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Engraving by Albrecht Dürer, dateble to 1500-1501, representing a witch, from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The witch is represented nude, riding backwards on a billy goat and going to the Sabbath. She holds in her hand a distaff and spindle.
Though the use of magical spells was widespread in the Ancient World, a new kind of sorcery developed in Europe during the Middle Ages. The Christian concept of witchcraft implied the frequentation of demons and the subjection to Satan. According to Margaret Murray’s interpretation, which contains, in Carlo Ginzburg’s words, “a kernel of truth”, witchcraft was what had survived of the old pre-Christian pagan religion, in spite of the continuous persecutions from Christian authorities. The Canon Episcopi, a legal document of the Kingdom of the Franks written around 900 A.D., describes “wicked women […] who believe that they ride out at night on beasts, with Diana, the pagan goddess […] Such fantasies are thrust into the minds of faithless people not by God but by the Devil” (Russell-Magliocco 2005, p. 9771). According to the interpretation proposed by Carlo Ginzburg, the tradition of the Sabbath should be attributed to the permanence of ecstatic cults, principally devoted towards nocturnal female goddesses. To this divine world, which bestowed prosperity and wealth, it was possible to accede through a temporary death, gained with the attainment of an ecstatic condition, permitting to enter momentarily in contact with the world of the dead (Ginzburg 1989, p. 78).

[Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_Witch_Riding_on_a_Goat_%28NGA_1943.3.3556%29.jpg]




Female Symbols

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Engraving by Albrecht Dürer, dateble to 1500-1501, representing a witch, from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The witch is represented nude, riding backwards on a billy goat and going to the Sabbath. She holds in her hand a distaff and spindle. Though the use of magical spells was widespread in the Ancient World, a new kind of sorcery developed in Europe during the Middle Ages. The Christian concept of witchcraft implied the frequentation of demons and the subjection to Satan. According to Margaret Murray’s interpretation, which contains, in Carlo Ginzburg’s words, “a kernel of truth”, witchcraft was what had survived of the old pre-Christian pagan religion, in spite of the continuous persecutions from Christian authorities. The Canon Episcopi, a legal document of the Kingdom of the Franks written around 900 A.D., describes “wicked women […] who believe that they ride out at night on beasts, with Diana, the pagan goddess […] Such fantasies are thrust into the minds of faithless people not by God but by the Devil” (Russell-Magliocco 2005, p. 9771). According to the interpretation proposed by Carlo Ginzburg, the tradition of the Sabbath should be attributed to the permanence of ecstatic cults, principally devoted towards nocturnal female goddesses. To this divine world, which bestowed prosperity and wealth, it was possible to accede through a temporary death, gained with the attainment of an ecstatic condition, permitting to enter momentarily in contact with the world of the dead (Ginzburg 1989, p. 78). [Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_Witch_Riding_on_a_Goat_%28NGA_1943.3.3556%29.jpg]