Our fear of witchcraft originates in a bubbling soup of misogyny, religious paranoia, folklore, and Romantic fantasy.
In this video, I’ll explain how cultural ideas about witches, originating in the religious massacre of the Reformation, have developed into a useful metaphor for dark femininity and aberrant women.
There is a through-line from the Malleus Maleficarum, to Macbeth, to the videogame Bayonetta. In all of them (albeit in different ways) witches are symbolic of the feminine other.
I’ve got a comprehensive reading list, here, too: covering prose, drama, cinema, and even video games…
Fair is foul, and foul is fair
Hover through the fog and filthy air
(Macbeth, I.i)
