The witches that adorn Halloween decorations these days do not seem threatening. But witches were feared, despised and hunted down in Europe during the Renaissance. Witch hunts as depicted in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" and Howard Hanson's "Merry Mount" took place here in America as well.
During the Middle Ages in almost every rural community there lived a wise-woman... a healer.
Usually unmarried or childless widows, these women served as midwives and often stocked their little cottages with a supply of herbs with which they made ointments, poultices, and tinctures enabling them to cure a variety of illnesses.
To keep their cottages clean they used a twig broom and these women usually owned a cat to keep rodents from destroying their cache of the herbal medicines. Their power came from being the original botanists. They knew which plants relieved pain, which plants were hallucinogenic, which plants were poisonous. They used plants to help their neighbors.
But during the Renaissance, men of science, early physicians and leaders of the Church apparently were jealous of their power and strove to eliminate the healers.
Branding them as “witches,” they hunted down and subjected these women to horrific torture and often grizzly deaths. Undergoing inquisitions, some of these women confessed to evil deeds. But researchers have only the records of the inquisitors, and the confessions of evil crimes made under duress are questionable.
Valid — or probably not — the image of evil woman with a cat became a part of the culture. This image of a witch populates operas, novels, art, graphic design, and this time of year, Halloween costume parties.
