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From literature to film and pop culture, nothing screams Halloween quite like the legendary witch — and all that comes with her. Black cats. Flying brooms. Potions, cauldrons, knobbly noses, and spellbooks abound.
But what’s up with this ancient caricature? Is it grounded in reality, or is it all just a bunch of hocus pocus?
The history of witches long predates Halloween, as well as the Celtic tradition the modern holiday is rooted in. East to West, North to South, you’d be hard pressed to find a cultural record that doesn’t have its own tradition of witches.
In fact, witches can be found in some of our earliest written texts.
Both the Judeo-Christian Old Testament and even earlier Mesopotamian clay tablets reference witches as literal figures in human history — not just characters in fiction. These ancient religious documents served warnings about the power of witches and their use of unsanctioned magic to bring about unsavory events.
Now, witches weren’t the only figures using magic in these tomes. But they were specifically called out for using the wrong type of magic — anything that the authors deemed unacceptable.
This is a pattern repeated for thousands of years. It’s not tongue of newt or dead man’s toe that adds a particularly unsavory flavor to the history of witches. No, it’s just straight-up moral panic, and the scapegoating that comes with it.
It’s not tongue of newt or dead man’s toe that adds a particularly unsavory flavor to the history of witches. No, it’s just straight-up moral panic, and the scapegoating that comes with it.
Before we knew much about microbes and mental health, unseen phenomena were explained through magic and religion. Who can blame us? Superstition and intuition were all we had to go on in ancient times. So we chalked up positive events to our deities and good magic, and misfortune and tragedy to malevolent forces, or black magic.
Who practices black magic? Well, maybe the shaman with the unconventional beliefs about health and healing. Or maybe the lippy old hag who defies the male elders in the tribe.
Why settle for explanations out of our control when we could pin misfortune on someone we have beef with? Time and time again, history shows there’s no one in society ripe for a good old-fashioned pillory quite like an opinionated woman.
Crops failed? Cow died? Husband had an affair with the milk maid? Grab the pitchforks and your biggest dunking tub — we’re going witch-hunting.
Time and time again, history shows there’s no one in society ripe for a good old-fashioned pillory quite like an opinionated woman.
OK, so we’ve established the background of witches: supernatural scapegoats with ancient magic origins that are more often than not victims of rabid misogyny. But what about her occult accoutrement?
Spells, potions, and bonfires with the Devil make sense. They’ve long been associated with black magic.
Warts, crooked noses, and an obsession with eternal youth? Sign up for your local university’s Gender Studies Program for your primer on portrayals of women in media.
Iconography like brooms and cats, however, call for more speculation.
This is where fact and fiction blend into folklore. Was the image of a broomstick taken from a witch-hunter observing a Pagan harvest ritual? Or was it just a burst of imagination from an aspiring demonologist with a penchant against housework? Either way, the originator had no idea the impact his creative liberty would have on pop culture.
Not all stereotypes are of such dubious origin, however. There are some scientific lenses we can retroactively apply to illogical leaps of lore. Take the ties between cats and witches. Neil DeGrasse Tyson explained it succinctly in a recent podcast: Some women who were mysteriously — ahem, magically — impervious to the plague happened to be cat owners.
Laymen of the time might cry, “Witch!” But we know now that plagues were transferred by fleas via rats. And if there’s one way to clear your house of rodents, it’s a feline companion. Add a few hundred years of Dark Ages illiteracy and a dash of paranoid misogyny, and you’ve got a classic stereotype.
So, take scientific ignorance and throw it in a cauldron with religious fearmongering. Top it off with deep-rooted hatred of women, and you’ve got the nasty potion that led to our current caricature of witches.
Take scientific ignorance and throw it in a cauldron with religious fearmongering. Top it off with deep-rooted hatred of women, and you’ve got the nasty potion that led to our current caricature of witches.
The good news? In our more enlightened age, writers of all stripes are reclaiming the story of the witch. From Broadway — think Wicked — to the silver screen — Robert Egger’s The VVitch — the oft-maligned witch is staging her renaissance as a figure to be both revered and respectfully feared.
More and more often, we’re exploring the hysteria with a critical eye toward the power structures of the time … and our current realities.
More and more often, we’re exploring the hysteria with a critical eye toward the power structures of the time … and our current realities.
Witches still have a chokehold on art and literature today because they reflect our fears back at us:
Our lack of control over the chaos of the universe;
Our feeble defenses against disease and misfortune;
Our tendency to point the finger — to accuse, rather than accept.
And maybe that’s the role these indelible figures play in our collective story.
The scariest thing about a witch isn’t what’s bubbling inside her cauldron. It’s what boils and roils in our own souls.
Recently, over 10,000 writers, writing instructors, and publishers from across the U.S. gathered at the annual conference for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs.
We asked them to answer a few questions about creativity and living a writing life. Here's what they had to say...
