Witchcraft în English Literature

I. EARLY WITCHCRAFT

During the early modern period of European history, witchcraft was seen as a very real crime and those convicted of engaging in it often suffered the death penalty. During this time thousands of people, predominantly women were tried for the crime of witchcraft, and approximately half of these were executed.

Ideas about witchcraft and magic had long been present in European culture. However, it was the witch trials in Switzerland in 1427 that seems to have established the belief that witches were magical practitioners, owing their evil powers to a pact they had made with the Devil. As the fifteenth century progressed this notion developed and became more complex. It became accepted knowledge among theologians that witches were not isolated individuals dabbling in the occult, but rather members of a demonic, anti-Christian heretical sect.

Witch-beliefs existed in two separate mind sets – that of the intellectual and that of the peasant. The construction of witch-beliefs as they were in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was a composite of the differing world views of the masses and the intellectual elite. The great European witch-hunt could not have taken place until the members of the ruling elite, particularly the individuals controlling the operation of the judicial machinery, subscribed to the various beliefs regarding the diabolical activities of witches.

In all witch believing societies, witches were regarded as individuals possessing an extraordinary or mysterious power to perform evil deeds. These acts came to be referred to in Latin as maleficia. The essential characteristic of these deeds was that they were magical, rather than religious; and harmful, rather than beneficial.

At a local level, and for the masses, the primary fear was maleficia. It was the alleged performance of maleficia which lay at the heart of many accusations of witchcraft. However, at the intellectual level, it was the diabolical witches’ Sabbath which was the aspect of primary importance in witch-belief.

The witches’ Sabbath was perhaps the most important element of the witch-beliefs in contributing to the scale of the European witch-hunts. Without the idea of mass meetings there would have been no witch crazes to catalyse hunting, as hunting involved the search for a witch’s confederates. It was the witches’ Sabbath that made witchcraft such an horrific crime. It played on the fear that large organised groups could overthrow the established authorities if they so desired. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries people believed as much in the supernatural powers of the Devil as they believed in the supernatural powers of God. Just as priests and bishops were seen as God’s emissaries, witches were seen as agents of the Devil. The sincere belief in harmful witchcraft was endemic and witch-beliefs were part of people’s mindset. Ordinary villagers inherently believed that individuals existed who were capable of employing harmful magic to damage livestock or to murder their children.

Early historians previously propounded a firm distinction between the English experience of witchcraft and that of Europe. However, it subsequently became clear that the English experience of witchcraft and witch-hunting was not unique, but rather a variation on a number of themes found throughout Europe.

When Elizabeth I died in 1603, James VI of Scotland also became James I of England. King James played an important role in the development and belief of witchcraft, encouraging belief in witches and witchcraft and increasing the punishments for convicted witches. James has often won the dubious acclaim of being one of the great European witch-hunters of the sixteenth and seventeenth century period.

King James was brought up under the control of the Presbyterian clergy and was an intelligent man, who was fascinated by witchcraft. He came to believe in and fear witches around 1590 when a conspiracy against his life was revealed. He was convinced that he, as a divine right monarch, was the chief enemy of Satan. On his return to Scotland in 1590 with his new wife, Princess Anne of Denmark, James encountered storms at sea. These were subsequently blamed on a group of North Berwick witches. An attempt was made to also implicate the King’s cousin, Francis, Earl of Bothwell, who had some claim to the throne should James die without an heir.

King James participated directly in the interrogation and trial of witchcraft suspects. However, while James clearly genuinely believed in the existence of practitioners of black magic and the diabolical conspiracy, he remained generally sceptical. He expressed a cool attitude towards the witch-hunt and spent some time exposing the fraudulent claims of his subjects in their alleged performance of magic. Appreciating that many cases were false, James I urged the judiciary to be extremely cautious when dealing with prisoners committed for trial on evidence of bewitching.

II. WITCHCRAFT IN RENAISSANCE

MACBETH –W. Shakespeare

As an indication of the attention witch-hunting had begun to attract in England during the executions in the era of King James, Shakespeare wrote a play, Macbeth, in which strange, bearded, hag-like witches play prominent roles.

During the years of persecution, witches were accused of everything from souring milk to killing cattle. They were also blamed for bad crops and bad weather. But they were most feared for their power to lead a man or woman into evil deeds, thus delivering the souls of their victims to the devil. This is precisely what they do in Macbeth.

Witches, however, had no actual power over the human soul. They could persuade a person to commit evil acts, but the victim always maintained freedom of choice. Although they were servants of the “father of lies,” as the devil was called, witches could also use truth to achieve their purposes. They do so in Macbeth when they predict that Macbeth will become Thane (Lord) of Cawdor, and then King of Scotland, but they mislead him later by telling him apparently welcome truths that—when they ultimately prove false—bring about Macbeth’s downfall. Banquo predicts exactly what will happen to Macbeth in Act I, sc. iii, when he says:

And oftentimes to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s

In deepest consequence. . .