It’s Spooky Season! And there’s no better way to celebrate that than a nice discussion on the origin of witches - the original women scorned. To celebrate Halloween, Anuja and Jane took a deep dive into where our ideas of witches came from, and how it turned into mass hysteria that echoes into how we treat women today.
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Etymology:
witch, n. meanings, etymology and more | Oxford English Dictionary
Witch - Etymology, Origin & Meaning | EtmyOnline
Origin of Witchcraft Materials:
Note: Jane and Anuja are simply providing an overview of materials. There are lots of fascinating materials on witchcraft and its origins including the material we’ve listed.
Documentary on the Origin of Witches:
“History of Witches”
presented by Lesley Jones for the Northeast Georgia History Center
Documentary presented by National Geographic
BBC Article - by Alastair Sooke
Symbols:
Bronze Age to Elphaba: The Centuries Old Origins of Witches Hats
BBC Article by Scarlett Harris
Why Do Witches Fly On Brooms? The History Behind the Legend
The History Channel - Sarah Pruitt
Cauldrons, Broomsticks and Pointy Hats - A Real Witch Explains
Refinery29 - Sarah Coghlin
Cauldrons and Flight Visions of Witchcraft from the Cornell Collection
Cornell University online collection
History Bombs by Charlie Burgess
History of Cat in The Middle Ages
The Great Cat
Why Black Cats are Associated with Halloween and Bad Luck
The History Channel - Elizabeth Yuko
Salem reference materials:
Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 2014
Elizabeth Reis, Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press) 1997
Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Women: Witchcraft in Colonial New England (New York: Norton) 1998
Salem Witch Trials Of 1692 | Landmarks, Events, & More
Marilynne K. Roach, Six Women of Salem (Boston: Da Capo Press) 2013
Examination of Bridget Bishop, as recorded by Samuel Parris, Salem Witch Trials Collection at the Peabody Essex Museum
Charles W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather. A Reply. (1869) Archived at Project Gutenberg
Kenneth Silverman, ed. Selected Letters of Cotton Mather (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press) 1971, pp. 35–40
Cotton Mather, Diary of Cotton Mather, (Boston: The Society)
Sarah Kreutter "The Devil's Specter: Spectral Evidence and the Salem Witchcraft Crisis", The Spectrum: A Scholars Day Journal (2.8) April 2013, archived at Wayback Machine 8
Movies
The Witch
Directed by and written by Robert Eggers
Came out in 2015
Full title: The VVitch: A new-england folktale
Hocus Pocus
Directed by Kenny Ortega
Screenplay by Neil Cuthburt and Mick Garris
Story by Nick Garris and David Kirschner
Came out in 1993
Practical Magic
Directed by Griffin Dune
Came out in 1998
Based on the Alice Hoffman book
Screenplay by Robin Swicord Akiva Goldsman and Adam Brooks
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Jane Aster Roe - Executive Producer, Host
Anuja Jaiswal - Host
Rachel Arundel - Executive Producer
Katie Jensen - Executive Producer Sound Designer
Tess Barão - Audio and Video Editor