We are heading into the season of strange things and odd happenings as Autumn approaches. These are the times when the leaves stir without a wind and the wolf howls echo among the hills. So in keeping with the hour, here are 13 legendary witches and sorceresses.
1. Hecate is the Greek goddess of witchcraft, crossroads, and necromancy. She’s often depicted holding torches or keys, guiding souls through shadowed realms. Her presence evokes the power of thresholds and the difference between life and death, seen and unseen.
2. Lilith, in Jewish mythology, was Adam’s first wife who refused to be subservient. Cast out and demonized, she became a symbol of feminine autonomy and rage. Her legend pulses with the ache of exile and the fire of defiance.
3. Morgan le Fay is a powerful enchantress in Arthurian legend, sister to King Arthur and sometimes his adversary. She shifts between healer and saboteur, embodying the tension between loyalty and betrayal. Her magic is woven with grief and ambition.
4. Baba Yaga is a Slavic witch who dwells in a hut that stands on chicken legs, surrounded by a fence of bones. She tests those who seek her, offering wisdom or doom. She’s the wild grandmother of the forest and is terrifying, transformative, and strangely tender.
5. The Witch of Endor is a biblical figure who summoned the prophet Samuel’s spirit for King Saul. Her story is one of forbidden knowledge and divine defiance. She stands as a rare woman in scripture who dares to speak with the dead.
6. Aradia is said to be the daughter of Diana and Lucifer in Italian folklore, sent to teach witchcraft to peasants. Her tale, popularized in 19th-century texts, became a cornerstone of modern Wiccan belief. She’s a mythic liberator cloaked in moonlight.
7. Isobel Gowdie is a Scottish woman who confessed to witchcraft in 1662, describing vivid flights, faerie encounters, and shapeshifting. Her testimony reads like poetry, possibly under duress, but haunting in its detail. She may have been a visionary or scapegoat, or both.
8. La Voisin (Catherine Monvoisin) was a fortune-teller and poisoner in 17th-century France, implicated in dark rituals and aristocratic scandals. Her downfall exposed the shadowy underbelly of Louis XIV’s court. She was both feared and sought after, a dealer in secrets.
9. Tituba was an enslaved woman of Caribbean or Indigenous descent, accused during the Salem witch trials. Her testimony, shaped by coercion and cultural misunderstanding, ignited hysteria. She remains a symbol of racialized fear and silenced truth.
10. The Bell Witch is a spirit said to haunt the Bell family in early 19th-century Tennessee, whispering, striking, and prophesying. Her legend blends ghost story with folk magic, and she’s often portrayed as a voice of reckoning against patriarchal wrongs.
11. Medea is a sorceress of Greek myth who helps Jason win the Golden Fleece. He then betrays her. Her vengeance of infanticide and exile is one of the most harrowing tales in mythology. She is both victim and fury, a woman undone by love and power.
12. Mother Shipton is a 16th-century English prophetess born in a cave, said to have predicted wars, plagues, and the Great Fire of London. Her image was twisted into grotesque caricature, yet her legacy endured. She’s the crone who saw too much.
13. Agnes Sampson was a healer and midwife accused during the North Berwick witch trials in Scotland. Tortured and executed, her story reflects the brutal silencing of wise women. Her name echoes through the centuries as a martyr of knowledge.
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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while, and this is my 925th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.
