That Bitch is a Witch

Witch -

“A woman thought to have magic powers, especially evil ones, popularly depicted as wearing a black cloak and pointed hat and flying a broomstick”

“An ugly or unpleasant woman”

The concept of a witch has fascinated people for centuries with the earliest writing of witches being in the Book of 1 Samuel in the Bible. This was supposedly written between 931 B.C and 721 B.C.

Many witches were thought to be pagans who worked for the devil. Truth is, most were just natural healers or “wise women” whose professions were wildly misunderstood. You know how humans are, the moment there is something we don’t understand, we decide that it is something that should be feared and we stay as far away from it as possible.

In 1486 two well-respected German Dominicans wrote a book titled “Malleus Maleficarum” which translates to something along the lines of “Hammer of Witches”. This book was a guide on how to identify, hunt and interrogate witches. For a hundred years this book sold more copies than any other book except the Bible. It is believed this book is what caused the witch-mania to go viral. Thank a lot dudes.

After that as I am sure most people have heard, hundreds of women were tortured, punished and executed for suspicion that they might be witches. Often guilty people would shift the blame off of themselves by pointing out a “witch” that made them do it.

In 1706 Grace Sherwood was accused of being a witch. They decided to test her and discover the truth. They tied up her arms and legs and threw her into a large body of water. If she sank she would be considered innocent and if she floated she would be considered a witch. As I’m sure you could have guessed, she was a witch. She wasn’t executed but was sentenced to 8 years in prison for floating in a body of water.

In 1730 a satirical article was posted about witches. A large part of the article pointed out the ridiculousness of some of the witchcraft trials. Shortly after the article was published the witch-mania started to die down and soon new laws were passed to protect people from being wrongly accused of witchcraft.

Modern witches still exist. The term “witch” these days is mostly used to refer to people who practice Wicca, an official religion in the United States and Canada. Even after all these centuries they still struggle to shake the historical stereotypes of witches doing the “devil’s work”. In actual fact, the motto for anyone practicing Wicca is “harm none” and they strive to live a peaceful, tolerant life in balance with nature and humanity.

“Why are women such bitches sometimes? “ – I think I know why