Hans Baldung Grien's Three Witches, circa 1514.

European witchcraft is witchcraft and magic that is practised primarily in the locality of Europe. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1055x1519, 1103 KB) Hans Baldung Grien: Three witches, Federzeichnung ca. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1055x1519, 1103 KB) Hans Baldung Grien: Three witches, Federzeichnung ca. ... Three Ages of the Woman and the Death 1510 Oil on limewood,48 x 32,5 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna Hans Baldung or Hans Baldung Grien/Grün (c. ... Witchcraft, in various historical, anthropological, religious and mythological contexts, is the use of certain kinds of alleged supernatural or magical powers. ... The Sorceress by John William Waterhouse Magic and sorcery are the influencing of events, objects, people and physical phenomena by mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. ... This article is 150 kilobytes or more in size. ...

History of European witchcraft

In the world of late antiquity or the early Middle Ages, it is impossible to define someone as a witch (as opposed, for example, to an amateur herbalist, a heretic or a scold), and none of the legislation of the time attempted to do so. Offenders were designated offenders by virtue of their performing various actions or wearing certain objects declared by the legislation to be condemned or forbidden. For all practical purposes, the 'witch' had not yet been invented. There were only practitioners of various kinds of magic, both male and female, who might belong to any rank of ecclesiastical or lay society, and whose actions might, or might not, bring them within the compass of canon or secular law, depending on external factors which were usually local but could, from time to time, be more general. Late Antiquity is a rough periodization (c. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... The term Herbalism refers to folk and traditional medicinal practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. ... Look up Heretic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Sorceress by John William Waterhouse Magic and sorcery are the influencing of events, objects, people and physical phenomena by mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. ... Canon law is the term used for the internal ecclesiastical law which governs various churches, most notably the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Anglican Communion of churches. ...

– P.G. Maxwell-Stewart, The Emergence of the Christian Witch

Beginnings

During the Bronze Age, Northern European magic was similar to other cultures during that time; a burial site of one Bronze Age woman contained a claw-joint of a lynx, the bones of a weasel, spinal joints of snakes, horses' teeth, a rowan twig, a broken knife blade, and two pieces of iron pyrite, all of which were apparently believed to posses magical abilities. Similarly, the folk-magic of the early Christian period was common sorcery, not involving demons or devils. Some examples include Teutonic sorcerers working magic on figures of wax or dough, and charms to hurt or heal (some of which persisted into the 19th century as folk remedies). Anglo-Saxon magic involved spells and simple mechanical remedies, sometimes mixed with Christian religious elements (such as saying the Lord's Prayer while brewing a potion). The Bronze Age is a period in a civilizations development when the most advanced metalworking has developed the techniques of smelting copper from natural outcroppings and alloys it to cast bronze. ... The Sorceress by John William Waterhouse Magic and sorcery are the influencing of events, objects, people and physical phenomena by mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. ... This article is about the mineral Pyrite or Fools Gold. ... The term Early Christianity here refers to Christianity of the period after the Death of Jesus and the foundation of the churches of Jerusalem and Antioch in the 30s and before the First Council of Nicaea in 325. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Daemon (mythology). ... The Devil is a title given to the supernatural entity, who, in Christianity, Islam, and other religions, is a powerful, evil entity and the tempter of humankind. ... The term Germanic peoples may refer to: the Germanic tribes that in the first millennium were seen as a barbarian threat by the Roman Empire and its successors; the Germanic Christianity that in the second millennium came to dominate much of Northern Europe, politically organized in the Holy Roman Empire... The effigy of John Gower in Southwark Cathedral, London. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... The famous parade helmet found at Sutton Hoo, probably belonging to King Raedwald of East Anglia circa 625. ... The Lords Prayer (sometimes known by its first two Latin words as the Pater Noster, in Greek as the , or the English equivalent Our Father) is probably the best-known prayer in Christianity. ...

In folklore, a Witch (far from the later diabolic meaning of the term) is a mere sorcerer or magician, associated with the spirits of nature; the tales themselves reflect both a fear of the witches and a sense of their power. Though the meaning, like the meaning of any symbol, changes from tale to tale, the witch usually (in these tales) represents an elemental natural force possessing enormous and unexpected powers that are, while not necessarily evil, so alien and remote from the world of man that they constitute a threat to the order of the cosmos. This gut terror of witchcraft may explain the excesses of fear and hatred that welled up during the witch craze. John Dee and Edward Kelley evoking a spirit: Elizabethans who claimed magical knowledge A magician is a person skilled in the mysterious and hidden art of magic, which can be described as either the act of entertaining with tricks that are in apparent violation of natural law, such as those...

