#witcherature

[tealeavesand-roses]

Status: read Rating: 5/5 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

I am a Weyward, and wild inside.

Simply in awe. Weyward by Emilia Hart has stolen my heart and is easily my favorite read of the year. Weyward is a beautiful historical fiction tale with themes of witchcraft, nature, womanhood, and gothic horror, this story delves into the lives of three women throughout scattered periods of time. Altha's story takes place in 1619, Violet's takes place in 1942, and Kate's takes place in 2019. Each woman's story is as captivating as the next.

As I was finishing Violet's chapter regarding her mother and her family's history, I began to tear up, I flipped the page to the next chapter and I stumbled upon a beautiful white feather. I began to sob. My boyfriend had gotten me this book from a second-hand online shop and the previous owner must have left it in there. I felt like the feather was fantastically symbolic of what I was feeling and I felt so connected in that moment to myself, to nature, and spiritually to those in my life who have passed.

Could not recommend this book enough 🪶🌿🪲🐦‍⬛

[warningsine]

From a feminist retelling of Pride and Prejudice, featuring Lydia Bennet as a witch, to a history of landmark trials and a host of magical wellness titles, 2023 is the year in which witch books will truly cast their spell. No longer a niche market, the titles coming out range from historical fiction to fantasy to self-help. Witches have permeated every corner of the publishing world, as well as our TV screens, with the Netflix Addams Family spin-off hit Wednesday, and a TV adaptation of Anne Rice’s Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy on the way.

So why the fascination now? Witch-hunts raged across Europe and colonial America for more than 400 years, from the 14th to the 18th century, killing thousands, mostly women. Yet while witches have inspired books, films and works of art over the centuries, the literary outpouring has increased noticeably in recent years. From Stacey Halls’ 2019 bestseller The Familiars, to The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, The Manningtree Witches by AK Blakemore and the bumper crop coming this year: Kirsty Logan’s Now She Is Witch, Emilia Hart’s generational tale of female resilience Weyward, Melinda’s Taub’s The Shocking Confessions of Miss Lydia Bennet, Witch, and my own novel, The Witches of Vardø, about the Finnmark witch trials in 1662, to name just a few.

“There is a new wave of feminism that looks back to women’s rights across history and recognises the echo of these injustices,” says CJ Cooke, author of The Lighthouse Witches. As women’s rights are tested around the world, from the overturning of Roe v Wade in the US to the suppression of the revolutionary movement in Iran, writing about historical injustices such as witch trials provides a linking thread between the past and present. “The push for women’s rights must look back as well as forward.”

Marion Gibson’s forthcoming Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials examines witch-hunts from Salem to the lesser-known Finnmark witch trials, as well as how the word “witch” has re-entered political language today. “I think books on witch trials are popular now because we’ve slipped back recently from some of the progress we took for granted, on human rights and rational democracy,” she says.

Gibson explores how witch-hunts have long been bound up in issues not just of gender and sexuality, but class, race, colonialism and nationalism. In her chapter on the Finnmark witch trials in the far north of Norway, Gibson attributes the ferocity of the persecution to the Danish rulers’ colonisation of the indigenous Sámi people. It was a widespread belief among 17th-century Christians that evil resided in the far north. Surely the Sámi with their shaman (noaidi) who played a ceremonial drum (runebomme) and sang songs (joiking) were in league with Satan? The Sámi also possessed an understanding of the natural world, and the ability to thrive in the harsh Arctic environment, much to the envy of their colonisers. This kinship with nature has long been associated with those accused of witchcraft and is an important theme in the books being published now.

“We are in a moment when the domination of both women and nature shows its limits and is increasingly questioned and challenged,” says Mona Chollet, author of In Defence of Witches: Why Women are Still on Trial, a powerful discourse on the treatment of women since the witch trials and their impact on modern-day society.

Fear was what fuelled the witch-hunts of the past, and is what fuels the prejudices of the present. In the trial testimonies at Finnmark, those accused of witchcraft were viewed as agents of destruction. In truth, they were caught in the conflict between their fishermen husbands and the Bergen merchants over debts for grain due to low fishing yields. They became scapegoats for economic hardship and were accused of crimes such as chasing the fish away or raising storms to destroy the merchants’ ships. They were also accused of having sex with the devil, and of selling their own daughters to him. Searching for the “devil’s mark”, a common method of proof of witchcraft all over Europe, involved stripping the accused woman naked and examining her most private areas. Witch trials were misogyny in its most foul form, with unmistakable sexual undertones, so it’s no coincidence that the growing interest in books on witch-hunts coincides with the #Metoo movement.

