Witches in the 1900’s

From 1484 until around 1750 200,000 witches were tortured, burnt or hanged in Europe. Though many of the Acts against witchcraft were stopped in 1736, witch hunting still went on in the years afterwards.

There isn’t a lot of information about witches living in the early 1900’s, even though it was no longer a crime to practice witchcraft people were still against it, so the witches would have been very secretive about their practices.

In old stories written before the 20th century like Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty and Shakespeare’s Macbeth, witches were depicted as hags with warts, big hooked noses and bubbling cauldrons. However artists, between 1905 and 1915, tended to portray witches as beautiful sorceresses with blushed cheeks and curves. This could be due to witches being found and killed for looking like a traditional witch, so they were possibly trying to blend in with the look of a normal woman.

Public executions had ended in 1868, so if people were found to be practising witchcraft in the early 1900’s they couldn’t be put on trial for it. However people were still against it, and bodies have been found from the 1900’s believed to be that of a witch, the stigma still hadn’t completely ended.

Below are two pictures I found on Pinterest of witches from the 20th century

• Both women are showing off their curves with what they are wearing, just like 20th century witches did.
• Both women are wearing jewellery, the woman on the left has it scattered around her as she is practising magic. This could be something to bear in mind when recreating my own witch.
• Both women don’t have the stereotypical characteristics that you would expect from a witch, apart from the fact that the woman on the left isn’t wearing a lot of clothes, they both look like functioning members of society.
• Both women have their hair in an up-do, which was popular in the 20th century amongst all women. This shows that they took pride in their appearance.
• Both women are wearing skirts which were also worn by all women at that time period.

Overall their fashion looks quite normal to the clothing that most women wore at the time, they don’t look any different and they don’t stick out much as witches.

Bibliography

https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Witches-in-Britain/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_Punishment_Amendment_Act_1868