THE WITCH IN FICTION
To those who deny the existence of the witch in fact, any mention
of the witch in fiction as a separate entity may seem superfluous.
Nevertheless even the enlightened must admit a distinction between
the witch as she appeared to Bodin or Pierre de Lancre and the "very
repulsive-looking old witch whose underlip hung down to her chin" of
Hans Andersen's "Tinder-box." Indeed, this latter can scarcely be
considered a witch at all in the true sense of the word, seeing that
despite her underlip she seems to have had no occult powers of her own,
except, indeed, that her checked apron had the faculty of quieting
savage dogs. For the rest, though, she seems to have been entirely
dependent upon the old tinder-box left by her grandmother underground,
and of which she sent the soldier in search. The only detail, indeed,
wherein she resembled the more orthodox witch of history was that when
the soldier cut off her head without any provocation whatever, he not
only incurred no blame, but even thereby paved his way to marrying
a king's daughter--a moral such as would certainly have appealed
to Mathew Hopkins. Again, the wicked stepmother of "Snow-white" in
Grimm's story of that name, although regarded as a witch and in the
end suffering appropriate punishment for her crimes, has no more claim
to take her place beside Circe or Mother Damnable in the pages of
history than is due to the apparently fortuitous possession of a magic
looking-glass and some knowledge of toxicology.
The witch in fiction might serve a more serious purpose than does
the heroine of a problem novel, for not only has the perusal of her
incredible pranks served to enlighten many a weary hour; she is also a
standing proof of the _bona fides_ of the real personage upon whom she
is based. Just as in fiction, dealing with less recondite characters,
we find that their doings are for the most part exaggerated caricatures
of the happenings of every-day life in the real world, and that their
potentialities of action are limited, not by hard fact, but only by
the furthest bounds of the novelist's imagination, so the witch of
fiction caricatures her historical prototype to the point of verging
on the incredible. For your real witch, whether she be Diana or Mother
Demdyke, Joan of Arc, or the Witch of Endor, has always--like less
gifted human beings--conformed to one of several types, varying from
them only in the degree proper to human nature. Whether young and
beautiful, or old and repulsive, whether hag or heroine, goddess or
gude-wife, she remains constant to her type, and has done so from the
beginning of things. The witch of fiction, on the other hand, like the
problematic heroine, doth as her creator wishes in defiance of all
laws of possibility. As any inquisitor could tell you, in a court of
justice, once a witch always a witch; in the pages of Grimm a witch is
quite as likely to be a fairy godmother or a benevolent old lady, with
a magic golden apple, or, for that matter, a benevolent old lady pure
and simple. Sometimes, it is true, as with characters in a realistic
novel, the witch of fiction may pass for an impressionistic study of
the real witch. Thus in the famous story of Hänsel and Gretel she is
so far realistic as to desire the capture of small children. But,
instead of acting thus in the service and for the honour of her master
the Devil, she is moved by no nobler impulse than the desire to eat
them, and thus shows herself not a witch at all--for your true witch is
always altruistic--nothing better, indeed, than a greedy old cannibal.
Her methods, again, however creditable to their inventor, are by no
means such as would have commended themselves to the economical tastes
of her Satanic employer. The real witch was never yet provided with the
capital necessary to build herself houses of "sugar and spice and all
that's nice" either as residence or decoy. She lived notoriously in
hovels--unless, indeed, she had private means--and the profits of her
infernal bargain, even when she received them, were never sufficient
to provide her with more than the barest living. Grimm's cannibal,
with her roof of chocolate and walls of marzipan, might have been a
sorceress; she certainly was no witch.
More realistic, and thus all the more misleading, are the weird
sisters in Macbeth. Did we take them as representative types of
witchdom, we should be as much deceived as were he who, reading
nothing but newspapers, believed that English life was made up of
murders, divorces, political speeches and judicial witticisms. They
give us, indeed, an excellent impressionist idea of the witch as she
appeared in the public eye, some valuable recipes for potions, apt
illustrations of divinatory methods and so forth, but no suggestion
whatever of that quiet home life wherein the witch, like the British
public, passed most of her existence. No doubt she occasionally took
part in social reunions, in caverns or on blasted heaths, with Hecate
as the guest of the evening; no doubt she there interchanged ideas as
to the surest means of drowning sailors or ruining kingdoms. But these
were only paragraphs in the story of her life, very much as being
tried for murder or presented at Court are outstanding incidents in
the life-story of the average Briton. For the most part, she spent
her time in the quiet seclusion of her hovel, adding to her stock of
every-day poisons or giving interviews to the local peasantry. Of this
Shakespeare tells us nothing; to judge from the witches in Macbeth they
might have spent the whole of their time waiting about on Scottish
moorlands on the chance of making history.
