The distinct and concealed inspirations for witch hunting in early fairytales
There are clear connections between early fairytales and the future phenomena of witch hunting, but some are more indirect and obscured, leaving only feminist scholars, historians, and others to proselytize the deeper meanings.
One such obvious connection can be found in Mary’s Child by the brothers Grimm when the unnamed main character is nearly burned at the stake after being accused of cannibalism—or for witchcraft, or being an ogress, depending on the translation.
During her trial, she was unable to defend herself due to literal muteness. A more subtle connection to witch hunting is the real women who were unable to defend themselves during their trial due to figurative muteness and misrepresentation by society throughout Europe and the American colonies.
A 19th century illustration by Oskar Herrfurth of Grimm’s Mary’s Child.
The classic moral “silence is golden,” is prevalent throughout these early folktales. Examples include Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, where a 15 year old girl chooses silence over self dignity in an effort to fall in love with a human prince.
Many versions of Little Red Riding Hood featured severe consequences for a young girl talking to strangers in the woods. Giambattista Basile’s early version of Sun, Moon, and Talia—known today as Sleeping Beauty—featured the main character living happily ever after when she wakes up to find a handsome prince had sexually assaulted her in her sleep, when she was unable to speak up for herself.
These tales were told to children for decades, causing young girls to act the way they were taught from the common folklore. Because girls were meant to be “seen and not heard,” they lived their lives passively and were easily victims for physical brutality, imprisonment, or even death when accused of witchcraft.
Within these tales, women are already seen as untrustworthy; several fairies in Sun, Moon, and Talia versions are enraged and take revenge, the stepmother/old hag in Snow White conspires to kill the young girl out of spite for her beauty, the sea witch in The Little Mermaid is oversexualized and purposely sets up the young woman to fail.
Left and right the women of folklore are represented as beautiful, silent, and passive or bitter, ugly, and cruel. There was truly no winning for the entire gender, which led to one of the largest purges of innocent people in the pre-modern period.
In reality, an accused witch didn’t even need to practice paganism to be labeled a danger to society of a “bride of Satan.” If she was middle aged and didn’t have kids, she could be accused of using magical forces to ward off men or as birth control. If a woman had a temper or was seen to have a bad attitude, she was a witch because the devil is inspiring her behavior. Even just being poor left women susceptible to being accused.
These fairytales may have had a directly obvious role in witch hunting through creating the stereotype of “witches,” and even giving a step-by-step manual on how to build a pyre, but their deeper meanings are where the real dubious work of inspiration occurred.
