Incredibly beautiful girls with mesmerizing cat eyes or unkempt, dirty old women, frightening passers-by with crazy prophecies … Mentions of witches are found not only in ancient sacred texts, but also in various legends and tales, in children's fairy tales they are credited with various magical abilities and are accused of all kinds of troubles and misfortunes … Witches.
According to the ideas of various European and Slavic peoples, a witch (or sorceress) is a woman who has magical skills and abilities, she is able to communicate with dark forces, ask them for protection and help. Witches can perform various witchcraft rituals and rituals, they are subject to the skill of reincarnation, it was also believed that each witch can control any element (water, wind, fire).
Despite the fact that the first mentions of witches are found in records dating back to the pre-Christian period, stories about them were most widespread in the Middle Ages.
In the 13-17 centuries, both in overcrowded European cities and in small remote villages, people lived in constant fear of the intrigues of magicians and sorcerers, who now and then sent constant plague epidemics, hunger and pestilence, fires and wars to the villages. The Catholic Church could not calmly look at the witchcraft atrocities, so in the 15-17th centuries a massive "Witch Hunt" began.
So, in 1486, a special set of rules was published, called the "Hammer of the Witches", which described in detail the rules by which a witch can be recognized, as well as the procedure for interrogations and executions. The struggle against witchcraft acquired such proportions that the Order of the "Holy Inquisition" was created, acting on behalf of the Catholic Church, whose powers included exclusively the fight against magic and witchcraft.
In the minds of a medieval European, the witch was the embodiment of cunning and evil. Witches were credited with having sexier relationships with incubus demons, it was believed that they desecrated the Holy Bible and were under the auspices of Satan himself. People were sure that the devilish charms helped to preserve witches not only a bright attractive appearance for several centuries, but also endowed her with the ability to transform into various animals (a crow or a cat), look into the future, cook poisonous decoctions, send death and curses. In old age, the witch lost her attractive appearance, turning into a pale, hunchbacked old woman with a wrinkled face and a hooked nose. This was because the constant cooperation with the Devil could not but be reflected on the woman's face.
It was believed that witches have their own important dates and holidays, the so-called - sabbaths, at which they indulge in debauchery, arrange blasphemous feasts and initiate new witches. Participation in such rituals was persecuted by the Holy Inquisition, which punished the apostates of God to the fullest extent of the law. If a woman was caught in connection with the Devil, or if there was evidence of her presence at the Sabbath, the witch was burned at the stake, quartered or drowned in the river.
Massive persecutions and witch hunts led to the fact that in the 17th century the population of the female part of Europe was significantly reduced. Fearing witchcraft atrocities, the servants of the Order without delay and unnecessary trials threw into the fires all women suspected of complicity with Satan.
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In contrast to European culture, among the Slavs, the witch occupied a completely different position. The word "witch" itself comes from the verb "to know", that is, it is "the one who knows, knows." There was never a hunt for Slavic sorcerers, moreover, these women even had their own social status in society. They were often asked for help not only by ordinary residents, but also by the upper class of that time.
According to popular belief, a witch could be born and taught. A born witch could be the seventh daughter in a family where there were no sons. She could also become an illegitimate daughter in the third generation, or a child if his mother accidentally swallowed a coal during pregnancy. As in European legends, various magical abilities were attributed to the Slavic witches. For example, they could turn into various birds and animals, fly on brooms, talk with evil spirits, send damage and disease, however, sometimes people turned to sorcerers for help in order to find family happiness, find out the future or heal from illness, and with these the sorceresses also coped with the tasks without problems.
There was a belief that Slavic witches seek help from demons and devils, paying them with the energy they receive from stolen cow's milk mixed with morning dew. Therefore, at dawn, witches often gathered morning dew with their shirt and squeezed it into a bucket of milk from someone else's cow. After that, having drunk a magic drink, they fed the evil spirits with their energy, thereby thanks to her for her help and assistance.
The Orthodox Church was unfriendly and with condemnation of the activities of the sorcerers, but the witch was not touched until a complaint from a private person was received against her. Only after the stated accusation against the witch began the trial, which, however, was conducted not on the very fact of witchcraft, but on a specific complaint of the victim.
So do witches really exist?
Whether women with magical powers are born or not is still difficult to answer. And today, no reliable evidence or refutation of the existence of the gift of witchcraft has been found. As many cultural scholars believe, most medieval accusations of witchcraft were false and were the result of total illiteracy and superstition of people. People instinctively feared women who were too beautiful or too ugly, attributing to them various atrocities.
Without knowing anything about the viruses and bacteria that led to various pandemics, people perceived unexpected deaths in cities as a witch's curse. Living according to strict rules dictated by the church, people were afraid of any discrepancy with generally accepted norms, therefore very attractive outwardly or too ugly ladies, too wealthy or too poor, sloppy women have always been associated with something mysterious and forbidden.
No one can accurately answer the question of whether witches can live in modern society, skillfully hiding their abilities. However, unusual and mysterious phenomena occurring from time to time in people's lives indicate that the question of the magical abilities of some women is still open.
