Welcome to Gaia! ::

Well, Hallows is fast approaching and soon Yule will baring down on us like a red and green freight train. Before that happens I'd like to squeeze some topics on the holiday at hand. Of course my first instinct was the tired old tale of the origins of the jack-o-lantern, but lucky for all of you I realized a half second later that anyone that hasn't already heard it is living under a rock. Instead there is another origin that I would like to examine, the stereotypical Halloween witch.

As a Wiccan, like most I went through a phase of hating this image. I sent notes to teachers complaining about classroom decorations. I refused to let my kid's watch the Wizard of Oz w/o having to sit through a lengthy lecture afterwards. I grumbled under my breath through trick or treating about the costumes of innocent children that had no stance on or even knowledge of the issue. In short, I was a stereotypical Halloween Wiccan. I got better.

I don't hate the Halloween witch anymore, in fact I embrace her as a sister. This 180 can be attributed solely to reading one article that brought things into sharp focus for me. I have looked and looked and can not find another copy, and I could just kick myself for not having saved it at the time. So instead of sharing it, I will simply have to recreate it as best I can.

What one must remember is that the general population was legitimately frightened of the threat of the witches. The average peasant farmer was not educated, and didn't have the concept of freedom we have today. When the authorities made a declaration, they didn't picket the castle, start internet petitions, or wave poster board signs in front of news cameras in the Walmart parking lot. They just went with the flow. So, when the church and the crown said there were witches, there were witches. And these witches could be someone you've known your whole life.

Enter the witch-hunters, which most people were probably relieved to see b/c they would remove the threat. This populace didn't see and innocent woman drug from her house in the middle of the night. They did not see what happened to her during questioning and confession. All they saw was the self-confessed witch being carted through town the next day in her “true guise”.

They saw green skin, not skin discolored by bruising resulting from repeated blows. They saw snaggled teeth, not teeth broken by the same. They saw unnatural gnarled limbs and hands, not bones broken by torture devices or hands mangled by thumb screws. They saw a large crooked nose, not a nose swollen and crooked from having been broken. They saw unkempt scraggly hair, not hair that had had handfuls of it pulled out. They saw an evil creature spitting curses upon them, not a one time friend and neighbor that had been driven to madness by torture and sleep deprivation.

As, I said, I know longer hate her. She is our martyr. Whether she practiced witchcraft or not, whether she followed th old gods or the new one, she was one of us in the end, for she bore our name. She represents the those that are the victims of oppression and hysteria. She is not to be hated. She is to be revered with love and with gratitude. It is because of her that we will never forget, and will always say, never again.

I think by now the Halloween witch has become a traditional symbol of Halloween. She's more a pop culture icon than a historical figure, and I think that's okay. People don't like it when you mess with their symbols, though. And she is most definitely a symbol of Halloween at this point.

I don't think it's such a big deal, really. People automatically associate that particular with fantasy and fiction rather than reality, and I think modern Neo-Pagans can sometimes be a little bit oversensitive, taking offense when none was meant. I'm pretty cool with flying halloween witches in cartoons and costumes and decorations.

In fact, I remember the first time I ever viewed a "witch" as a good guy.

I was probably about four or five and I watched this cartoon:

http://youtu.be/skdVouumMk4

Summarry: On Halloween night, Donald Duck kind of being a d**k to Huey, Dewey, and Louie on Halloween. He steals their candy and ruins their costumes, hee hee, he is cartoonishly mischievous.

And then this witch comes along named Witch Hazel (ha ha) and she feels bad for the boys and tries to get them their treats back by asking Donald nicely. She appeals to his sense of good and the mischievous but not malevolent spirit of the season. He proceeds to douse her in water as a prank and smash her comically large nose in his doorway.

Witch Hazel is not pleased and takes the boys aside to work some MAGIC, because STEALING CANDY FROM KIDS IS NOT RIGHT, and because nobody touches her nose and lives.

Well, at that point IT IS ON in a matter similar to that of Donkey Kong, as far as Hazel's concerned. She uses SERIOUSLY AWESOME MAGIC POWERS to break into Donald's house where, when he stows the treats in the pantry, she proceeds to do a series of very violently cartoonish things to get him to spit it back out. In the end she makes him run a long way away and then ram the door with his head to get it open. This would probably have killed him in reality, but it's a cartoon, so he was fine. The boys got all the treats they could wish for, and all thanked and hugged Witch Hazel, and she was kind of the hero.

And I remember, in my four year old brain, thinking THAT IS AWESOME.

So not all Halloween witches are evil infulences. ^_-

This is very enlightening. To be honest, I never hated the Halloween Witch image persay, but I have certainly grown to respect her much more after reading that. Thank you =)