The dark side of fairy tales

With the Christianization of the world, the focus of the Catholic Church was the extermination of witchcraft, and other beliefs deemed heretical. The heretics were accused of failing to repent and openly rejecting the church’s official stance.

The consequences of heretical behavior included torture, imprisonment, and burning at the stake. One instance of such cruelty is when Charlemagne enforced the Christian religion in Saxony in 789. In the text “Charlemagne: Capitulary for Saxony 775-790” found in the Medieval Sourcebook, Charlemagne warns against witchcraft, stating that those who mistakenly believe in witchcraft and harm others will face death penalty as punishment,

“If anyone deceived by the devil shall have believed, after the manner of the pagans, that any man or woman is a witch and eats men, and on this account shall have burned the person, or shall have given the person’s flesh to others to eat, or shall have eaten it himself, let him be punished by a capital sentence” (Hallsal, editor).

Due to the King’s use of penalties, this declaration may be referred to as an “early inquisition” resembling the one initiated by Pope Gregory IX in 1233 to suppress non-Catholic beliefs in southern France.

This inquisition spread to other parts of Europe, particularly Spain, where Catholic kings Isabella and Ferdinand resurrected it to protect the “purity of blood” threatened by Jews and Muslims. Charlemagne became King of the Franks in 768, King of the Lombards in 774, and Holy Roman Emperor in 800. The Roman emperor title granted him power to advance Christianity and punish ‘heretics’ who strayed from Catholicism.

While individuals were not compelled to convert to Christianity, the implication of resorting to violent tactics against those who resisted the Christian faith was present. Over the centuries that followed Charlemagne’s Christianization of Europe, the Church increased the persecution of witchcraft as an attempt to unify and consolidate its doctrine and beliefs. According to Claudia Honegger “the salient feature of seventeenth-century witchcraft was the spread of diabolical possession, not only in catholic regions, where public exorcism became a fascinating show, but also in Geneva and other protestant regions” (Honegger 798).

The cruel persecution aimed to persuade believers that any religion contradicting the Church’s views was wicked and must be eliminated. The upsurge of the repressive atmosphere in which people existed from the early Middle Ages to the 17th century is evident in how easily an individual, particularly a woman, could face capital punishment based solely on suspicion of practicing witchcraft. Most academics think that the Catholic Church saw Europe’s quick social and economic changes as a threat to Christianity.

Therefore, the witch hunt was deemed the most rational and effective approach to thwarting the emergence of new religions and potential changes in women’s societal roles that could challenge the Church’s male-dominated hierarchy. It is important to mention that the witch hunts share similarities with those found in the Spanish Inquisition.

Likewise, numerous individuals admitted to heresy under the Spanish Inquisition, financed by the Church, to avoid persecution and torture, much like many women confessed to possessing demonic abilities during the witch trials to evade further torment. Being convicted of witchcraft meant facing execution by burning, hanging, or beheading. In numerous instances, the interrogators would present fictitious witnesses during the trials who would create false narratives to bolster the allegations against women.

Henry Kramer, a spurned Catholic priest, and Jacob Sprenger, an inquisitor, penned a code of regulations that served as the initial guide with specific techniques for eradicating witchcraft and its practitioners, highlighting the oppression of dissenters. The main purpose of these laws was to destroy women who were believed to have the ability to become witches. The “Malleus Maleficarum,” initially printed in 1486 in Speyer, Germany, featured a set of guidelines meant to suppress and accuse women using the pretext of eliminating witchcraft.

W.R. Jones argues that the popularization of witches in the 16th and 17th centuries was a result of combining aspects of medieval folklore with theological and inquisitorial beliefs. He states that “the image of the witch flourishing during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was a pastiche created by the grouping of elements of later medieval folklore and the fantasies of theologians and inquisitors around this figure of the sorcerer”.

As women are commonly depicted as weak and wicked, it is not shocking that many famous fairy tales from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, like Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, and Hansel and Gretel, portray women as malevolent witches. Most scholars believe that Snow White is inspired by the tale of a 16-year-old German countess born in 1533. Her stepmother compelled her to relocate to Brussels when she was young, with the intention of killing her due to jealousy over her beauty.

