Witches have been a big part of folklore and fantasy stories since the dawn of man. We’ve seen quite a few of these pop up in stories old and new, and some of them have really managed to get a solid place in history.
Let’s take a look at some witches of ancient and/or modern history that everyone should know. And while these witches (probably?) didn’t have any magical powers, they sure did exist at some point in time. Spooky!
Isobel Gowdie
What makes this Scottish witch so special is that she gave a confession of her witchcraft without being tortured. I mean, considering what they did to witches at the time, confessing to it willingly might not be the cleverest idea. Her confession included detailed stories of her ability to – for example – transform into animals. We now know that ol’ Isobel was probably a few cards short of a deck, if you know what I mean.
Moll Dyer
The infamous Blair Witch. This witch is probably nothing more than superstition, but it’s said she was chased from her cabin into the woods where she froze to death. She now haunts people near her cabin by letting them run in circles with a video camera to make an average horror movie, I guess.
Dion Fortune
While Dion seemed like nothing more than a writer who wrote a lot about the occult, she actually founded a Fraternity of Inner Light which gained a massive following. She was probably the most important figure in early 1900s British Occultism. Which probably isn’t too hard a title to grab since I can think of exactly 0 other British occultist trendsetters.
La Voisin
Yes, she was French. She mostly dealt in poison, abortions, fortune telling and conferring with the Devil. Naturally, she was burnt shortly after being caught in the late 1670s.
Marie Laveau
A voodoo priestess known from American Horror Story: Coven. It was once claimed that drawing an “X” on her gravestone would grant boons, and this explains the ridiculous amount of X’es drawn on her gravestone. Sadly, fortune doesn’t quite work that way.
Tituba
While Tituba is a fictional character from the Arthur Miller novel The Crucible, she was actually inspired by a real person. She was one of the first South American people to be accused of witchcraft and at the end of her life was bought from jail by an unknown individual.
Mother Shipton
Probably one of the ugliest witches in history, Mother Shipton was the witch that’s responsible for the existence of a “hag face”. In fact, this was her nickname! Because of the fact that she was born in the 1500s instead of the 1600s, she was regarded more as a prophetess than a witch. That also means that she wasn’t burnt or drowned, but lived a full and happy life.
