A wizard is a person who says herself or whom one believes in connection with the Démon and which, for this reason, opérererait evil spells. In Anthropology, the wizard is a person who practices the Sorcellerie. In certain tribes, he plays an important social role. The witch is a Femme, it also follower - or regarded as such - of a form of Sorcellerie.

The wizard is sometimes associated with the Voyant. Others associate it with the Chaman, which is a specialist in the Communication with the Surnaturel and the world of the spirits, generally those of the late ones.

The French word “wizard” and its female “witch”, derive from the Vulgar Latin sortarius properly teller of fates , the traditional Latin leave , left , indicating initially a process of Divination, then intended , leaves . The word which indicates them in German is Hexe derived from the old Greek Aix , Chèvre, obvious reference to a pastoral world. Bruja , in Spanish comes from the term Ibère bruixa , and more precisely from the Galician bruxa . The word English witch has more discussed origins but appears well to come from a radical wik of origin as well Celte as Germanique. The witch was called in Greek stryx , in Latin striga - ae from where drift the term Médiéval striated , strega in Italian, estrie in French.

A mythological and legendary character

Magic and paganism

In the most moved back times, the magic was exerted like a Culte dedicated to the universal primary forces and the natural spirits. The forests, for example, were considered commes sometimes malefic cathedrals, sometimes beneficial. In the same way, the stars were seen like gods the Almightyes, water were enchanted, the animals, of the familiar spirits which surrounded the humains.
The Paganisme was thus the Religion of the men close to the Nature. The word '' pagus '' indicates in Latin the Village, and the religio paganorum is before all that of the peasants, whose priests and priestesses were formerly made up wizard and witch: equivalents of our doctors, priests and psychoanalysts modernes.
The witches were the priestesses of the god Pan, horned god blowing in his flute to celebrate the fertility of nature. The witch is before a a whole follower of the Panthéisme which proclaims that the Divin is present everywhere where the vie.
is This " god cornu" find another representation in Dianus, during masculine of Diane. The horns symbolized the vertical axis which connects the ground to divine, idea that one finds by evoking the " horn of abondance".
However, one also found in ancient civilizations Greek and Roman a religion parallel, inspired of the worships of Mésopotamie, Perse, Chaldée and old Egypt. In Greece, Porphyre (233-303) believed that certain spirits came to be satisfied with the tables of the alive ones, and it could not be nourished without trying to move away them by various rites and cérémoniaux from Purification. There existed thus with Rome a law, the Lex Cornelia , which prohibited these practices and which condemned to dead those which were devoted to the practices of sorcery: " The soothsayers, enchanters and those which make use of sorcery at bad ends, those which evoke the demons, which upset the elements, which, to harm, employ wax images, will be punished of mort."

The worship of the night

I groaned in my sleep by hearing
with far their laughter whirling
Of a plugging flame splitting the night of the dreams,
They hammer the heart like iron on the anvil

The pagan religion was a religion whose ritual ones were especially celebrated the night, not having any effect the day: the festival of the druids, the night of Walpurgis, Halloween - pagan new year -, the solstices and equinoxes; the Orgies, festivals of Diane.
This is why, in the old worships, the night was adored like a divine figure:

  • In Greece, Nyx, first girl of the Chaos, generates the catastrophes, mourning, sorrow. She is the mother of two twins: The sleep and death.
  • In the pagan religion, Hécate is the goddess of the moon, mother of the witches and the phantoms. She is often accompanied by dogs and wolves.
  • In Norway, the Mara is a spirit Succube night, which, following the example sound during masculine (l'" incube" ), the layer of the deadened dreamers in order to repaître of their vital energy came the night to divide.
  • In Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia, the notchnitsa came to bite and grip the infants during their night sleep.
  • In Scotland, Annis Black the was a dreadful Ogresse which, hidden with the hollow of a oak, watched for the passage of the children for délecter of their tender flesh.

Incubates S and Succube S

The primitive fear related to the appearance of the night and the shade could take the shape of frightening creatures, sometimes male (incubate them, of Latin incubare , " to lay down sur"), sometimes female known as " succubes" (which lies down sous"). Initially sensual, with the etymological direction (like Mara), these night forces took the shape of the witch Cauchemar, or Chauchemare (of the Dutch word mahr indicating a phantom, and verb " chaucher" meaning " peser"). The Cauchemar witch is a night spirit which comes to choke the sleepers by crushing them under their poids.
In its infernal Dictionary , Collin of Plancy describes the nightmares thus: " It was not known too much, in XVè century, which it was that the nightmare, that chauchepoulet also then was called. One made a Monstre of it; it was a prompt means to solve the difficulty. The ones saw in this accident a witch or a spectrum which pressed the belly of deadened people, concealed the word and breathing to them, and prevented them shouting and from waking up to ask help; the others, a demon incubates which choked people in their making love. The doctors hardly saw there more clearly; one did not know of another remedy, to guarantee nightmare, to suspend a stone digs in the stable of the maison."

