While most witch tropes revolve around broomsticks, pointed hats, and black cats, the main witch in Slavic lore, Baba Yaga, doesn’t participate in any of these. While she does maintain the traditional physical appearance of a witch — long, spindly white hair, haggard appearance, skinny-to-the-bone arms and legs — ratherContinue Reading
In July of this year, the Smithsonian posted a call for help in translating and transcribing three ancient texts, all of which revolve around witches. The first, Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits, is a documentarian novel by Increase Mather, a Puritan minister who, though he understood and championed burningContinue Reading
Growing up 10 minutes outside of an Indian Reservation in the northwest US, I overheard my fair share of Native American lore, or at least, that of the particular nation that lived nearby. For the most part, these urban legends consisted of things like Water Babies (imagine my surprise whenContinue Reading
Burying a witch must be performed under the same cautionary conditions as burying a vampire — that is, going to extreme lengths to ensure they never come back again to haunt the town that put them underground in the first place. While vampires were buried with stakes to the heart,Continue Reading
I wanted to believe the Blair Witch was a real thing, more than I’ve wanted anything else in the world, probably — and maybe she is, but I sure as heck can’t find any information on her and her story other than what’s being purported through the 1999 movie.Continue Reading
Thanks to the entertainment media and basically just a whole bunch of misinformation, the Voodoo religion and Voodoo dolls have gotten a bit of a bad wrap in modern years. In movies, they’re portrayed as having ties to Satanism and other dark magic, being used to curse or bodilyContinue Reading
We’ve already learned all the ways to either speak with the dead or accidentally give away the fact that you speak with the dead, but what if, instead of being a witch, you were just one of the villagers who wanted to live a calm, peaceful, witchcraft-free life? MaybeContinue Reading
This is a guest contribution from H. Davis. (His bio follows the end of his post.) Enjoy! Although the small country of Belize is breathtakingly beautiful, it can also be an extremely dark place; spiritually, that is. The country suffers from corruption, black and white magic, voodoo, and of course,Continue Reading
We’re all familiar with playing Bloody Mary as young kids, and back in the day, that alone was enough to scare the pants off of anyone looking to contact the dead. Personally, I remember my friends trapping me in the bathroom and crying like a baby, despite not having actuallyContinue Reading
Necromancy is the magical practice of contacting the dead, usually seeking answers to the future. This can be done either through summoning entities spiritually, or even going as far as raising one from the dead — though the latter seems a little less likely, not to mention maybe a littleContinue Reading
Witch stereotypes run rampant in 2017, and a few have withstood the test of time. When asked to describe a common witch, a person’s first instinct might be to include the iconic black pointed hat and robes, a broomstick, a green hooked nose, and bubbling potion cauldrons. Have you everContinue Reading
It’s a mystery exactly when and where Matthew Hopkins was puttering around before 1644, but when he did arrive on the scene, it was with a bang. A few decades before the Salem Witch Trials in the US, witch hunts were already going strong in the UK. As previously mentionedContinue Reading
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