Lucie Minty
Specialist Practice
The Image of a Witch
It stated at the start of the Witchcraft Museum in Boscastle Cornwall "There is no one meaning of the word witch. There is no one image." The image of the witch has been interpreted in many different ways and throughout different cultures the meaning and image of a witch are different. To gain inspiration for when designing my witch character I researched into descriptions of witches through different books.
Marshall, R. (1998). Witchcraft: The history and mythology - Richard Marshall - hardcover - only from B&N books. Barnes & Noble Books.
Marshall, R. (1998). Witchcraft: The history and mythology - Richard Marshall - hardcover - only from B&N books. Barnes & Noble Books.
"Beautiful and deadly" is how the witch is described in the image of a court accusing a woman of witchcraft. These two traits would be interesting to create within a character design. Describing the witch as 'beautiful' appears to be more commonly associated with witches through historical records.
"Exceedingly beautiful or horribly ugly" These are the two main stereotypes of witches used within books, films and performances involving witches.
"Bewitching in her physical graces." This book talked a lot about witches deceiving and manipulating men with their physical attractive appearance. It spoke about the witches being powerful and the men being the victims.
This mentions witchcraft as a subject of sex and that witchcraft comes from physical and sexual needs and activities.
This page spoke about the male witch, although common stereotypes associate the witch figure as being a woman.
Devils and demons tend to commonly be mentioned in witchcraft books alongside witches. As recognised that the witch figure tends to be a woman the Devil image is commonly recognised as a male figure.
The book mentioned how contemporary associations are that the image of the witch is ugly and old where as evidence would suggest this a myth due to the records indicating that the women accused of witchcraft were commonly "young and sexually attractive".
"It was sometimes their sexual attractiveness that led then to be denounced" This book suggests that if a woman was attractive she would be a suspect for witchcraft and could be publicly declared as wrong and evil.
Jong, E. and Smith, J. A. (1982). Witches. London: HarperCollins Publishers.
Jong, E. and Smith, J. A. (1982). Witches. London: HarperCollins Publishers.
The image to the left is an illustration by artist Jos A Smith. Her work appears quite dark and looks themed to subjects such as witchcraft, demons, gods and various dark magic.
This image was also on display at the Witch craft museum I visited, it was one of the first pieces on display.
I really like the illustration as it shows two images of the witch, the beautiful and the hideous.
The image of the ugly haunting witch almost looks like the reflection of the woman, possibly suggesting her deceiving appearance.
Jong, E. and Smith, J. A. (1982). Witches. London: HarperCollins Publishers.
Jong, E. and Smith, J. A. (1982). Witches. London: HarperCollins Publishers.
Jong, E. and Smith, J. A. (1982). Witches. London: HarperCollins Publishers.
Above to the left are more descriptions of the witch figure. These are traits I am going to be considering when designing and traits such as "beautiful and hideous" and a "burning goddess" are things that I might try and suggest within my initial designs along with other selected research I found.
Above to the right mentions forests, burning and flames these are things commonly associated with the witch character.
A lot of witch characters are seen in forest settings and fire is used a lot with regards to the witches spells, curses and touchers.
The Young witch character is being referred to as a goddess.
Fire is mentioned again. In this context it is condemning the baby witch to the fire.
Comparisons and descriptions of the witch. "Perfect" and "pale rose" both indicate her as being beautiful.
"Tender purple like the base of the flame" fire is referred to again.
Jong, E. and Smith, J. A. (1982). Witches. London: HarperCollins Publishers.
Historical facts and information would suggest that accused witches were young and beautiful and were suspects due to their deceiving appearance rather than old and ugly (The most common image for a witch). Creating an even balance of a bewitching beautiful character is something I am going to try and do when designing the hair and makeup.