Oh, human nature! When something goes wrong, we try to rationalize why the calamity has occurred. We try to find the cause of our illness or misfortune. Today, many people point accusing fingers at pesticides, vaccines, food additives or electromagnetic radiation as possible culprits that may undermine our health. In less sophisticated times, witchcraft was deemed to be responsible. Natural disasters and physical ailments were thought to be due to spells cast by those in league with the devil. Then, as now, people feared what they did not understand. And they did not understand witchcraft.
Witches did exist. Or, at least, people labelled as witches did exist. Who were they? Mostly women who were denied access to formal education and secretly began to dabble in a strange mix of botany, primitive pharmacology and superstition. Muttering incantations, they blended herbs, plants and animal parts in bubbling cauldrons to produce medicines, love potions or poisons as needed. Some of the ingredients could indeed cure or kill. Others distorted sensual perceptions. As a result "witches" were held both in awe and fear, and the superstitious medieval mind readily accepted suggestions that human misery was caused by the casting of evil spells.
Why? Because if this were the case, then at least something could be done about the situation. People were masters of their destiny. If only they could search out and destroy the witch, the spell would be lifted. And so, from the 15th to the 17th century, some 200,000 innocent people were burned, drowned or tortured to death with the hope of relieving the world from suffering. Bizarre tests were devised to identify witches. In some cases, the accused would be prodded with sharp instruments to determine if they felt pain. Supposedly any spot on the body insensitive to pain was a "devil's mark." Since witch hunters got paid on a per capita basis, they often invented gimmicked prods which appeared to pierce the skin but actually did not. There was no pain, and another witch was discovered!
Witch hunters also claimed to be able to find witches by examining their bodies for "witches' teats." These were supposedly abnormal outgrowths used to suckle the devil. Many an unfortunate woman with warts, pimples or hemorrhoids ended up at the stake. The "swimming test" was also widely used. The suspected witch was thrown into water with bound hands and feet. If she floated, it was assumed that she had the ability to reduce her weight, as required for flying. She was declared a witch and dealt with appropriately. If she sank, she was innocent. Talk about double jeopardy.
From the beginning of the 16th to the end of the 18th century, the City of Oudewater in Holland actually featured an official weighing house which offered certificates of acquittal from witchcraft. Attendants would weigh subjects and use a complex formula to determine whether their weight was unnatural. If it was not, they would get an attestation absolving them from the stigma of "unnatural weight." Men and women came from all over Europe to be certified as legitimate humans. Business was good. Probably due to the fact that the formula used found everyone's weight to be "natural."
Black cats were also caught up in the witch hunting frenzy. This all started in the 1560's when a man and his son were startled by a shadowy animal darting across their path at night. They got scared and began to throw rocks at the creature but stopped when they saw it was only a black cat. They watched as the injured animal limped under the house of an elderly spinster believed by villagers to be a witch. The next morning the two men were startled when they saw the same woman limp down the street. Surely she had sustained this injury when she was prowling around at night in the form of a black cat! And thus the enduring connection between witches and black cats was born.
If black cats were witches in disguise, they had to be hunted down and killed! And they were by the thousands. This had the unfortunate consequence of increasing the rat population and spreading the plague. Since, the plague was supposed to be the work of witches, more unlucky people all over Europe were accused, rounded up and annihilated. In Spain, during the Inquisition, suspected witches were humiliated by being forced to wear conical pointed hats during their trial. This practice likely gave rise to the common stereotype of the witch in the black pointed hat.
The boiling cauldron, made famous by Shakespeare in Macbeth, was an appropriate symbol for witchcraft. It was herein that the various magical ingredients were blended. In reality, the likely components were belladonna, henbane, mandrake or monkshood instead of the "eye of newt and toe of frog." These plants contain compounds such as atropine and aconitine which in the right dose can produce various physiological effects ranging from death to the sensation of flying. In the 15th century, artists began to depict nude witches flying through the air astride their broomsticks. According to some historians, this image was suggested by the practice of rubbing a broomstick with belladonna extract and maneuvering it in such a way that the active hallucinogenic ingredient, atropine, would be absorbed into the bloodstream through the sensitive genital tissues. So, in a fashion, witches really did fly, but never got off the ground!
