Witches

Witchcraft, in various historical, anthropological, religious and mythological contexts, is a use of certain kinds of alleged supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft, and may be male or female. While mythological witches are often supernatural creatures, historically many people were also accused of witchcraft, or claimed to be witches. Witchcraft still exists in belief systems, with many modern practitioners.

In both historical and mythological contexts, witches are most often female, the male equivalent being a wizard, sorcerer, warlock or magician.

Sorginak is the Basque name for witches

Traditionally, a white witch was a cunning man or wise woman, who sold magical services to ward off or reverse the effects of witchcraft.

It was extremely dangerous to be accused of being a witch, since a common punishment was to be executed, sometimes by being burned at the stake, the standard punishment for heretics (and witchcraft was merely a form of heresy). Both in North America and in Europe thousands of people, men as well as women, were put to death as witches at various points in history. Some of the worst witchhunts were in Germany, though there are documented cases of torture and murder in the name of stopping witchcraft in nearly every European nation.

A witch-hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, mass hysteria and mob lynching, but in historical instances also legally sanctioned and involving official witchcraft trials. Often this name is used for other unjust or over the top public campaigns.

There were extensive efforts to root out the supposed influence of Satan by various measures aimed at the people who were accused of being servants of Satan.

At the end of the Middle Ages, reoccurring beliefs about witches were:

The ride by night
The pact with the Devil
The formal repudiation of Christianity
The secret nocturnal meeting
The desecration of the Eucharist and crucifix
Sacrificial infanticide, and
Cannibalism

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