Much nearer to the truth are the lives of Mother Demdyke, Mother
Chattox, and the rest of the "Lancashire Witches," as portrayed for
us by Harrison Ainsworth. It is true that for purposes of dramatic
effect the author exaggerates their characteristics; but such is
the privilege of the historical novelist. Nobody supposes--or is
expected to suppose--that the Queen Elizabeth of "The Faërie Queene"
or the Richelieu of "Les Trois Mousquetaires" corresponds in every
respect to the historical personages for whom they stand. In real life
Queen Elizabeth was probably insufferable, vain, ugly, with the bad
temper that comes from biliousness founded on a _régime_ of beer and
beefsteak for breakfast; Richelieu an imposing figure only because he
was successful. But nobody would think of blaming Spenser or Dumas
for having built up an heroic edifice upon a mediocre foundation;
had they told us no more than the bare truth, they would certainly
have been accused of falsifying history, and, with more justice, of
lack of literary artistry. The mission of the historical novelist, as
generally understood, at any rate, is, like that of the scene-painter,
to provide us with the appropriate setting for figures bathed in
conventional limelight. If he draws things as they were he fails in
his duty towards people as they are. So it is with the Mother Demdyke
of Ainsworth's imagining. The limelight is upon her all the time. She
is condemned to be theatrical, if she is to be real; her destinies
must be interwoven with those of dispossessed abbots, of aristocratic
heroes, and of beautiful ill-used heroines. When composing a curse,
she must never forget what is expected of her by the world beyond the
footlights; when she interviews her master the Devil, such an interview
must always be melodramatic. In actual fact, we know that when the
Devil had occasion to visit Lancashire in order to discuss business
projects with Mother Demdyke, he did so briefly and without waste of
words, for the Devil is above all else a man of business. We know, too,
that the real Mother Demdyke was never able to do mischief on such an
heroic scale as her bioscopic reflection in the novel. At least, if we
make full allowance for her creator's necessities, we may admit that he
has given us a sufficiently fair picture, if not of Mother Demdyke as
she was, at least of what she was supposed to be.
Of a different order of realism is the witch-world described for us
by Goethe. Here, again, had we no further knowledge of witchdom,
we should be sadly led astray, though naturally and inevitably. For
Goethe, though he gives us some vivid sketches of witch-life, uses
them only incidentally. His witches have no greater purpose than to
form a background against which the figures of Mephistopheles and
Faust may be the better shown up--nay, more, his witches are but part
of that background, phantasmagorically confused with Menelaus, Paris,
Oberon, Ariel, Titania, and a hundred other figures of mythology or
fairy-lore. It is true that by moments he gives us studies of the witch
as a personal entity, as, for instance, when Faust and his mentor visit
the Witch Kitchen, there to interview not only a very witch, but with
her a miscellaneous collection of her familiars, cats, kittens, and
the like. It may be noted as a subtle touch of realism that the witch
does not at first recognise her master owing to his temporary lack of
a cloven hoof and attendant ravens, cursing him roundly before she
realises the mistake. But in this the poet overdoes his realism, seeing
that in real life the witch had so many opportunities of meeting Satan
in unexpected forms, as a tree-trunk, a brazen bull, or a greyhound,
that any minor modification of his anatomy would certainly not have
caused any such mystification. Even in the original, then, we have to
make great allowances for poetical or other licence before we can admit
that the witches of Faust are at all true to life. When we come to
the acting editions of the play as performed in England by ambitious
actor-managers, we find that the unfortunate witch becomes little
more than a caricature. On the Brocken she is elbowed out of place by
miscellaneous mythologicals, so that the audience gains no truer idea
of an ordinary Sabbath than does the visitor of London who only sees
it on a Bank-holiday. In the Witch-kitchen scene again, not only is
she quite lost in a world of red fire and scenic effects, but she is
represented as resembling rather the pantaloon in a pantomime than a
junior partner of the Devil. At least the witch has so much cause of
gratitude to the poet, that he and his imitators have given her a new,
even if rather meretricious, popularity at a period when it is badly
needed.
