Witch Myths: Hags, Crones, and Enchantresses in Mythology

Discover the original stories of nine magical women as we celebrate the witch in her truest form: a feminist icon. This powerful collection of mythological writings showcases the strength and prowess of witches.

The witch has known many names—she-devil, crone, sorceress—and despite being often portrayed as villainous or evil, many original tales celebrated witches. From the Ancient Greek myths of Hecate and Circe to the Nordic sorceress Frejya and the Egyptian Goddess of Magic, Isis, examples of women revered for their powers can be found woven throughout literary history. Witch Myths is a diverse collection of some of the earliest recorded stories featuring witches, showcasing the feminine agency that sits at the heart of many of our myths and legends.

Presenting beautiful black-and-white illustrations alongside lyrical poetry and age-old tales, Witch Myths breathes new life into the stories of magical women and resurrects the mythic witch for a modern readership.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wyrd Books
• Release date: Jun 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9781528799270

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The Witch

A Mythic Feminist Icon

An Introduction

Hag, crone, enchantress, pythoness, she-devil, sorceress—the witch has known many names. Despite not being held by binary limits, the word ‘witch’ is most often applied to women, although it has been used to condemn and condone people of all genders. Commonly portrayed in literature as villainous or evil, the traditional idea of the witch stems from centuries-old misunderstanding and misogyny. Antagonists garbed in black shifts and tall pointy hats are featured wreaking havoc with their dark powers, often accompanied by cats and broomsticks. Yet women with magical potency have appeared in literature long before this now somewhat traditional Western image of the witch was popularised. In the stories preceding the horror of the infamous witch trials, witches were not always presented as something to fear, but as magical characters with female agency.

Early literature, myths, and folk tales from across the world tell stories of women who could harness the natural powers of the Earth, using spells and herbal potions to aid others and exact revenge. Many of these stories present witches as characters to be honoured and respected, even worshipped. This treasury of witch myths is a collection of some of the earliest recorded stories featuring witches, demonstrating the strength and prowess of women and their long-held tradition of wielding magic. From the Ancient Greek tales of Hecate and Circe to the Nordic sorceress Frejya and the Egyptian Goddess of Magic, Isis, examples of women who were revered for their powers can be found woven throughout the literary history of many cultures.

Traditionally, the witch is seen as having an all-encompassing influence and control over the natural world, both mortal and immortal, and one of the arts most commonly associated with witchcraft is necromancy. Deriving from the Greek words for corpse (necro) and prophecy (mancy), necromancy is the ancient practice of communicating with spirits. In the King James version of the Bible, the Witch of Endor is described as ‘a woman that hath a familiar spirit’ (1 Samuel 28:7) and the power to raise and summon the dead. Despite the Church’s prohibition against witchcraft or sorcery of any kind—‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ (Exodus 22:18)—Saul, a Jewish monarch of ancient Israel who appears in the Old Testament, seeks out the occult abilities of the Witch of Endor, releasing her from the threat on her life for his benefit. Some interpreters of the text teach that his later death is a punishment from God for associating with a medium.

This ability to communicate with the dead is also possessed by the Egyptian Goddess Isis and the Ancient Greek witch Medea, but rather than being seen as evil or sinful practices, their craft is celebrated as a divine gift. Although the Biblical Witch of Endor uses a talisman to aid her magic, it’s Medea’s knowledge of herbs that helps her return people to life. Under the tutelage of Hecate, the Greek Goddess of Witchcraft, Medea and her aunt, Circe, learnt not only the importance of respecting and appreciating the natural power of herbs but also ‘how to render harmless and innocuous plants baleful and deadly’ (Folkard, 1884). In Greek mythology, these skilled sorceresses leveraged their knowledge of natural witchcraft for self-defence and vengeance, often against male aggressors. Circe is particularly renowned for her adept use of herbal potions, giving her the ability to transform her enemies into animals.

Similarly, such magical women are often portrayed as not only having the power to turn others into animals but also possessing their own shapeshifting capabilities, being able to adopt the guise of various beasts. Morgan le Fay, for example, a formidable enchantress from British Arthurian legend, frequently assumes the form of a bird to evade punishment for her sorcery. The Norse goddess Freyja, famed for driving a chariot drawn by black cats (a detail that suggests she’s one of the original sources for the association between witches and feline familiars) is known for her ability to transform into a falcon. Hecate, a renowned witch of Greek mythology, is also frequently accompanied by animals—her dogs are a sacred symbol of the Underworld and are believed to help her guard the gates of hell.

Previously mentioned as being the Goddess of Witchcraft in ancient Greek literature, Hecate is the guardian of crossroads and journeys, as well as being closely correlated with the Moon, bearing many similarities to the Roman Goddess Diana. These two witches represent the agency that underpins the female witch archetype. Both are associated with fertility and revered as protectors of mothers and childbirth. Those in labour would call upon Hecate or Diana to aid them and bring health and prosperity. This worship likely arose from the link between the Goddesses and the Moon, which follows a 28-day cycle mirrored by the average menstrual cycle, allowing women to track their progressing pregnancy by the phases of the Moon. This cyclical connection between women and the Moon emphasises their role as givers of life and the power that yields.

