![]() ![]() She has withered, drooping dugs for breasts, her mouth is open as she shrieks spells and imprecations, and her wild, wind-blasted hair streams unnaturally in the direction of her travel (a sign of her magical powers). The latter print presents a naked crone sitting on top of a horned goat, a symbol of the devil. The ancient world, then, was responsible for establishing a number of tropes that later centuries would come to associate with witches. They also crop up in the classical era in the form of winged harpies and screech-owl-like “strixes” – frightening flying creatures that fed on the flesh of babies.Ĭirce, the enchantress from Greek mythology, was a sort of witch, able to transform her enemies into swine. ![]() Their forerunners appear in the Bible, in the story of King Saul consulting the so-called Witch of Endor. Witches have a long and elaborate history. But where did this image come from? The answer is more arresting and complex than you might think, as I discovered last week when I visited Witches and Wicked Bodies, a new exhibition at the British Museum in London that explores the iconography of witchcraft. Ask any Western child to draw a witch, and the chances are that he or she will come up with something familiar: most likely a hook-nosed hag wearing a pointy hat, riding a broomstick or stirring a cauldron. ![]()
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