Celebration of the Sabbath

Voilà that everywhere, of water, the mounts, wood,
larvae, dragons, vampires, gnomes,
Of the monsters of which the hell dreams only the phantoms,
the witch escaped the deserted sepulchres
Flying on the birch which whistles in the airs ''

The Sabbath of the witches would be a deformation of Sabasius , i.e. Bacchus and would derive from the word Sabazzia , the mysteries dionysiaques of Thrace. These festivals were organized in the honor of the " god cornu" fruitfulness and nature (incarnated by Dionysos, Side, Lug, Cernunos, Mithra). These festivals were accompanied by drinkings, dances and sexual orgies in order to stimulate the fruitfulness of the terres.
It is starting from the Middle Ages, by reaction of the Catholic church, that this " god cornu" became the Devil, named Satan or Lucifer, and that the ecclesiastics called Verbouc. And it is by negative feedback with repressions of the Christian Church that, according to the analysis of Michelet, the pagan Sabbath is moulted in black mass of revolt: " The sky consequently him people appeared like the ally of its torturers. from there the Black mass and the '' Jacquerie ''. "

The Sabbath took the shape of a banquet Rituel, often organized the Friday, in which wizards and witches took part. The menu was there very little enticing: the parents led their children to it in order to give them the satanic baptism or to make them cook. Henry de Nimal specifies that " for drinking, the guests in front of them have craniums of unearthed priests the night in cemeteries - disgusting cuts on each one whose the name of a Démon and that of sound amante are engraved in a coeur."
One also witnessed songs, dances and music: " The Devil sings of a raucous voice, as if it stopped the nose, so that grondement deaf resounds in space. All the company pushes of preserve of the cries, howlings, the mooings, of the howls, as if all the participants were fous.
The Sabbath was also the occasion of a satanic Baptême, during which the applicants wizard and witch were initially to abjure their baptism Christian. The Démon then changed the name of its new faithful and registered it in its large Book of Death. The new followers were to then entrust to the Malin a piece of clothing, an intimate object or one their children. They made oath strangle at least a child per month to offer it to Satan and were committed to give up the Christian rites eternally and coming regularly to the Sabbath.

The night of Halloween

the friend who looks after and cures
the madness which accompanies me
And never did not betray me
Champagne!

The festival of Halloween, it there has ten centuries, was the pagan New Year's Day celebrated in the Celtic countries on November 1st: it was the festival of Samhain, god of Death. It was believed whereas the night preceding this date, the spirits of deaths came to mix with alive, just as " all spirits of Fairyhood, dwarf, gnomes, imps, fairies, as well as the blackest demons, resulting from the enfer." It was to entreat these magic spells that the old ones had habit to light large fires and to dance, laughter, in order to overcome to them peur.
During this night, the witches enfourchaient their brush, cut in wood of Genêt and coated of an ointment made up of plants and blood of dead child without to have received the baptism. In IIè S., Apulée tells in its Ane of gold how a named witch Pamphile is on the point of flying away for the Sabbath: " It opened a certain cabinet, drew several boxes from them. Removing the lid of the one of them and by withdrawing the ointment, it rubbed during a considerable time with the hands, covering this oil of the point of the feet until the cheveux."

Bestiary and metamorphoses of the witch

Net of grass snake of marsh
In the cauldron boil and cook
Eye of Salamander, toe of Frog ,
Hair of Bat and language of Dog
Language fourchue of Viper, dart of Reptile blind man,
Leg of Lizard, wing of Owl
to make a powerful charm and disorder
Boil and foam like a soup in hell

The witches live surrounded by their favorite animals which come to bring magic assistances to them. All these animals (the black Cat, the corbel, the clamping plate, the Spider, the Rat, the Hare) have in common with their mistress to be dreaded and badly-liked: it is as many reflections of themselves. Paul Sébillot reports that one could recognize a witch going to the Sabbath because it had " a small clamping plate on the white of the eye against the pupil or to the fold of the oreille.".
Thus they had the capacity of to metamorphose, which enabled them to commit their crimes without being recognized. In the form of hares, the witches had habit to assemble themselves in congress. The speed that this form offered to them made it possible them to escape their prosecutors. The long ears were an invaluable help for espionner without being seen. The wing rail is regarded as a Porte-bonheur, proof that a witch had been mutilated with her hand, and thus private of its capacities.