The advent of Christianity suggests that potential Christians, comfortable with the use of magic as part of their daily lives, expected Christian clergy to work magic of a form superior to the old Pagan way. While Christianity competed with Pagan religion, this concern was paramount, only lessening in importance once Christianity was the dominant religion in most of Europe. In place of the old Pagan magic methodology, the Church placed a Christian methodology involving saints and divine relics — a short step from the old Pagan techniques of amulets and talismans. Christianity is a monotheistic[1] religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament. ... Heathen redirects here. ... In traditional Christian iconography, Saints are often depicted as having halos. ... Relics can be: Relics: the remains of saints (usually bones), honored in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. ... An amulet from the Black Pullet grimoire An amulet (from Latin amuletum, meaning A means of protection) or a talisman (from Arabic tilasm, ultimately from Greek telesma or from the Greek word talein wich means to initiate into the mysteries. ... Talisman can refer to: An amulet sometimes believed to have mystical, and amazing powers The Talisman board game from Games Workshop Talisman - Sacred Cities, Secret Faith by Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval Talisman (band) - a hard rock band. ...

Augustine, an influential Christian theologian, argued that all pagan magic and religion were invented by the Devil to lure humanity away from Christian truth; he argued that while some of the effects were illusion and some real, both were workings of the Devil. Shortly thereafter, theologians identified the pagan gods of old, such as Jupiter and Diana, as demonic servants of Satan that sorcerers would call up to do their bidding; later such claims extended to northern gods such as Woden and Freyja. “Augustinus” redirects here. ... Jupiter et Thétis - by Jean Ingres, 1811. ... The Diana of Versailles In Roman mythology, Diana was the virgin goddess of the hunt, in literature the equivalent of the Greek goddess Artemis, though in cult she was thought to be the god of horror and fear. ... For other uses, see Satan (disambiguation). ... This is the article about the West Germanic deity, for other uses see Woden (disambiguation), Wotan (disambiguation). ... Freyja, in an illustration to Wagners operas by Arthur Rackham. ...

In the seventh and ninth centuries, the Church began to influence civil law to create anti-witchcraft legislation. The Latin 'maleficium', which originally meant wrong-doing, now came to mean malevolent magic, presumed to be associated with the Devil. Not only was magic now a crime against society, but heresy and a crime against God. The Council of Leptinnes in 744 drew up a "List of Superstitions" which prohibited sacrifice to saints and created a baptismal formula that required one to renounce works of demons, specifically naming Thor and Odin. The 7th century is the period from 601 - 700 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era. ... As a means of recording the passage of time the 9th century was that century that lasted from 801 to 900. ... The name Catholic Church can mean a visible organization that refers to itself as Catholic, or the invisible Christian Church, viz. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... Baptism in early Christian art. ... Thors battle against the giants, by Mårten Eskil Winge, 1872 Thor (Old Norse: Þórr) is the red-haired and bearded god of thunder in Norse Mythology and more generally Germanic mythology (Old English: Þunor, Old Dutch and Old High German: Donar, from Proto-Germanic *Þunraz). ... For other meanings of Odin, Woden or Wotan see Odin (disambiguation), Woden (disambiguation), Wotan (disambiguation). ...

Middle Ages

Early Christianity attempted to put a stop to the pre-existing pagan practice of hunting and killing witches. When Charlemagne imposed Christianity upon the people of Saxony in 789, he proclaimed: A portrait of Charlemagne by Albrecht Dürer that was painted several centuries after Charlemagnes death. ... The Free State of Saxony (German: Freistaat Sachsen; Sorbian: Swobodny Stat Sakska) is the easternmost federal state of Germany. ...

"If anyone, deceived by the Devil, shall believe, as is customary among pagans, that any man or woman is a night-witch, and eats men, and on that account burn that person to death... he shall be executed."^[1]

Similarly, the Lombard code of 643 states:

Ash likes Lock

"Let nobody presume to kill a foreign serving maid or female slave as a witch, for it is not possible, nor ought to be believed by Christian minds."^[1]

This conforms to the teachings of the Canon Episcopi of circa 900 AD (alleged to date from 314 AD), which stated that witchcraft did not exist and that to believe in it was heretical.^[2] The Church of the time, rather than opposing witchcraft, opposed what it saw as the foolish and backward belief in witchcraft. To believe that witchcraft could possibly have any power was to deny the supreme power of God. Pages from Burchard of Worms Decretum The Canon Episcopi is an important document in the history of witchcraft. ... This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ...