Witches, with their ability to harness the natural magic of the world, epitomise a traditional misogynistic fear of women with faculty, establishing a character forged in the eye of discrimination. During the early modern period in Europe, witchcraft came to be seen as part of a vast, diabolical conspiracy of individuals in league with the devil, which led to large scale witch hunts between 1500 and 1700. The terror and misinformation spread during this time have endured, tainting the way we view witches, with such negative associations materialising in our stories. The witch has come to embody a misinformed and ultimately negative archetype stemming from patriarchal values based on the idea that powerful women are something to fear, distrust, and remove. This understanding permeated the general cultural standpoint and subsequently influenced much of the media and teachings around the subject.

However, the witch’s narrative began to shift as societal understandings of women’s rights and gender equality developed. Following the third wave of feminism in the 1990s and the subsequent media produced, the witch has risen to higher popularity than ever before. Films, TV programmes, and books, such as The Craft (1996), Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996–2003), and Harry Potter (1997–2007), were influenced by early literature’s mythological tales of witches, their powers, and their characteristics. But rather than featuring as a one-sided characterisation of evil, as seen in earlier media such as the fairy tale ‘Hansel and Gretel’ (1812) by the Brothers Grimm, these contemporary stories presented the witch as not simply ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but ordinary. Someone who bore no physical difference to the people around her while also holding no moral difference. In fact, these characters are often strong, liberated women who use their powers to help those around them, bearing far more similarity to the original mythological witch. As we continue to observe the impacts of the fourth wave of feminism that began in the early 2010s, an increase in mythological retellings that centre female characters, including witches, are surfacing, such as in Madelene Miller’s novel Circe (2018). Once seen as dangerous, uncanny, and other, the witch is now returning to her roots and emerging as a feminist symbol of empowerment.

In a carefully selected collection of original mythological stories and folktales from around the world, this treasury presents literature’s first feminist icon: the witch. In an homage to powerful women, Witch Myths celebrates some of the earliest hags, crones, and enchantresses—some heroic, some villainous, but most who are simply people with elements of both good and bad within them. Featuring poetry, historical accounts, and fictional retellings of myths, the following pages breathe fresh life into the magical woman, resurrecting the mythic witch.

Lizzie Stoddart

Bristol, 2024

Circe

A Goddess of Sorcery, Circe is a formidable figure in Greek mythology, both revered and feared in equal measure. Daughter of the Sun God Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse, Circe is also an aunt to the famed enchantress Medea. She possesses an intimate knowledge of herbs and is almost unrivalled in her ability to bend nature to her will, producing impressive potions and charms. Homer’s Odyssey details Circe’s best-known legend, commencing when King Ulysses and his men unwittingly find themselves on her island, Ææa. Angered by the unwelcome company, she asserts her powers of transfiguration, shifting the men into the wild beasts their greed-fuelled hearts resemble. Circe endures as a fierce testament to the undeniable strength of women, and the defences they have been forced to conjure throughout history.

L. Chalon, Circe’s Palace, 1899

‘For Circe long had loved the youth in vain,

Till love, refused, converted to disdain:

Then, mixing powerful herbs, with magic art,

She changed his form, who could not change his heart;

Constrain’d him in a bird, and made him fly’

—Vigil, The Works of Vigil, 1822

‘A flaunting bloom, naked and undivine,

Rigid and bare,

Gaunt as a tawny bond-girl born to shame,

With freckled cheeks and splotch’d side serpentine,

A gipsy among flowers,

Unmeet for bed or bowers’

—John Byrne Leicester Warren, ‘Circe’, 1895

‘Then instantly

She touched them with a wand, and shut them up

In sties, transformed to swine in head and voice,

Bristles and shape, though still the human mind

Remained to them. Thus sorrowing they were driven

Into their cells, where Circe flung to them

Acorns of oak and ilex, and the fruit

Of cornel, such as nourish wallowing swine.’

—Homer, Odyssey, tr. Bryant, 1870

CIRCE

Augusta Webster, Portraits, 1870

The sun drops luridly into the west;

darkness has raised her arms to draw him down

before the time, not waiting as of wont

till he has come to her behind the sea;

and the smooth waves grow sullen in the gloom

and wear their threatening purple; more and more

the plain of waters sways and seems to rise

convexly from its level of the shores;

and low dull thunder rolls along the beach:

there will be storm at last, storm, glorious storm.

Oh welcome, welcome, though it rend my bowers,

scattering my blossomed roses like the dust,

splitting the shrieking branches, tossing down

my riotous vines with their young half‐tinged grapes

like small round amethysts or beryls strung

tumultuously in clusters, though it sate

its ravenous spite among my goodliest pines

standing there round and still against the sky

that makes blue lakes between their sombre tufts,

or harry from my silvery olive slopes

some hoary king whose gnarled fantastic limbs

wear crooked armour of a thousand years;

though it will hurl high on my flowery shores

the hostile wave that rives at the poor sward

and drags it down the slants, that swirls its foam

over my terraces, shakes their firm blocks

of great bright marbles into tumbled heaps,

and makes my preached and mossy labyrinths,

where the small odorous blossoms grow like stars

strewn in the milky way, a briny marsh.