An attractive woman

of the healer…

A witch is a Femme Chaman. The Scandinavian sagas called them Völva .

See also: Shamanism

The Wicca considers that it is oldest Religion world by affirming that the witches are the heiresses of a Culte whose origin goes back to the Préhistoire.

According to holding of a continuation between a worship of the Goddess and the Sorcery, and while being located in a vision where hunting would have been a male activity and the gathering a female activity, the women had a religiosity which had its own methods.

See also: Worship of the Goddess, Large Goddess

The witches were initially women of the countryside, country-women illiterate whose knowledge was based on a scrupulous observation of nature and the human ones which surrounded them. They were famous to know to cure by the plants, following the example modern Phytothérapie, practices associated with magic incantations. These ritual and formulas were to be scrupulously observed, or else the best of the remedies could become worst poisons. Conversely, the most toxic plants could, with very low dose, to present authentic virtues. The Belladone for example was used for very hallucinatory beverages, but to enter the composition of make-ups giving in comparison with the women a irresistible Charme. Louis-François Sauvé explains that certain ritual could take place only at very precise times: " The wizards have one day in the year, and, in this day, one hour single to discover and gather grasses specific to the evil spells: this day is the day before Midsummer's Day, and this hour that of the angelus of midi."

From this ancestral tradition the " rises; International Witches Association" Kraft; described by Margaret Murray, whose seat is in New York. The Wicca is a woman who seeks to restore a contact privileged with nature by defending the Naturisme. The calendar of the religion witch is copied on that of the old calendar druidic, Anglo-Saxon and Germanic. For Wicca, the year 2000 actually corresponds to year 56236 of the calendar wizard.

… with the wife of Satan

Lilith the feminist

In the traditional imagery, Satan is often represented like a character androgyne, at the same time male and female, which corresponds well to the duplicity of its nature. But there exists another representation, this one purely female: it is about the character of Lilith.

According to the '' Zohar '', the paramount man was created androgyne. Lilith, the spirit, " this female which is most terrible of all the bad esprits" , linked itself with the heart of Adam. Such a union awoke the anger of God who then decided to separate the male side and the side female from human the " parfait" that it had created. It is only after the escape of Lilith at Satan that God would have given Eve to Adam. According to Edouard Brasey, Lilith would have refused to be separate of the man for him to be then subjected. What Lilith (l'" rebelle" spirit;) refuse, it is the loss of the divine unit.

The " mystery féminin"

The image of the witch enfourchant her brush to go to the Sabbath where it will be coupled with Satan was sometimes read like strongly tinted sexuality. With the eyes of the man, an expectant mother or in layers had a dimension mysterious, unexplainable, about occult, at the same time attractive and alarming one. The women were thus seen like " ensorcelées" , at the same time accomplices and victims of Satan. It is only in 325, with the council of Nicée, that the Catholic church granted the right to him to have a heart. But in XIIIè century, one still heard that " Woman is more crafty one than the diable". In 1485, the Malleus Maleficorum or Marteau of the witches is published on request for Innocent VIII. The work presents an immense indictment against the woman, introduced like the natural ally of the devil: " Any mischievousness is nothing close to a mischievousness to femme" ; " Liar by nature, it is it by her language; she pricks while charming. From where the voice of the women is compared with the song of the sirens, which by their soft melody attract those which pass and the tuent." The success of this work was immense: twenty-eight editions in two centuries. Jules Michelet specifies that it " was generally printed in a rare format then, the smallone;

To this mystery frightening related to procreation, mistrust related on the Beauté of the woman and the Désir is added that this one caused at the man. Georges Bataille stresses that Christianity made of this desire an act of transgression, returning the man with his animal instincts. The littératue abounds in this bewitching and diabolic representation female beauty, whose only possible exit for the man is to be precipitated in death. This mistrust with regard to the female charm appears as of Antiquity, through the irresistible sensuality of the voice of the sirens threatening Ulysses, that of the Lorelei. It continues with the wire of the centuries and is incarnated, to quote only him, in the character of Biondetta of Jacques Cazotte. This idea of " is still found; poison" bound the beauty of the woman in poetry baudelairienne.