I’ve spent years writing while secretly fearing that a single misplaced word would expose me — not just as a bad writer, but as a fraud.
My background is originally in photography, and I see it there, too. A photographer I know recently posted a before-and-after comparison of their editing from 2018 versus now, asking if we also saw changes in our own work over the years.
Naturally, we should. If our work is the same, years apart, have we really grown as artists?
So why is that the growing, the process of it, the daily grind of it, is so painful?
So why is that the growing, the process of it, the daily grind of it, is so painful?
Hitting “publish” on an essay or a blog always stirs up insecurity — the overthinking, the over-editing. The fear that someone will call me out for not being a real writer.
I initially hesitated to make writing part of my freelance work. My background is in photography and design. Writing was something I gravitated toward, but I had no degree to validate it. No official stamp of approval.
Like many writers, I started with zero confidence in my voice — agonizing over edits, drowning in research, second-guessing every word.
I even created a shield for myself: ghostwriting.
I even created a shield for myself: ghostwriting.
If my words weren’t my own, they couldn’t be wrong. Ghostwriting meant safety — no risk, no vulnerability, just words without ownership.
I still remember the feeling of scrolling to the bottom of an article I had written and seeing someone else’s name, their face beside words that had once been mine. It felt uncanny — like recognizing your handwriting but not remembering when or why you wrote those words. I knew it was mine, but it didn't feel like it belonged to me anymore.
The truth is, I always wanted to write. As a kid, I imagined it. Yet, I found myself handing over my work, letting someone else own it.
I told myself it didn’t matter. It was work. Getting paid to write should be enough.
But here’s the thing: I wasn’t just playing it safe — I was slowly erasing myself. Word by word. Edit by edit. And finally, in the by-line.
I wasn’t just playing it safe — I was slowly erasing myself. Word by word. Edit by edit. And finally, in the by-line.
This was true when I was writing under my own name, too. The more I worried about getting it right, the less I sounded like me.
I worried. I worried about how long an essay was (“people will be bored”), finding endless examples as proof of my research (“no way my own opinion is valid on its own”), the title I gave a piece (“it has to be a hook”), or editing out personal touches (“better to be safe than be seen”).
I built a guardrail around my writing, adjusting, tweaking, over-correcting. Advice meant to help only locked me in. It created a sentence rewritten to sound smarter, an opinion softened to sound safer, a paragraph reshaped to sound acceptable.
I built a guardrail around my writing, adjusting, tweaking, over-correcting.
But playing it safe makes the work dull. Writing loses its edge.
It took deliberate effort to break this habit. I’m not perfect, but here’s what I know after a year of intentionally letting my writing sound like me:
My work is clearer. It moves with my own rhythm. It’s less shaped by external influence, by fear, by the constant need to smooth it into something more polished, more likable.
But playing it safe makes the work dull. Writing loses its edge.
The drive for acceptance is a slippery slope — one we don’t always realize we’re sliding down. It’s present in the small choices that pull us away from artistic integrity: checking how others did it first, tweaking our work to fit a mold, hesitating before saying what we actually mean.
And let’s be honest — this isn’t just about writing. It bleeds into everything.
It’s there when we stay silent in the face of wrongdoing, when we hold back our true way of being, when we choose work that feels “respectable,” whatever that means. It’s in every “yes” we say when we really want to say “no.”
If your self-expression is rooted in a need for acceptance, are you creating for yourself — or for others? Does your work help you explore your thoughts, your life? Does it add depth, energy, and meaning?
My work is clearer. It moves with my own rhythm. It’s less shaped by external influence, by fear, by the constant need to smooth it into something more polished, more likable.
I get it. We’re social creatures. Isolation isn’t the answer. Ignoring societal norms won’t make us better writers. Often, the most meaningful work is born from responding to or resisting those norms.
But knowing yourself well enough to recognize when acceptance is shaping your work brings clarity.
Am I doing this to be part of a community, to build connections, to learn and grow?
Or am I doing this to meet someone else’s expectations, dulling my voice just to fit in?
Here’s what I know as I look back at my writing: I’m grateful for the years spent learning, for the times I sought acceptance with curiosity. But I’m in a different phase now.
I know who I am, and those who connect with my work reflect that back at me — in the messages they send, in the conversations we share.
I know who I am, and those who connect with my work reflect that back at me — in the messages they send, in the conversations we share.
It’s our differences that drive growth. I want to nurture these connections, to be challenged by difference, to keep writing in a way that feels like me. The me who isn’t afraid to show what I think and care about.
So, I ask you, as I ask myself now:
If no one was watching, if no one could judge, what would you write?
If no one was watching, if no one could judge, what would you write?
A book deal without an agent? An agent offer after a book deal? Learn how Writer Bobby Miller took his publishing journey into his own hands.
