Burn, Witch, Burn. Stories of Witches.

There has been a huge upturn recently in the number of books about witches and witchcraft. Practicing witchcraft, being a witch, has become almost trendy.

But literature, like society, has taken its time to get here.

Let’s go back to when witches were dragged into popular culture kicking and screaming. The witch trials and the reign of King James I brought the idea of women with powers beyond our understanding into the limelight.

Of course, few of the women who were burned or hanged will have been actual witches. And for the sake of argument, a witch is someone who uses natural remedies, maybe lives alone, maybe older and unmarried. Probably a healer or midwife or both. Witches have nothing to do with the devil as the practice of witchcraft predates Christianity.

But that didn’t stop religious leaders and witchfinders from using their God as a weapon to rid their communities of a threat. And that’s what they were, a threat to the male-centric order of things. In Macbeth, written to appease King James’ love of the supernatural, we meet three hideous women who live outside of society and who wield otherworldly powers. Shakespeare’s weird sisters foretell the events of the play and align Macbeth with their ungodly ways.

The Brothers Grimm did nothing for the reputation of witches/women living alone/women who remarry with women who like to cook and eat children or send hunters out to cut the heart from their step-daughter. The heroes in these stories are always men rescuing fair maidens. Older, ugly women are mostly evil and not to be trusted. These are the stories we are raised on.

Fast forward to the 20^th Century and witches start to get a fairer crack of the whip. Glinda the good witch in The Wizard of Oz does something to balance out the wicked witch of the west but we still have the issue of Glinda being beautiful and fairy like, with Elphaba green skinned, wart nosed and crooked. Progress, but not quite there yet.

CS Lewis rewound the tape with The White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia. His strong Christian values show through the entire book make the depiction of the witch worse. If Aslan is Jesus then the witch must be in league with the devil, or the devil herself. At the very least, she is not ugly. In fact, I remember thinking her quite stunning in the BBC adaptation. And Tilda Swinton’s portrayal was also elegant and magnificent. Maybe that is part of the evil, to be beautiful and evil makes it easier to seduce men to follow your evil ways.

Whatever your opinion of JK Rowling, she did burst through the history of witchcraft like a wrecking ball when she introduced the likes of Hermione, Minerva McGonagall and Molly Weasley to the world. Suddenly, witchcraft was almost normal. In fact, Hermione was normal. Just a normal girl thrown into a world of magic. And the magic? Could be used for good or evil, or anything in between. Which made the whole witchcraft thing mainstream.

It can’t be denied that Harry Potter normalized witchcraft in the eyes of the world. And lead to the surge of witch related stories we see today. And the surge of witches. With such a hugely successful book painting witches in a normal light, it was inevitable that people sought out the practice. Women who were curious about it have been given permission to seek it out and re awaken something they didn’t know was asleep.

After centuries (maybe more) witches have been sold to us as lonely, old, haggard, evil, other. But now, they are normal girls with out of control hair, mothers with tearaway sons and accomplished women who chose to guide others.

Charlotte Wood is a feminist and writer of the macabre and sinister. She reads horror, fantasy, classic literature and historical fiction (with a preference for history from a woman’s perspective).

Charlotte’s debut novel Heather available for preorder now!
A compelling, frightening and heart-breaking tale of desperation, Heather is a ghost story spanning 100 years that will keep you guessing till the end.