Witches

            Going to see the Witches and Wicked Bodies exhibit at the Scottish Modern Art Gallery was absolutely fascinating. I had obviously heard the stories about witches that come from fantasy novels and fairy tales, but I had never studied them in a historic or artisitic way. Witches have certainly been a part of American culture, with the Salem Witch Trials and their repercussions, but seeing them from a British perspective was very interesting. The fact that Albrecht Durer made drawings of witches in the 15^th and 16^th centuries definitely put things in perspective. Witches have been around since way before the Salem Witch Trials and the Weird Sisters of Macbeth. And the fact that they were drawn as old crones and young seductresses back then was interesting, especially since witches continue to be characterized in that way.

            It was also interesting to hear that witch-hunting had completely taken over parts of Britain over different periods of history. Witches stopped being a part of fantasy and fairy tales and had become very real things. The fantasy modality had really taken ahold of people, so much so that they began drowning and burning women who they thought were witches. Different periods of history saw the ebb and flow in this belief in witches, but when people believed they were real, they believed in them so fully so that they saw witches where there weren’t any.