They come from mythology, folklore and fairytales and go by
names such as crone, conjurer, necromancer and witch. Male witches are called
warlocks and wizards, although the archetypal figure is predominately depicted
as an ugly old woman--the hag. Some live as hermits in hovels in dark forests.
Others gather in secret places and form covens. They operate in the realms of
magic and have the power to cast spells and charm us. They can tell our
fortunes or curse us with the evil eye. Old, wicked, beautiful,
seductive--witches of all forms have enchanted our stories since the dawn of
storytelling.
In Norse mythology there were the Norns, three immortal women who controlled the fates of gods and
men. In Greek mythology, the Graeae were
three old crones who shared a single eye. The hero Perseus met these witches on
his way to fight the snake-headed gorgon, Medusa. These ancient myths most
likely inspired Shakespeare to include three “weird sisters” in Macbeth. Even King Arthur of Camelot had
his dealing with witches. One of his greatest enemies was an evil and powerful
sorceress, Morgan Le Fay. King Arthur also took counsel from a wizard named
Merlin.
As a child I remember witches from bedtime stories and
movies like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and my
all-time-favorite: the green-skinned Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. In stories, there are
good witches who operate in the light--like Oz’s Good Witch of the North--and
evil ones who practice black magic, such as the Old Witch in Snow White.
As I got older and started writing historical horror novels,
I discovered that history is rich with stories about real witches. In Pagan
times, witches honored the sun and moon, the winter solstice and the coming of
spring. We owe our holiday of Halloween to the Celtic pagans who celebrated the
festival of Samhain on October 31st
at the end of the harvest season.
Witches are even warned about in the Bible in Deuteronomy 18:10-12 and Exodus
22:18. Scriptures like "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" gave
religious people a reason to believe that all practitioners of magick were
evil. In Europe and America from the 1400s through the 1700s, righteous
men went on witch hunts and burned men and women at the stake.
These fears of the terrifying witch inspired several horror
movies in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties. Films like Season of the Witch (1972), The
Wicker Man (1975), Eyes of Fire
(1983), Warlock (1991), The Blair Witch Project (1999) and The Lords of Salem (2012) are just a few
that come to mind. For the past decade or so, vampires and zombies have
dominated books, movies, and TV, but there are signs witches are coming back
into the spotlight.
Already in the first half of 2013, there have been a number
of witch movies to hit the theaters. Beautiful
Creatures, based on the YA novel by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, is about a family of
witches living in a small town in South Carolina and the secrets they keep. In Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, the
brother and sister from the famous Brothers Grimm fairytale are all grown up
and now hunt evil witches, which are depicted as monstrous hags.
This is also the year that Hollywood did a remake of one of my favorite
horror movies of all time, The Evil Dead.
It opens with a witch performing a ceremony and involves five friends finding a
demon book that’s filled with witchcraft and evil spirits. I
counted 13 new witch movies that will release later this year and next,
including two that I find intriguing: The
Last Witch Hunter and Lords of Magic.
Now this fall (2013) two new TV shows about witches will be starting in October. The first is The Witches of East End on Lifetime Channel, which has some sexy witches in it. And I'm really looking forward to the second show, American Horror Story: Coven, which airs on FX.
I don’t know if it’s happenstance or if something mystical
is at play with all these witches making their way into current books and
movies, but last year I wrote my own witch stories: The Girl from the Blood Coven and The Witching House. Both will release as ebooks this summer through Samhain Publishing. As a
horror fiction writer, I like to combine history and legends with scary
supernatural stories, as I did in my first two books, Dead of Winter and Shadows in the Mist. While both of those stories deal with mysticism and evil forces, it
is my next two stories that allowed me to have fun creating my own legend about
a coven witches living in the backwoods of East Texas.
My first story, The
Girl from the Blood Coven, is a short story prelude to The Witching House. It’s the year 1972. Sheriff Travis Keagan is
enjoying a beer at the local roadhouse, when a blood-soaked girl enters the
bar. Terrified and trembling, Abigail Blackwood claims her entire family was
massacred at the hippy commune in the woods. Sheriff Keagan knows that Abigail’s
“family” is a coven of witches that inhabit the Blevins house. They’ve been
rumored to be practicing blood sacrifices and black magic. When the sheriff and
his deputies investigate the alleged murders, they discover what happened at
the Blevins house is more horrific than they ever imagined.
My second story, The
Witching House, is a novella that unravels the mystery of what happened to
the Blevins Coven. It’s forty years after the massacre at the hippy commune. My
main character is Sarah Donovan, a young woman recovering from a bad divorce
and boring life. She recently started dating an exciting, adventurous man named
Dean Stratton. Dean and his friends, Meg and Casey, are fearless thrill-seekers.
They like to jump out of airplanes, go rock-climbing, white-water rafting, caving
and do anything that offers an adrenaline rush.
Sarah, on the other hand, is scared of just about
everything--heights, tight places, the dark--but today she must confront all
her fears, as she joins Dean, Meg and Casey on an urban exploring adventure.
There’s an abandoned house set far back in the woods, they say. The Old Blevins
House has been boarded-up for forty years. And it’s rumored to be haunted. The
two couples are going to break in and explore the mysterious house. Little do
they know the Old Blevins House is cursed from black magic, and something in
the cellar has been craving fresh prey to cross the house’s threshold.
Writing these two stories allowed me to research the long
history of witches, from Biblical times, to Norse and Greek mythology, Celtic
Paganism, the Christian witch hunts, as well as the modern-day practice of
Wicca. In fact, Sarah Donovan’s grandmother is a Wiccan who practices light magic
and becomes Sarah’s voice of reason as she is confronted by dark forces. I also
studied the differences between White Magic and Black Magic, even combed
through a 17th Century spell book for conjuring evil spirits. As with my other
books, I have interwoven much of the historical facts that I learned into my
stories to offer readers a richer reading experience. My short story, The Girl from the Blood Coven, releases
in July as a free ebook, and my novella, The
Witching House, releases August 2013.
Witches and witchcraft have been a part of storytelling for centuries. At times they sink below the surface of human consciousness, as other monsters take the stage in books and movies. Some years it’s werewolves, mummies or Frankenstein. For the past several years, we’ve seen a countless number of vampires and zombies. While these monsters are still popular, you can rest assure that witches are back for another season of witchery.
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Download The Girl from the Blood Coven at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Samhain Horror.
Pre-order The Witching House at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Samhain Horror.
Brian Moreland writes novels and short stories of horror and supernatural suspense. His first two novels, Dead of Winter and Shadows in the Mist, are now available. His third novel, The Devil’s Woods, will release in December 2013. Brian lives in Dallas, Texas where he is joyfully writing his next horror novel. Follow Brian on Twitter: @BrianMoreland. Visit: http://www.brianmoreland.com/
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