Compared to the tortures and executions favored by the laws of both the Roman Empire and the later Middle Ages, the two or three years' penance for maleficium, incantation, and idolatry seems rather lenient. However, the law became more and more severe as time went on. By 830, several kings were ordering execution for witchcraft based on the findings of the Synod of Paris (June 6 829), whose ruling was in turn based on Leviticus 20:6 and Exodus 22:18. In the face of such threats, pagan practices began to be reduced. In 900, the Canon Episcopi was written:

"It is also not to be omitted that some unconstrained women, perverted by Satan, seduced by illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and openly profess that, in the dead of night, they ride upon certain beasts with the pagan goddess Diana, with a countless horde of women, and in the silence of the dead of the night to fly over vast tracts of country, and to obey her commands as their mistress, and to be summoned to her service on other nights. But it were well if they alone perished in their infidelity and did not draw so many others into the pit of their faithlessness. For an innumerable multitude, deceived by this false opinion, believe this to be true and, so believing, wander from the right faith and relapse into pagan errors when they think that there is any divinity or power except the one God."^[2]

Due to the widespread belief that the Canon dated back to the 4th century, it was given great authority in medieval canon law. It helped to forestall the witch craze by denying the reality of witchcraft; it also indicates that belief in strange phenomena was widespread and helped spread them further. It helped establish the concept of the sabbat by equating Diana with Satan, and by showing that the witches rode with her in spirit, established that the witches served Satan in spirit.

Witch Hunts in Europe

Main article: Witch-hunt

The origins of the accusations against witches in the later middle ages are all present in earlier trials against heretics, especially the claims of secret meetings, orgies, and the consumption of babies. From the seventeenth century, the idea of a pact became important-- one could be possessed by the Devil and not responsible for one's actions, but to be a witch, one had to sign a pact with the Devil, often to worship him, which was heresy and meant damnation. A witch-hunt is a search for suspected witches; it is a type of moral panic. ... Look up Heretic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Saint Augustine and the Devil A Pact with the Devil or Faustian Pact is a widespread cultural meme, most familiar in the legend of Faust and the figure of Mephistopheles but an element in many folktales. ...

The Malleus Maleficarum was influential in the seventeenth century European witch trials.

By 1300, the elements were in place for a witch hunt, and for the next century and a half fear of witches spread gradually throughout Europe. At the end of the Middle Ages (about 1450), the fear became a craze which lasted more than 200 years. As the notion that all magic involved a pact with the Devil spread, legal sanctions against witchcraft grew harsher. Each new conviction reinforced the beliefs in the methods (torture and pointed interrogation) being used to solicit confessions and in the list of accusations to which these "witches" confessed. The rise of the witch-craze was concurrent with the rise of Renaissance magic in the great humanists of the time (this was called High Magic, and the Neoplatanists and Aristoelians that practised it took pains to insist that it was wise and benevolent and nothing like Witchcraft), which helped abet the rise of the craze. Witchcraft was held to be the worst of heresies, and early scepticism slowly faded from view almost entirely. Image File history File links Malleus_1669. ... Image File history File links Malleus_1669. ... Cover of the seventh Cologne edition of the Malleus Maleficarum, 1520 (from the University of Sydney Library). ... Devil, one of the main protagonists of the witch trials. ...

In the early 14th century, many accusations were brought against clergymen and other learned people who were capable of reading and writing magic; Pope Boniface VIII (d. 1303) was posthumously tried for apostasy, murder, and sodomy, in addition to allegedly entering into a pact with the Devil (while popes had been accused of crimes before, the demonolotry charge was new). The Templars were also tried as Devil-invoking heretics in 1305-14. The middle years of the 14th century were quieter, but towards the end of the century, accusations increased and were brought against ordinary people more frequently. In 1398, the University of Paris declared that the demonic pact could be implicit; no document need be signed, as the mere act of summoning a demon constituted an implied pact. Tens of thousands of trials continued through Europe generation after generation; the famous witches in Macbeth were committed to paper during the reign of James I, who hanged more witches than any other English monarch. Pope Boniface VIII (c. ...

