In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, images of witches riding up and out of chimneys start to dominate. With the Protestant Reformation, some religious leaders established bans on drinking and dancing, brothels were closed and marriage was more strictly codified and controlled. "It's bound up with an anxiety about women and what place they have in society at a time when Europe was undergoing fundamental changes and transformations in society," Zika said. (Image credit: Public domain)īut racy images of witches fit in with a culture in which there was much speculation about female sexuality, Zika said. Between her legs, she holds a distaff, or stick used for spinning wool. German artist Albrecht Dürer created this engraving around the year 1500, showing a witch riding a goat. The witch in one engraving by the Italian artist Parmigianino is not riding a broom, but rather a gigantic, anatomically graphic phallus. Artists like Albrecht Dürer and Hans Baldung depicted them naked. The explicit implications of staff riding, and the sexual nature of witches in images throughout the Renaissance, are difficult to ignore. "A lot of it we can't trust as descriptions of social reality at all," Zika told LiveScience. Modern knowledge of witches often comes from manuals written by inquisitors, ecclesiastical judges and testimony by accused witches - much of it produced under duress or torture, Zika explained. Sources from the era when fears about witchcraft peaked are unreliable and biased, noted Charles Zika, a professor at the University of Melbourne, who has written about the imagery of witchcraft. It's hard to know whether or not witches actually did the deeds they were rumored to have done (like mounting hallucinogen-laced wooden staffs in their covens). In his "Quaestio de Strigis" of 1470, Bergamo writes of witches who on "certain days or nights they anoint a staff and ride on it to the appointed place or anoint themselves under the arms and in other hairy places." The English historian Raphael Holinshed later recounted the case and described some of the supposedly damning evidence authorities found against Kyteler: "In rifleing the closet of the ladie, they found a pipe of ointment wherewith she greased her staffe, upon which she ambled and galloped through thick and thin."Īnother oft-cited account comes a from 15th-century manuscript by theologian Jordanes de Bergamo. (Kyteler escaped, and her maid was burned at the stake in her stead.) This lady of magic is a whopping 39 inches tall and she rides on a classic witch's broom.Lady Alice Kyteler, Ireland's earliest known accused witch, was condemned to death for using sorcery to kill her husband in 1324. She's mischievous, powerful, and yes, a little bit evil-but being scared is what Halloween is all about! Product Details While some witches are friendly, helpful, good witches, this hanging witch is.not. Anyone can place a scary item on a table, but it takes real decorating creativity to think about what your guests will see when they look up! Plus, this witch's glowing eyes will make quite a party entrance, as she swings about your foyer, welcoming your guests with her gaze. When it's time to up the game on Halloween decor, then it's time to look up - to the rafters, the trees outside your house, the creepy, cobweb corners of the basement ceiling. No, silly, it's this Hanging Animated Flying Witch On Broom decor, of course! Solve this riddle: What is old, magical, and a tiny bit frightening, and is guaranteed to make your Halloween party an instant smash? No, no, it's not your grandma, even if she is cool enough to get dressed up and come boogie at your bash.
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