Fairy Tales are full of witches. Just about every famous author of the genre has done something with them. Often they are haggish and ill-tempered viragoes that the protagonist has an unfortunate run-in with. Other times, they can be quite beautiful; however, the latter can sometimes be the result of a simple illusion.
In many of the Grimm tales, the witch is usually stumbled upon and engages the protagonist with a trap. She will often attempt to force the victim into being her slave because she is too lazy to keep her place tidy. She may also send the victim out on a quest that cannot be overcome in order to ensnare them for their failure.
The whole idea of the witch is that they are bitter women who turn to magic to take out their hate and anger on the world around them. They care about nobody else but themselves. Even if they have a proper daughter, they will treat her like a piece of property. I have met people like that in real life, but they don't have magic. Thank goodness! Needless to say, witches are bad, and the hero of the story should do everything in their power to put them out of business.
Sometimes the witch is a person in power. In "Snow White," the witch is actually a queen. She is even naturally beautiful, but vanity has a way of sullying ones perception of the truth. She envies Snow White's beauty even though such a thing is ultimately pointless. Here, the witch is so desperate to destroy an innocent for her own ego, she casts a spell to make herself hideous--as to trick Snow White into eating a poisonous apple. As a kid, I thought this transformation was permanent, and it made me wonder why someone would go through such lengths to appease themselves.
In the Oz universe, L.Frank Baum introduced us to the ideal of good and bad witches. This has been latched onto by people ever since the book and movie came out. Very popular with feminists. That was actually the idea too. Interestingly, the whole concept of good and bad witches were dropped just a few books later. The word witch was soon vilified. Glinda was thereafter refereed to as a sorceress, where evil Mombi was the resident witch. I'm sorry, but I agree with this decision. Witches bad. Witches always bad.
Today, witches live among us. They know magic and use it against those they consider a threat. They are haggish and ugly and have to use either spells or a hell of a lot of makeup to hide the truth. We do not see them because we do not believe them. We point at Wiccans and shrug, but the truth is less obvious. Witches are a part of our fairy lore since the beginning of time, and the reason they are is because they have always been among us. They are villains, and we still need heroes to take them out.
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No, I'm serious.
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Running into a witch is not a good thing. Somehow, you will be used to fulfill their agenda. And your reward will be servitude and insignificance.
ReplyDeleteEven more insignificant than she is.
DeleteYeah, legends and stereotypes go hand-in-hand... and are usually more accurate than modern sensitivity is comfortable admitting. Witches are real... and the reality is closer to the fiction than most realized... and that is the scariest part.
ReplyDeleteThey are real and they are ugly.
DeleteI agree, witches are always bad. I used to think they were just a figment of imagination until I actually came across some real life examples. Greed, vanity, and cynicism are some of the prime ingredients that create a witch, they are always the result of a vile woman grasping all she can from the world.
ReplyDeleteWe've seen them in our own lives. You know what I mean.
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