The craze took on new strength in the 15th century, and in 1486, Heinrich Institoris, a member of the Dominican Order, published the Malleus Maleficarum (the 'Hammer against the Witches'). Although this book was banned by the Church in 1490, it was nevertheless reprinted in 14 editions by 1520 and became one of the most influential books used by secular witch-hunting courts. Heinrich Kramer (also known under Latinised name Heinrich Institoris, 1430?-1505) was a churchman and inquisitor. ... Laudare, Benedicere, Praedicare Saint Dominic saw the need for a new type of organization to address the needs of his time, one that would bring the dedication and systematic education of the older monastic orders to bear on the religious problems of the burgeoning population of cities, but with more... Cover of the seventh Cologne edition of the Malleus Maleficarum, 1520 (from the University of Sydney Library). ...

Persecution continued through the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, and the Protestants and Catholics both continued witch trials with varying numbers of executions from one period to the next. The "Caroline Code", the basic law code of the Holy Roman Empire (1532) imposed heavy penalties on witchcraft. As society became more literate (due mostly to the invention of the Printing Press in the 1440s), increasing numbers of books and tracts fuelled the witch fears.

The craze reached its height between 1560 and 1660. After 1580, the Jesuits replaced the Dominicans as the chief Catholic witch-hunters, and the Catholic Rudolf II (1576-1612) presided over a long persecution in Austria. Interestingly enough, the Jura Mountains in southern Germany provided a small respite from the insanity; there, torture was imposed only within the precise limits of the Caroline Code of 1532, little attention was paid to the accusations of or by children, and charges had to be brought openly before a suspect could be arrested. These limitations contained the mania in that area.

The nuns of Loudun (1630), novelized by Aldous Huxley and made into a film by Ken Russell, provide an interesting example of the craze during this time. The nuns had conspired to accuse Father Urbain Grandier of witchcraft by faking symptoms of possession and torment; they feigned convulsions, rolled and gibbered on the ground, and accused Grandier of indecencies. Grandier was convicted and burned; however, after the plot succeeded, the symptoms of the nuns only grew worse, and they became more and more sexual in nature. This attests to the degree of mania and insanity present in such witch trials.

In 1687, Louis XIV issued an edict against Witchcraft that was rather moderate compared to former ones; it ignored black cats and other lurid fantasies of the witch mania. After 1700, the number of witches accused and condemned fell rapidly.

Witch-Hunting Methods

It was extremely dangerous to be accused of being a "witch", since a common punishment was to be executed, sometimes by being burned at the stake, the standard punishment for heretics (and witchcraft was merely a form of heresy). Both in North America and in Europe thousands of people, men as well as women, were put to death as witches at various points in history. Some of the worst witchhunts were in Germany, though there are documented cases of torture and murder in the name of stopping witchcraft in nearly every European country. Burning of two sodomites at the stake (execution of individuals by fire. ... World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America. ... This article is 150 kilobytes or more in size. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... A witch-hunt is a search for suspected witches; it is a type of moral panic. ...

Some torments were designed to test the guilt of a witch. "Swimming" the witch (a survival of an ancient ordeal by water) involved tying the accused hand and foot and immersing her in deep water. If she sank, God's creature water accepted her and she was deemed innocent. If she floated, the water rejected her, and she was deemed guilty. Similarly, if the witch weighed less than a bible on a scale, she was guilty. Witches were thought to have insensitive spots where the Devil had (visibly or invisibly) marked them; the accused would sometimes be pricked all over with a sharp instrument in the search for such a spot.

Other, more traditional tortures were devised to elicit confessions and accusations against accomplices. These included thumbscrews, leg vices, whipping stocks with iron spikes, scalding lime baths, prayer stools furnished with sharp pegs, racks, and the strappado (where a prisoner's arms were tied with a rope attached to a pully, and he or she was hoisted into the air, often with weights attached at the feet to pull the arms from the sockets). These tortures would be often accompanied by a long list of questions, most of which asked how and when the accused had done a certain accusation, not whether they were innocent or guilty.

Modern theories and criticism

The old liberal view of European Witchcraft holds that witchcraft never existed at all, but was invented by the Catholic Church and other authorities to gain power and prestige.

Margaret Murray claimed that witchcraft was a holdover of a worldwide ancient fertility cult; however, modern scholars have rejected this as unfounded and due to a deliberate misinterpretation of the evidence. For more information, see her article. This article or section seems not to be written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia entry. ...