Properly to appreciate the difference between the witch of fiction
and her prototype in real life, we must seek her in what is, after
all, her stronghold, the fairy-story. It would seem, indeed, as if,
having been driven to take refuge in the nursery, she has there caught
something of the vitality of its more familiar occupants. For just as
we find that the real witch has more than one seeming, so the witch of
fiction may belong to any of many types--if not to several of them at
once. As already noticed, she makes a habit of exceeding the bounds of
possibility; she is also as frequently as not a dual personality. In
real life the witch is always the witch first, the queen, or duchess,
or gude-wife only incidentally. Were it not for her occult powers she
would cease to exist, would be degraded, indeed, to the ordinary level
of queen or beldame. But in fiction, and especially in fairy fiction,
this does not hold good; that is to say, there are certain ranks and
positions which carry with them almost of right the being considered
a witch. Thus if you happen to marry a king, who has a beautiful
daughter, or a particularly eligible son, it is almost a foregone
conclusion that you are a witch; this, not because widowed monarchs
are particularly given to making bad marriages, but rather, it would
seem, on some such principle as that by which the wife of the Egyptian
Pharaoh became a goddess by marriage. It is true that to be a witch
in fairy-land, you need not have entered into any agreement with the
Devil, nor possess any supernatural power whatever. As in the already
quoted story of the Tinder-box, the possession of any magic article
sufficiently bewitched to do mischief is all that you require. You need
not have bewitched it yourself, in many cases you have inherited, in
others purchased it, in others had it thrust upon you. You need not,
again, be ugly; in most cases you cannot be, for no one can suppose
that a royal widower would feel himself called upon to mate with a hag
_en secondes noces_. Sometimes, of course, you may only assume an
attractive appearance for the purpose of catching your monarch, but
this is rare. The stepmother witch in "Snow-white," for example, we
know to have been beautiful on the authority of her magic mirror, for
did it not in reply to her queries tell her before the irruption of
Snow-white that she was the fairest woman in the world? Nor have we any
cause to doubt that the mirror was truthful, seeing that it sacrificed
both expediency and politeness to veracity by maintaining later that
"Snow-white is fairest now, I ween."
It is impossible not to feel a certain sympathy with this unfortunate
royal lady in her subsequent fate, that of being condemned to dance
herself to death in red-hot iron shoes; seeing that the sin of envy,
for which she suffered, was entailed upon her by all the conventions of
stepmother-hood, and that, had she failed in it, the story could never
have been written.
That the stepmother witch might and frequently did possess magical
powers on her own account we may learn from the story of "The Wild
Swans," as related by Hans Andersen. In that instance the wicked queen,
by merely making a pass in the air, is able to turn her eleven stepsons
into wild swans as easily as Circe herself turned the companions of
Ulysses into swine. Strictly following earthly precedent again, we
find that her spells sometimes fail, as when she bids her familiars,
three toads, place themselves upon Eliza's head, forehead, and heart,
so that she may become as stupid, as ugly, and as evilly inclined as
themselves. In this they fail altogether, being unable to make headway
against the virtuous innocence of Eliza, very much, as upon earth, all
evil spells were rendered impotent when confronted with holy words or
the sign of the cross. She does not, it may be noted, disdain such
more commonplace methods of annoyance, as anointing her stepdaughter's
face with walnut-juice and driving her from home. Yet another point in
which the story of "The Wild Swans" shows itself in accordance with
the traditions of the real witch-world is where the good princess, now
become queen, being accused of consorting with witches in a churchyard,
is herself accused of witchcraft by the local archbishop, and would
inevitably have been burnt but for the timely intervention of her
brothers. It was fortunate for her that she lived in fairy-land and not
under the jurisdiction of Innocent VIII. or James I., when it is much
to be feared that a whole army of brothers would not have sufficed to
save her--as a matter of fact they would probably have been among her
warmest accusers. This the more so, that she was attended in prison by
three familiars in the shape of mice, who would certainly have provided
damning evidence in the eyes of any self-respecting inquisitor.
In seeking for the witch in fairy-land, we must often look for her
under some other name--as a fairy, for instance, and especially as
a fairy-godmother. One of the most embarrassing attributes of the
fairy-godmother is that if you offend her she at once changes into a
witch, without giving you any warning whatever. She may have officiated
as godmother to half a dozen of your children, treating them always as
a real fairy should. But should you once offend her, and especially
should you forget to invite her to a christening, she at once becomes
a witch of the utmost malignancy. This is a curious perversion from
the habits of the real witch, whose interests are entirely against
the baptising of children under any circumstances. It may be supposed
that, having for the nonce laid aside her evil doing, and adopted the
civilised veneer of fairyism, she is quick to take offence at any
implied non-recognition thereof, very much as might a black man if
anyone said to him, "I suppose you don't wear trousers at home?" A
famous example of the beneficent fairy godmother occurs, of course, in
"Cinderella"; a cynic might, indeed, argue that her beneficence towards
Cinderella, her provision of fine dresses, six-horse coaches, and glass
slippers, were induced rather by the desire to spite the ugly sisters
than out of any actual love of Cinderella herself. Another common type
of the double-edged godmother occurs in the story of Prince Hazel
and Prince Fair. With characteristic perversity, while pretending
that each prince will have an equal chance, she yet makes everything
smooth for the one, while placing irresistible temptation in the path
of the other, basing her action upon her preconceived idea of their
disposition.
