The REAL Monsters of Halloween: Witches
October 26, 2010 / 15026
WITCHES
What would Halloween be without witches? Witches and witchcraft date back to at least ancient Greek and Roman times. Even then there was a distinction made between “white” witchcraft (benevolent) and “black” witchcraft (evil), the former of which was tolerated by the government of ancient Rome.
With the spread of Christianity in the 4th century, witchcraft was more and more associated with devil worship, an association it never truly had. But because witchcraft - or Wicca - was practiced by pagans who worshiped pagan deities, the Church demonized the religion and those who followed it. The association stuck and resulted in hundreds of thousands of innocent men and women being tortured and killed as witches over hundreds of years, including during the well-known witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts.
The association with evil created the Halloween caricature of the witch as an ugly, wart-studded hag with an evil, toothless grin.