A persecuted woman

As of Antiquity, the magic practices of sorcery woke up the vigilance of powerful. Thus with Rome, Mécène advises with Auguste to push back the followers of the religions from abroad: " It is them which are born the conspiracy and the secret societies, dangerous for the reign of a monarque.". At the beginning of the the Middle Ages, Clovis promulgates the '' Lex Salica '' condemning the witches to pay heavy fines. The code of Charlemagne also envisaged imprisonments for the followers of sorcery. Parallel to these repressions, a whole inquisitorial literature develops (nearly two thousand works) denouncing the capacities malefic of the witches. Among these works, appear the Hammer of the witches , first book of pocket, Of the démonomanie of the wizards of Jean Bodin, the execrable Discours of the wizards of Henry Boguet.

But it is in 1326, by a pontifical Bulle of the pope Jean XXII which the persecution of the witches began being spread out over nearly four centuries: " We learn with pain iniquity from several men, Christians only of name. They treat with death and make a pact with the hell, because they sacrifice to the démons." Claude Seignolle specifies that these lawsuits and executions concerned especially the women: " Satan had its priests: they were the wizards. It had especially its priestesses: witches; and it is still by a consequence of the more logical relentless that, the men being only allowed with the service of the Lord, the women, who were excluded from it, went in greater number towards its obscure rival, who accommodated them preferably. It was said that there were thousand witches for a wizard; it is a manifest exaggeration there, but it is certain that the proportion of the women, in the crowd which pressed itself with the worship of the Goat, carried it much on that of the hommes.".
The executions of these women were legitimated by the consents which their inquisiteurs tore off to them, often under the Torture or by the means of untrue promises which were made to them. Jean Bodin guarantees these breaches of trust through the following writings: " It is thing virtuous, necessary and creditable, to lie in order to save the life of the innocent ones, and it is condemnable to say the truth which could détruire." Initially only exerted by clergy, the lawsuits were taken thereafter charges by the laic with it. The king Jacques Ier of England, in 1599, watch how it is possible to prove the culpability of a witch by pricking it, or by throwing it to water: if the puncture does not bleed, the witch is recognized guilty. The same if the woman warned herself to go back to water surface after having been précipitée.
there It is only starting from the end of the XVIIè century that one attends the twilight of this immense " génocide" , like indicated it Edouard Brasey. In France, Louis XIV replaces the executions with dead by banishments with life. In the United States, the Judge, like all the members of the Jury of the Massachusetts sign a public repentance making following the business Witch of Salem: " We ask you with all forgiveness bottom of the heart, you whom we wrongfully offended, and declare, according to our conscience present, which for nothing in the world none us would make again such things for such raisons." In England, the law against sorcery was definitively abolished in 1736, which did not prevent the hanging of the last English witch in 1808. In France, the last known victim of these settings with death disappeared in 1856, thrown in a furnace with Camalès.

A character of fairy tale

a witch is a fairy which one offended (Katharine Briggs)

In the universe of the fairy tales, the witch seems indeed very often “the thirteenth oldest fairy”, the Wicked fairy, that which one forgot to invite to the baptism of the Belle to wood sleeping and which is avenged by throwing a magic spell. She is, in the universe of fairyhood and the Merveilleux, the essential side dark which makes it possible this imaginary world to find its light.

Wizard and Witch in works of fiction

In mythology

In literature

  • '' Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs ''
  • '' Sleeping Beauty ''
  • " The witch of the wall cupboard to the balais" , " The witch of the street Mouffetard" in '' Contes of the street Broca '' (1967) of Pierre Gripari
  • Harry Potter
  • the secret book of the witches of Katherine Quenot
  • '' Sacrées witch '' of Roald Dahl
  • Satanée large mother of Roald Dahl
  • the magic potion of Georges Bouillon of Roald Dahl
  • the witches are NRV of Yak Rivais and Michel Laclos
  • the witches do not exist of Michele Cornec-Utudji
  • " The witch amoureuse" , in Histoires in a hurry of Bernard Friot
  • Let us dance around the cauldron, the witches in the literature (collective, September 2005)
  • Verte of Marie Desplechin
  • Isa the witch of Melvin Burgess
  • the witch of midday of Michel Honecker
  • the Master and Marguerite of Boulgakov

Albums

  • the magic brush of Chris van Allburg
  • the witches of Hake Hawkins
  • Tchalette of JC Servais
  • Grimoire of witch of Galimatia Farigoule
  • the series Mélusine (in 15 volumes, at Clark and Gilson)

With the cinema

See too

Internal bonds

External bonds

  • Art-Occult Site general practitioner on sorcery.
  • the wizard is also source of inspiration in the popular song of the county of Nice: '' Lou Feast dai magou '' (the Feast of the wizards).

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