However, there is a counter-narrative seeking to redress the perception of witches as victims, as evidenced in Kirsty Logan’s novel Now She Is Witch, out this week. “I wanted to ask: why do they have to be wholly innocent or wholly evil?” Logan says. “Witches show us that the world is more complicated (and indeed more beautiful) than a simple binary; more than good/evil, black/white, innocent/criminal, healer/poisoner.”

“There’s something empowering about female characters who use a divine feminine strength to break free from patriarchal structures,” says Juno Dawson, author of the bestselling urban fantasy novel Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, about an alternate England with a secret government bureau of witches, and its sequel, The Shadow Cabinet, published in June. These books question, she argues, “the inherent misogyny underpinning our society that automatically labels anything feminine as ranging from weak to repulsive”.

This is why why witch books speak to the rebel in each of us, and cultivate a sense of community among their readership: we feel the echoes from the past. Once we were witches, and we are here to stay.

[ailishsinclair]

If you like castles, Scotland, history, witches, stone circles and Christmas done medieval-style, you might like THE MERMAID AND THE BEAR. There’s also a love story. Paperback and kindle: getbook.at/Themermaidandthebear #HistoricalFiction #romance #books #Scotland #history #witchlit #witcherature #booksaboutwomen #booksaboutwitches #scottishbooks #readers #readerlife #bookaddict #booklovers #bookstagram #ukbookstagram #plussizemaincharacter (at Aberdeenshire) https://www.instagram.com/p/CqpKVSQIHdE/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[aardvark-123]

Gensokyo Festival day 18: Growing Up

~Witcherature~

"Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes was so exciting! I must've read it three times!"

"Wow, you really made a good choice, then!" Laughing nervously, Marisa took the thick book handed to her by a chubby fairy in red robes. "Do you want to borrow another one?"

The fairy shook her head. "I have to go and hunt down the last of the Septim bloodline now. Tamriel ae Daedroth!" Piercing the sky with her sword (a stick), she ran off into the woods.

"Are you sure that was a good idea?" Reimu was leaning on the porch, observing the proceedings with some concern.

"It's fine! Broad horizons never hurt anyone," Marisa reassured her.

"Well, I hope not." Reimu shrugged as if telling the subject of conversation it was dismissed. "You know, I never expected to see you lending out books like this."

"Oh, you know... Books are meant to be shared."

"Did you ever think about giving them back to Patchouli?"

Marisa's face darkened. "No, that wouldn't do at all! She hoards her books because she likes having books, so she can say she has the biggest library in the world. It isn't right to treat books like a vault full of gold!"

"I thought you hoarded books because you liked having books!"

"Maybe the old Marisa did, but not any more. The new Marisa only steals for the good of fairykind!"

"All right, New Marisa, whatever helps you sleep at night."

[thatsnotcanonpodcasts]

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina with Kristen Barros and Jane Williamson

We've enlisted the help of fellow That's Not Canon podcasters Jane and Kristen for our discussion of everyone's favorite teenage witch. We dive into portrayals of witches on page and screen, witches and witchcraft throughout history, including the infamous Salem Witch Trials, and figure out which Sabrina character we each identify with.

Further Reading:

From Baba Yaga to Hermione Granger: why we’re spellbound by ‘witcherature’

Weird Sisters and Wild Women

Macbeth, William Shakespeare

The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum

The Lottery, Shirley Jackson

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson

More information about Alewives

Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici (PDF available here)

The Devil in Massachusetts, Marion Starkey

Unobscured podcast

Cultural depictions of the Salem Witch Trials

Sabrina and real witches

Paganism in Sabrina

Subscribe to us on ITUNES, STITCHER, SPOTIFY, RADIOPUBLIC or your podcatcher of choice.

Find us on FACEBOOK, TWITTER or INSTAGRAM

YOU CAN READ OUR BLOG HERE: THEPOPDNA.BLOG

[wakingwriter]

Witches in Fiction, Imagining Palestine through Fiction, and more...

