Status Updates From Witches and Pagans: Women i...

“There is no shortage of evidence for widespread male anxiety about women’s witchcraft. Regino was worried that women might kill their husbands with herbs and potions. The Corrector sive medicus also lists spells that women supposedly worked on husbands. …They like other men feared that women were casting spells to cause impotence or overcome male authority.”

“As in most patriarchal cultures, the Norse stigma on homosexuality did not apply to men who assumed the dominant role in sex with males. It was reserved for males who took (or were simply accused of taking) the female role, which was assumed to be submissive, subordinated and despised. In the blunt language of the Norse, such a man was called sann-sorðinn, “demonstrably fucked.”