over time. Before we get into the witch glossary, what is a witch?Īs witchcraft expert Diane Purkiss explains on Episode 83 of the English Heritage podcast:
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