Post by Joanna on Oct 20, 2014 18:26:39 GMT -5
7 signs you’re probably a witch
Dressing up as a witch for Halloween? How do you know you’re not actually one?
Among history’s horrors is the fact that thousands of women were executed for the crime of being a witch. In the 16th and 17th centuries, an estimated 60,000 people – some scholars contend the number is much less – were burned alive or hanged in Europe because of witchcraft. These “witches” (at least 25 percent were men) were usually poor and elderly scapegoats, blamed for a village’s misfortunes.
Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins, believed to be responsible for the deaths of 300 people, mostly women, had all sorts of methods for identifying witches, as did German clergyman Heinrich Kramer in his 1486 book, Malleus Maleficarum.
You could be a witch if ....
1. You are left-handed. The devil was thought to baptize his followers with his left hand (in opposition to the Bible’s focus on the right hand of God) so basically anything to do with the left was sinister. In fact, the word “sinister” is from the Latin sinistra meaning “left.”
2. You don’t cry in public. According to the Malleus Maleficarum, any woman who didn’t cry during her trial was a witch.
3. You like sex. The Malleus Maleficarum also says woman’s lust is the basis of all witchcraft.
4. You are a midwife. The same book also really has it in for you if this is your job because of your suspicious amount of knowledge about conception, pregnancy and miscarriage.
5. You have a cat. Or other pet. It is not, in fact, a pet, it is a familiar or demon who helps you carry out spells.
6. You have a dodgy-looking mole. Or birthmark, or skintag. It’s not what it looks like – it’s probably the devil’s mark, used to feed your familiar and/or the devil in the same way you’d nurse a baby.A
7. When you go swimming, you float. Witch-finders bound and threw women into water because, as witches had rejected baptism, the water should apparently reject them. If you sank, you weren’t a witch, but unless someone fished you out quickly, you would drown.
Source: Metro, October 20, 2014.