What matter? let it come and bring me change,

breaking the sickly sweet monotony.

I am too weary of this long bright calm;

always the same blue sky, always the sea

the same blue perfect likeness of the sky,

one rose to match the other that has waned,

to‐morrow’s dawn the twin of yesterday’s;

and every night the ceaseless crickets chirp

the same long joy and the late strain of birds

repeats their strain of all the even month;

and changelessly the petty plashing surfs

bubble their chiming burden round the stones;

dusk after dusk brings the same languid trance

upon the shadowy hills, and in the fields

the waves of fireflies come and go the same,

making the very flash of light and stir

vex one like dronings of the spinning wheel.

Give me some change. Must life be only sweet,

all honey‐pap as babes would have their food?

And, if my heart must always be adrowse

in a hush of stagnant sunshine, give me then

something outside me stirring; let the storm

break up the sluggish beauty, let it fall

beaten below the feet of passionate winds,

and then to‐morrow waken jubilant

in a new birth: let me see subtle joy

of anguish and of hopes, of change and growth.

What fate is mine who, far apart from pains

and fears and turmoils of the cross‐grained world,

dwell, like a lonely god, in a charmed isle

where I am first and only, and, like one

who should love poisonous savours more than mead,

long for a tempest on me and grow sick

of resting, and divine free carelessness!

Oh me, I am a woman, not a god;

yea, those who tend me even are more than I,

my nymphs who have the souls of flowers and birds

singing and blossoming immortally.

Ah me! these love a day and laugh again,

and loving, laughing, find a full content;

but I know nought of peace, and have not loved.

Where is my love? Does some one cry for me,

not knowing whom he calls? does his soul cry

for mine to grow beside it, grow in it?

does he beseech the gods to give him me,

the one unknown rare woman by whose side

no other woman, thrice as beautiful,

should once seem fair to him; to whose voice heard

in any common tones no sweetest sound

of love made melody on silver lutes,

or singing like Apollo’s when the gods

grow pale with happy listening, might be peered

for making music to him; whom once found

there will be no more seeking anything?

Oh love, oh love, oh love, art not yet come

out of the waiting shadows into life?

art not yet come after so many years

that I have longed for thee? Come! I am here.

Not yet. For surely I should feel a sound

of his far answering, if now in the world

he sought me who will seek me—Oh ye gods

will he not seek me? Is it all a dream?

will there be never never such a man?

will there be only these, these bestial things

who wallow in my styes, or mop and mow

among the trees, or munch in pens and byres,

or snarl and filch behind their wattled coops;

these things who had believed that they were men?

Nay but he will come. Why am I so fair,

and marvellously minded, and with sight

which flashes suddenly on hidden things,

as the gods see who do not need to look?

why wear I in my eyes that stronger power

than basilisks, whose gaze can only kill,

to draw men’s souls to me to live or die

as I would have them? why am I given pride

which yet longs to be broken, and this scorn

cruel and vengeful for the lesser men

who meet the smiles I waste for lack of him

and grow too glad? why am I who I am,

but for the sake of him whom fate will send

one day to be my master utterly,

that he should take me, the desire of all,

whom only he in the world could bow to him?

Oh sunlike glory of pale glittering hairs,

bright as the filmy wires my weavers take

to make me golden gauzes; oh deep eyes,

darker and softer than the bluest dusk

of August violets, darker and deep

like crystal fathomless lakes in summer noons;

oh sad sweet longing smile; oh lips that tempt

my very self to kisses; oh round cheeks,

tenderly radiant with the even flush

of pale smoothed coral; perfect lovely face

answering my gaze from out this fleckless pool;

wonder of glossy shoulders, chiselled limbs;

should I be so your lover as I am,

drinking an exquisite joy to watch you thus

in all a hundred changes through the day,

but that I love you for him till he comes,

but that my beauty means his loving it?

Oh, look! a speck on this side of the sun,

coming—yes, coming with the rising wind

that frays the darkening cloud‐wrack on the verge

and in a little while will leap abroad,

spattering the sky with rushing blacknesses,

dashing the hissing mountainous waves at the stars.

‘Twill drive me that black speck a shuddering hulk

caught in the buffeting waves, dashed impotent

from ridge to ridge, will drive it in the night

with that dull jarring crash upon the beach,

and the cries for help and the cries of fear and hope.

And then to‐morrow they will thoughtfully,

with grave low voices, count their perils up,

and thank the gods for having let them live,

and tell of wives or mothers in their homes,

and children, who would have such loss in them

that they must weep, and may be I weep too,

with fancy of the weepings had they died.

And the next