From Baba Yaga to Hermione Granger: why we’re spellbound by ‘witcherature’ (The Guardian)

Since Trump’s election, which inspired mass spell-casting by thousands of “resistance witches” (the selection of judge Brett Kavanaugh for the supreme court also led to a mass “hex-in”), there has been a slew of novels, poetry collections and anthologies with witchcraft as their theme. Things haven’t felt…

[warningsine]

What were some books that you read and liked in 2024?

Oh, I haven't reached my reading goals this year due to life eventsTM, but since my pickiness prevents me from investing time or money in random books (I often ask my librarian and a bookseller--whom I trust and who makes nice discounts--for new recs), pretty much everything I've read was to my taste.

Well, there were some exceptions like Murakami's latest book, but let's not go there.

I'd say that my favorite ones were

"The Empusium" by Olga Tokarczuk,

Emilia Hart's "Weyward" (sorry for being basic on main, but it was the year of the witch and witcherature is bewitching, heh),

"Badjens" by Delphine Minoui (all women should read this one),

"The Dictionary of Lost Words" by Pip Williams,

Sarah Bernstein's "Study for Obedience."

Let's see:

"No es un río" by Selva Almada

"Australiana" by Yumna Kassab

"Martyr!" by Kaveh Akbar

"Ash in the Mouth" by Brenda Navarro

"Soldier Sailor" by Claire Kilroy

"Desertion" by Abdulrazak Gurnah

"Em" by Kim Thúy

"Woodworm" by Layla Martínez

"The Trees" by Percival Everett

"Crooked Plow" by Itamar Vieira Junior

"Lucy by the Sea" by Elizabeth Strout

"Disgrace" by J. M. Coetzee

"Passing" by Nella Larsen

"Funeral Trousseau" by Iwasaki Fernando

"Our Share of Night" by Mariana Enríquez

"The Last White Man" by Mohsin Hamid

"Death comes dripping" by Andrés Montero

"The Instrumentalist" by Harriet Constable

"Four Letters of Love" by Niall Williams

"Blutbuch" by Kim de l'Horizon

"Jewish Cock” by Katharina Volckmer

"Prophet Song" by Paul Lynch

"Mouth full of earth" by Branimir Šćepanović

"A Beast in Paradise" by Cécile Coulon

"Old God's Time" by Sebastian Barry

"Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver

"La portalettere" by Francesca Giannone

"Lost on Me" by Veronica Raimo

"Moominsummer Madness" by Tove Jansson

"La Louisiane" by Julia Malye

"Sad Tiger" by Neige Sinno

"The Ocean" by Steve Sem-Sandberg

"The White Bathing Hut" by Thorvald Steen

"Oh, Canada" by Russell Banks

"Boy's life" by Robert McCammon

"This Other Eden" by Paul Harding

[ailishsinclair]

If you like castles, Scotland, history, witches, stone circles and Christmas done medieval-style, you might like THE MERMAID AND THE BEAR. There’s also a love story. Paperback and Kindle: getbook.at/Themermaidandthebear “A delight from end to end.” Undiscovered Scotland #bookstagram #ukbookstagram #historicalfiction #romance #witches #witchlit #witcherature (at Aberdeenshire) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpVBwIJIgYK/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[hub-pub-bub]

A witch is a woman who has too much power. Or, to quote the novelist Madeline Miller, a woman with “more power than men have felt comfortable with”. History teaches us that witches are dangerous and must be brought down, punished and silenced. Their wisdom and their force must be neutralised through interrogation, torture and execution. Yet these attitudes aren’t merely historical; women continue to be persecuted for witchcraft in the world today. There has been a perennial literary fascination with witches; they are, as Marion Gibson, professor of Renaissance and magical literatures at Exeter University says, “a shorthand symbol for persecution and resistance – misogyny and feminism in particular”. In a #MeToo world, where Donald Trump – a fan of the term “witch-hunt” – is US president, it is really no surprise that female writers are examining the role of the witch in new ways.

Since Trump’s election, which inspired mass spell-casting by thousands of “resistance witches” (the selection of judge Brett Kavanaugh for the supreme court also led to a mass “hex-in”), there has been a slew of novels, poetry collections and anthologies with witchcraft as their theme. Things haven’t felt so witchy since the 1990s, when there was a glut of TV programmes such as Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and books and films on the subject. It makes sense: the women of my generation were girls then, and now we have come of age, and are shaping our own narratives, joining other female writers in grappling with perennial questions of power and agency.

Resistance witches at a protest. Photograph: Scott Eisen/Getty Images