Another school, currently the most influential, emphasizes the social history and social patterns of witchcraft accusations. This assumes that witchcraft never existed, but blames widespread superstition rather than the Church for the craze.

Yet another school of thought emphasizes the history of ideas and argues that witchcraft is a composite of superstitions collected across the centuries; of these, the most influential are Christian heresy and theology rather than actual pagan practices.

Rossell Hope Robbins, among others, contend that the chief motive behind the prosecutions was the desire for the property of the condemned; however, the number of confiscations overall was relatively small, and a disproportionately great number of people convicted were of small means.

For more information, see the extensive discussion under witchhunts. A witch-hunt is a search for suspected witches; it is a type of moral panic. ...

Position of the Church

Witches were not localised Christian distortions of pagans but people alleged to have both the ability and the will to employ supernatural effects for malignant ends. This belief is familiar from other cultures, and was partly inherited from paganism. The belief that witches were originally purely benign does not derive from any early textual source. The earliest written reference to witches as such, from Aelfric's homilies, ^[1] portrays them as malign. The tendency to perceive them as healers only begins in the 19th Century, with Jules Michelet whose novel La Sorcière, published in 1862, first postulated a benign witch. ^[2] lfric, called the Grammarian (c. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Jules Michelet (August 21, 1798 - February 9, 1874) was a French historian. ... Satanism and Witchcraft (La Sorcière) is a book on the history of witchcraft published in 1862 by Jules Michelet. ... 1862 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

It was in the Church's interest, as it expanded, to suppress all competing Pagan methodologies of magic. This could only be done by presenting a cosmology in which Christian miracles were legitimate and credible, whereas non-Christian ones were "of the devil". Hence the following law:

"We teach that every priest shall extinguish heathendom, and forbid wilweorthunga (fountain worship), and licwiglunga (incantations of the dead), and hwata (omens), and galdra (magic), and man worship, and the abominations that men exercise in various sorts of witchcraft, and in frithspottum (peace-enclosures) with elms and other trees, and with stones, and with many phantoms."

^{Source: 16th Canon Law enacted under King Edgar, 10th century A.D.}

While the common people were aware of the difference between witches, who they considered willing to undertake evil actions, such as cursing, and cunning folk who avoid involvement in such activities, the Church attempted to blot out the distinction. In much the same way that culturally distinct non-Christian religions were all lumped together and termed merely "Pagan", so too was all magic lumped together as equally sinful and abhorrent. The Demonologie of James I explicitly condemns all magic-workers as equally guilty of the same crime against God. Canon law is the term used for the internal ecclesiastical law which governs various churches, most notably the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Anglican Communion of churches. ... King Edgar or Eadgar I ( 942 – July 8, 975) was the younger son of King Edmund I of England. ... As a means of recording the passage of time, the 10th century was that century which lasted from 901 to 1000. ... Dionysius Exiguus invented Anno Domini years to date Easter. ... James VI and I (James Stuart) (June 19, 1566 – March 27, 1625) was King of Scots, King of England, and King of Ireland. ...

Typical Accusations

The characterization of the witch in Europe is not derived from a single source. Popular neopagan beliefs suggest that witches were female shamans who were made into malicious figures by Christian propaganda. This is an erroneous oversimplification and presumes that a recognizable folklore figure must derive from a single historical precedent (a female, maligned magic-worker). The familiar witch of folklore and popular superstition is a combination of numerous influences. The shaman is an intellectual and spiritual figure who is regarded as possessing power and influence on other peoples in the tribe and performs several functions, primarily that of a healer ( medicine man). The shaman provides medical care, and serves other community needs during crisis times, via supernatural means (means... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Christianity. ...

At the end of the Middle Ages, the reoccurring beliefs about witches were:

1. The ride by night
2. The pact with the Devil
3. The formal repudiation of Christianity
4. The secret nocturnal meeting
5. The desecration of the Eucharist and crucifix
6. The orgy
7. Sacrificial infanticide, and
8. Cannibalism

The Malleus Maleficarum (1486) declared that the four essential points of witchcraft were renunciation of the Catholic face, devotion of body and soul to evil, offering up unbaptized children to the Devil, and engaging in orgies which included intercourse with the Devil; in addition, witches were accused of shifting their shapes, flying through the air, abusing Christian sacraments, and confecting magical ointments. Saint Augustine and the Devil A Pact with the Devil or Faustian Pact is a widespread cultural meme, most familiar in the legend of Faust and the figure of Mephistopheles but an element in many folktales. ... For other uses, see Eucharist (disambiguation). ... A crucifix amidst the cornfields near Mureck in rural Styria, Austria A handheld crucifix A crucifix in front of the Holy Spirit Church in Košice, Slovakia A crucifix is a cross with a representation of Jesuss body, or corpus. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... In sociology and biology, infanticide is the practice of intentionally causing the death of an infant of a given species, by members of the same species - often by the mother. ... This article is about consuming ones own species. ...