The witch-fairy need not be a godmother. In the "Sleeping Beauty,"
for instance, her sole cause of irritation is at not receiving an
invitation to the christening. In consequence, as every child knows,
she condemns the future Beauty to prick her finger at the age of
fifteen and thereafter to fall asleep--she and all her entourage--until
a casual prince shall have sufficient curiosity to make his way through
the surrounding thorn-thickets. It may be noted in this connection that
the every-day inhabitants of fairy-land have never shown themselves
able to learn from experience. Scarcely a royal christening could take
place without some important witch-fairy being forgotten, always with
disastrous results, yet no steps seem ever to have been taken to guard
against the recurrence of such disastrous negligence.
The witch-princess differs from the witch-queen stepmother in that
she is usually herself under a spell, which, being removed, usually
by the intervention of some adventurous lover, she at once resumes
all the lovable qualities inherent to beautiful princesses. Thus, in
"The Travelling Companion," the princess is at first made to appear
in the most unamiable light possible, though her beauty and her mantle
of butterflies' wings none the less turn the heads of the wooers whose
skulls are destined to adorn her garden--a phenomenon not unknown on
solid earth. Nevertheless, when a suitor arrives with the necessary
qualifications to overcome the spell, she settles down to a life of the
domestic virtues, perhaps on the principle that the reformed rake makes
the best husband. The witch-princess, be it noted, is so far of earthly
origin as to be directly descended from that unhappy heroine, Medea.
I have hitherto refrained from reference to what are perhaps the most
vividly convincing characters in witch-fiction: "Sidonia the Sorceress"
and "The Amber Witch," the creations of the German Lutheran clergyman,
Wilhelm Meinhold. They can, however, more especially the "Amber Witch,"
scarcely be regarded as absolute fiction, seeing that they provide not
imaginary portraits, but actual photographs of the witch as she was
supposed to live. So carefully did the author collate his facts, so
exact to truth were the details of the trial, tribulations, and final
escape of the unhappy girl suspected of witchcraft, that at the time of
its publication in 1843, "The Amber Witch" was generally accepted as an
actual record of a witchcraft trial in the time of the Thirty Years'
War. Perhaps, indeed, Maria Schweidler deserves a better fate than
to be included as a witch under any heading whatever, seeing that not
only was her innocence finally made manifest, but that the accusation
was originally aroused against her for no better cause than her own
kindness of heart and practical benevolence. It is true that many of
the names enshrined in the annals of witchcraft would never have been
there if guilt or malevolence were the sole rightful claims to this
form of immortality.
As might be expected, the wizard, no less than the witch, has
appealed to the picturesque imagination of the romancist in many
times and countries. What is more, he has, if anything, been taken
more seriously. This is perhaps due to the fact that his creator has
generally conformed more closely to his original. The great alchemists
of history have been pressed into the service of many writers,
much as have the Rosicrucians, the Cabalists, and other members of
magico-secret societies. Even when we find the wizard, magician, or
sorcerer in his purely romantic guise, he conforms more closely to his
original than does the witch. In the "Arabian Nights," for example,
are many magicians, to say nothing of djinns, but there is scarcely
one among them who transcends the powers of his real-life prototype.
Merlin, again, despite his ambiguous origins, wherever he appears,
whether in Arthurian legend or Maeterlinckian variation, is always
recognisable and true to type. Prospero, in the "Tempest," is a
magician of no mean power, but he is none the less a man with human
affections and human aims, taking the side of good in the age-long
struggle against evil, as represented by Caliban. No one meeting
Prospero in the society of, let us say, Albertus Magnus, need have
found anything to cavil at in his verisimilitude. Even when you find
a magician in fairy-lore, as in the already quoted story of "The
Travelling Companion," he is, if unamiable, not unreal, unless, indeed,
in his preference for cushions made of live mice, eating each others'
tails.
Thus in fiction, as in fact, we find the caste distinction between
the witch and the wizard rigidly observed, the one approached with
something like reverence, the other regarded with dislike and
half-contemptuous fear. This may be largely due in both worlds to the
fact that there are "to ten thousand witches but one wizard," and
that familiarity breeds contempt. Nevertheless, it should serve but
as another claim upon our sympathy for the much-abused witch, even
while it exemplifies the truth of the proverb that nothing succeeds
like success. The magician, after having led the Devil by the nose
throughout a long and ill-spent life, not only succeeds nine times out
of ten in cheating him in the end, but also preserves to a remarkable
degree the sympathies of mankind, whether as devotee or novel-reader.
The unfortunate witch, having devoted her industrious days to carrying
out faithfully the terms of her bargain, is condemned to the flames
both in this world and the next amid universal execration. Truly he
does not always bear the palm who best merits it.