|
“The
Halloween Witch"
Each year they parade her about . . . the traditional witch......
Misshapen green face, stringy scraps of hair, and a toothless mouth
beneath her disfigured nose. Gnarled, knobby fingers twisted into a claw,
protracting from a bent and twisted torso that lurches about on wobbly
legs.
Most think this abject image to be the creation of a prejudiced mind, or
merely a Halloween caricature. I disagree.
I believe this is how witches were really seen. Consider most
witches were women, were abducted in the night, and smuggled into dungeons
or prisons under secrecy of darkness, to be presented by the light of the
day as a confessed witch.
Few, if any saw a frightened, normal looking woman being dragged into a
secret room filled with instruments of torture....to be questioned until
she confessed to anything that was suggested to her, and to give names or
whatever would stop the questions. Crowds saw the aberration denounced to
the world as a self-proclaimed witch.
As the witch was paraded through the town, en route to be burned, hanged,
drowned, stoned, or disposed of in various other forms of Christian love .
. . all created to free and save her soul from her depraved body, crowds
viewed the results of hours of torture. The face, bruised and broken, by
countless blows, bore a hue of sickly green. The once warm and loving
smile gone, replaced by a grimace of broken teeth and torn gums that leers
beneath a battered, disfigured nose. The disheveled hair conceals bleeding
gaps of torn scalp from whence cruel hands had torn away lovely tresses.
Broken, twisted hands clutched the wagon for support. Fractured fingers
locked like groping claws to steady her broken body. All resemblances of
humanity were gone. This was truly a demon, a Satan, a witch.
I revere this Halloween crone and hold her sacred above all. I honor her
courage and listen to her warnings of the dark side of humanity. Each year
I shed tears of respect and remember her involuntary sacrifice in the name
of religion.
May this remind us of those who were persecuted as witches, though many
were healers and midwives, women who owned land, and those who spoke out
against the rulers of the time. Remember
the "Halloween Witch", along with all the others who have gone
before you.
|