Witches were credited with a variety of magical powers. These fall into two broad categories: those that explain the occurrence of misfortune and are thus grounded in real events, and those that are wholly fantastic.

The first category includes the powers to cause impotence, to turn milk sour, to strike people dead, to cause diseases, to raise storms, to cause infants to be stillborn, to prevent cows from giving milk, to prevent hens from laying and to blight crops. The second includes the power to fly in the air, to change form into a hare, to suckle familiar spirits from warts, to sail on a single plank and perhaps most absurd of all, to go to sea in an eggshell. Eggshells are still superstitiously crushed to prevent this usage. In witchcraft, a familiar spirit, commonly called familiar (from Middle English familiar, related to family) is a spirit who obeys a witch, conjurer, etc. ...

Witches were often believed to fly on broomsticks or distaffs, or occasionally upon unwilling human beings, who would be called 'hag-ridden'. Horses found sweating in their stalls in the morning were also said to be hag-ridden.

The accused witch Isobel Gowdie gave the following charm as her means of transmuting herself into a hare: Isobel Gowdie, executed in 1662, was a Scottish witch whose detailed confession to witchcraft, apparently achieved without the use of torture, offers one of the most detailed looks at European witchcraft folklore at the end of the era of witch-hunts. ...

I shall go into a hare,

With sorrow and sych and meickle care;

And I shall go in the Devil's name,

Ay while I come home again.

Witches also appear as villains in many 19th- and 20th-century fairy tales, folk tales and children's stories, such as "Snow White", "Hansel and Gretel", "Sleeping Beauty", and many other stories recorded by the Brothers Grimm. Such folktales typically portray witches as either remarkably ugly hags or remarkably beautiful young women. In the classic story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, witches from both ends of this spectrum play important roles. Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... A fairy tale is a story, either told to children or as if told to children, concerning the adventures of mythical characters such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants, and others. ... Folklore is the body of expressive culture, including tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, material culture, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions (including oral traditions) of that culture, subculture, or group. ... Snow White in her coffin, Theodor Hosemann, 1867. ... Artwork by Arthur Rackham, 1909. ... Sir Edward Burne-Jones painted The Sleeping Beauty. ... Wilhelm (left) and Jacob Grimm (right) from an 1855 painting by Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann The Brothers Grimm were Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, German professors who were best known for publishing collections of folk tales and fairy tales,[1] and for their work in linguistics, relating to how the sounds in... For the film, see The Wizard of Oz (1939 film) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a childrens book written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W.W. Denslow. ... The Laughing Dragon of Oz, see Frank Joslyn Baum . ...

Wise woman & cunning man

Traditionally, a white witch was a cunning man or wise woman, who sold magical services to ward off or reverse the effects of witchcraft. Jadis, the White Witch is the key villain of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first published book in C. S. Lewiss Chronicles of Narnia series, and the second chronologically. ...

See also

• Brujeria (Witchcraft)
• flying ointments
• Sorginak (Basque witches)
• Heresy of the Free Spirit
• Thomas Ady

Brujería is Spanish witchcraft or witchery. ... Flying ointment, also known as witches flying ointment, green ointment, magic salve and lycanthropic ointment, is a hallucinogenic ointment said to be used by witches in the Early Modern period. ... Sorginak (singular sorgin) are the assistants of the goddess Mari in Basque mythology They are likened to witches or pagan priestesses. ... The Free Spirit heresy consisted of small groups of Christian heretics living mostly in the Bohemia area of eastern Germany during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. ... Thomas Ady (fl. ...

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Hutton, Ronald. The Pagan Religions of the Early British Isles. 
2. ^ ^{a b} The Canon Episcopi

Ronald Hutton is Professor of History at the University of Bristol and is an occasional commentator on British television and radio on the history of paganism in the British Isles. ...