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June 27 - June 29, 2019
The witches are depicted as old and hunched, carrying a stick alongside their familiars: birds, goats, a many-legged sort of fish-cat and the devil himself.
In the 17th century and beyond, women were often disenfranchised and vulnerable within wider society, along with the disabled and mentally ill. They were easy targets and that’s what we’ve seen in the iconography of witchcraft ever since: the witch with a walking stick is really a vulnerable old woman.
The misogyny of the period ensured a son never accused a father. Accusations of witchcraft were a way for societies to control what they viewed as ‘disruptive’ female behaviour.
