Whether the witch is depicted as villainous or valorous, she is always a figure of freedom—both its loss and its gain. She is perhaps the only female archetype who is an independent operator. Virgins, whores, daughters, mothers, wives—each of these is defined by whom she is sleeping with or not, the care that she is giving or that is given to her, or some sort of symbiotic debt that she must eventually pay. The witch owes nothing. That is what makes her dangerous. And that is what makes her divine. Witches have power on their own terms. They have agency. They create. They praise. They commune
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