WITCHES!

Witches in Western Literature

In Literature there are several different categories of "witches." There are the old hag witches, and the beautiful enchantresses. Whether old, young, beautiful, or ugly, there are essentially good and evil witches. History of witches began in the 13th century in poetry. It began with mention of women who used magic, dark and light. Often referred to as sorcerous or enchantress.  A good example of early literature about Witches is in the Odysseys, a witch tries to trick his men to drink poison which turns them into pigs. Another occurrence of witches in literature is in fairy tales. A good example of this is in Hansel and Gretel when the witch lures the children into her "candy house" to cook and eat them. Early literature typically represents witches as evil, however nowadays there are many examples of good witches, such as from in our reading this week. Also a great example of a good witch is Glinda in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  Other examples of famous witches include the three witches in Shakespeare macbeth. Witches tend to be associate with religion in some aspect or another. Typically they are considered sinners who cast out tradition religion or gods and dabble in a sort of sac-religious cult magic. Popular media has drastically changed the outlook on witches. One of the most important novels which changed common opinion on the "old hag" witches and sacrilegious witches, is Harry Potter. Harry Potter brings witches into a current day setting and make them relatable with the reader, who are probably around the same age as the witches depicted in the novel. Whatever the way they are represented witches have existed in literature in many different ways and settings and evolved greatly throughout time.