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Tens of thousands of people were executed, and others were imprisoned, tortured, banished, and had lands and possessions confiscated. The majority of those accused were women, though in some regions the majority were men. [27] [74] Accusations against witches were almost identical to those levelled by 3rd-century pagans against early Christians:
The only exception is that those women of especially high social status were called Lady. [5] In modern use, Goody is generally associated with witches, probably as a result of Eunice Cole and Sarah Osborne and other women accused of witchcraft being referred to as Goody rather than by their first names.
In colloquial modern English, the word witch is particularly used for women. [36] A male practitioner of magic or witchcraft is more commonly called a 'wizard', or sometimes, 'warlock'. When the word witch is used to refer to a member of a neo-pagan tradition or religion (such as Wicca), it can refer to a person of any gender. [citation needed]
An estimated 75% to 85% of those accused in the early modern witch trials were women, [10] [126] [127] [128] and there is certainly evidence of misogyny on the part of those persecuting witches, evident from quotes such as "[It is] not unreasonable that this scum of humanity, [witches], should be drawn chiefly from the feminine sex" (Nicholas ...
The Swedish cunning woman Gertrud Ahlgren of Gotland (1782–1874), drawing by Pehr Arvid Säve 1870. In Scandinavia, the klok gumma ("wise woman") or klok gubbe ("wise man"), and collectively De kloka ("The Wise ones"), as they were known in Swedish, were usually elder members of the community who acted as folk healers and midwives as well as using folk magic such as magic rhymes. [10]
7. "Witches serve the devil." Lastly—and we’ve already mentioned this a bit—but just like witchcraft isn’t inherently evil or doesn’t directly conflict with mainstream religions if you ...
Ronald Hutton says that healers and cunning folk "were sometimes denounced as witches, but seem to have made up a minority of the accused in any area studied". [13] Likewise, Davies says "relatively few cunning-folk were prosecuted under secular statutes for witchcraft" and were dealt with more leniently than alleged witches. [20]
Misogyny and patriarchy, Yates adds, are the main reasons why fear and stigma around witchcraft perpetuate. Narratives built and formed by men in power have set the stage for the misinformation we ...