Description of the appearance of witches according to the history of myths and legends

Abstract

Witches and witchcraft in history Witches in history were real people who were persecuted by the Inquisition. For the most part, they were healers, women, and men with a "mark of the devil" in the form of moles, birthmarks, red hair, and others. Now the society believes that they were all really just ordinary people, but nobody can know for sure. The most common is the point of view that the Inquisition was only a "cover" for cruel and merciless robbery after all, the property of the person found guilty passed to the church. All sorts of denunciations were encouraged the person who caught the witch also received a portion of the money "obtained" from this "hunt." The problem is that the study of witches and witchcraft processes is quite difficult to study due to the fact that this topic is quite specific, many sources estimate the activities of the Inquisition in different ways regarding so called witches (or real witches), there are many versions each of which claims to be true. The scientific periodization of the activities of the Inquisition is practically not developed, and there is no exact data on the heretical movements of the Middle Ages (their ideology, internal structure, distribution, etc.), data on the distribution of witchcraft as a social movement (if such really existed), etc. So, history witches were real, no matter if they had superpowers, was flying on a broom or just were poor people killed by mistake, they lived and existed on Earth for sure. More information about the history of witchcraft you will see below. Witches in myths and legends Witches and witchcraft fascinated the minds of all people: from angry villagers interested in why their women gained a sense of independence, to the average man in the street wondering if herbal tea, drunk last night, was a potion or just awful tea. For many generations in folklore, witches were considered as objects of wisdom and evil. All these stories are different depends on the region and nation. Legends were written based on the image of a real person, who was well known because of something. As an example, I will take probably the most famous person in world history Jesus. Not so long ago, Jesus was considered to be a non existent person, since there was no evidence of his existence (for example, bones or real places described in the Bible) Historians and skeptics did not perceive him as a person who had previously lived. But after years of researching Archaeological discoveries continue to confirm the historical existence of the people and places described in the New Testament, including the latest evidence of Pilate, Caiaphas and the existence of Nazareth in the first century. Thousands of historical documents speak of the existence of Jesus Christ. For 150 years after the life of Christ, 42 authors mention it in their narratives, including nine non Christian sources. Tiberius Caesar for the same period is mentioned only by nine secular authors, and only five sources report the conquests of Julius Caesar. Moreover, not a single historian doubts their existence. Having studied the theory of the myth of Christ, the great historian of world history, Will Durant, concluded that, unlike the mythological gods, Jesus Christ was the real person.1 But nobody knows if he really was a son of God or had supernatural blessing powers, this is exactly what makes him (or just his powers) a legend. Old and modern fairy tales about witchcraft. The key difference between a fairy tale and a legend is that the fairy tale is in no way connected with real events, while the legend reflects in a fantastic way what was or could be in reality. Before and now, artists and writers use such a mythical person as a witch as they like. They can make her an evil woman who damages or kills young children. And they can create from the same word a beautiful, wise girl with unusual abilities. This image can be stretched in any direction and because no one knows what the witches really were and whether they were at all. For example, I will compare the witch from Hansel and Gretel2 and Hermione Granger from Harry Potter3. First one was scary old woman cannibal who have lured children with a literally sweet home and eventually killed and ate them. Hermione was a totally different character. She just was a pretty and kind schoolgirl in wizard academy called Hogwarts. As you can see, writers and other artists can imagine anything about witches and treat them in any way they want. That what fairy tale is.