Many old - timey simulacrum ofwitchesshow the women with a particular physical feature — warts . The cause they ’re often associated with the growth goes helping hand in paw with the same 100 - old superstitions that gave Wiccan an undeservedly bad rap .
Europeans began run witches in the15th C , when Christian doctrinelabeled witchcrafta pagan superstition closely connected to unorthodoxy and the devil . The persecution reach a febricity lurch in the sixteenth and 17th centuries withwitch trials in Salem , Massachusetts;ScotlandandEngland ; and Europe . To filtrate out the allegedly vicious people from the rest of the population , beldame huntsman look for those who had the “ witches ’ mark , ” also sleep together as the “ devil ’s print , ” because they were intend to have been brand by the devil himself .
These so - called “ witches ’ mark ” were , as we now lie with , not the work of the devil , but rather a chain of mountains ofskin imperfectness . In gain to warts , they could have been skin tags , mole , nevus , asupernumerary nipple(third tit ) , animal scratches , or even various forms of melanoma . If someone was accused of witchery , they ’d be strip down and explore for skin freakishness . If one was found , the accusers used it as “ evidence ” of the devil ’s work . The inauspicious somebody — often a woman — would then be convict of witchery .
Fortunately , the 17th 100 brought aboutthe Enlightenment , an era of reason , knowledge , and humanitarianism . The campaign contributed to theend of Wiccan huntsand helped overturn the late centuries ’ superstitious notion . It was determined that there was no grounds that these so - called witches , warts and all , caused any harm to anyone .
Centuries after , there are still many word picture of witches as wart - flecked federal agent of evil . But times are changing . You just have to look at more recent witches in soda water culture — Hermione Granger from theHarry Potterfranchise , Wanda Maximoff ofMarvelfame , andSabrina the Teenage Witch , to name a few — to see that these women are portrayed in a positive sparkle … and unquestionably sans the notorious warts .