After Cinderella’s father remarried, her stepmother, along with her own two daughters, forced Cinderella to become a servant in her own home. Rapunzel was confined in a tower by her mother, who used magic to maintain her youth and power. The stepmothers are seen as fitting into the Church’s “diabolic” pattern because they oppress, mistreat, and discriminate against the young girls.

Moreover, the fairy tales’ storylines include magical features like the magic mirror, poisonous apple, spells, curses, and witches’ transformations, which strengthen the idea that women turn to the devil to fulfill their desires.

In Jack Zipes’ book “The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre”, it is explained that there are two kinds of witches, one who is kind to children and the needy, and the other who is evil, with the blame lying mostly on the Church and priests. He says that “there are two types of witches, one who is always loving children and helping poor people, and the other who is diabolical, and it is almost entirely due to the Church and the priests (Zipes 56).

Zipes also contends that this particular witch was the one who sparked witchcraft with its methods of torture and burning. The cruel plot of the Catholic Church worsened the harsh mistreatment of women, resulting in a significant increase in the number of women tortured and killed in various regions of Europe in the Middle Ages.

Due to this mass hysteria, the portrayal of women in fairy tales was negatively impacted. Maybe the reason why there are only evil witches in fairy tales is because the Church believes that women become witches by making a deal with the devil to use magic. Alan Anderson and Raymond Gordon argue that during the 14th to the 17th centuries, the majority of witches who were persecuted and oppressed were women wrongly accused by the Church.

They suggest that women’s social inferiority was connected to a spiritual inferiority, making them more vulnerable to malevolent influences (Anderson; Gordon 173). Incorrect criticism was seen when the Church spread the idea that women were weaker than men and vulnerable to evil forces, to support the accusations and mistreatment.

The Church worried that women, who were already experiencing hardship, would strive for power and overthrow men from their privileged position in society. The stepmothers in Snow White, Cinderella, and Rapunzel resist being sidelined by challenging the traditional gender roles enforced by a society dominated by men, and the Church’s teaching that women are weak because of Eve’s mistake.

These women refuse to agree with the Church’s demand for women to be passive and submit to men in order to find happiness. In her article “Reconstructing the ‘Witch’ Stereotype in Fairy Tales: Examining Katherine Arden’s Winternight Trilogy,”

Jasna Jalal dissects two key components found in fairy tales: “A virtuous protagonist and a malevolent antagonist form an essential trope in fairy tales. Often the antagonists in fairy tales are evil stepmothers as depicted in “Cinderella” and “Snow White”, or witches as presented in “Rapunzel”, “Hansel and Gretel” and “The Little Mermaid”.

They use the power of magic to control and destroy everyone for personal gain and are severely punished by death at the end of the tale” (Jalal 142). Being a witch means facing the ultimate consequences for their sins, therefore they must face execution. During the witch hunt, women were linked to fragility and flaws, which allowed the devil to easily manipulate them to challenge Christianity.

It’s important to recognize that fairy tales typically depict two categories of women: the heroine, who is traditionally beautiful yet naive, simple, and compliant, like Cinderella, Snow White, and Rapunzel, and the antagonists or witches, who are clever and driven but refuse to conform to societal norms and male authority, like the three stepmothers in these stories. In contrast, male figures in fairy tales are usually portrayed as heroes who are honest, brave, and unable to commit sins.

The same incorrect assessment is strongly connected to the tasks expected of a woman, like cooking, doing household chores, raising kids, and looking after their husbands. Engaging in activities outside of the home or ones that could enhance one’s mind were not allowed as they were considered activities meant for men.

It is unquestionable that witch hunts occurred not due to the certainty of accusations against women possessing diabolical powers, but because these women defied the stereotypes enforced by the Church and society. Stories like Cinderella, Snow White, and Rapunzel clearly illustrate this scenario, as stepmothers strive for power and autonomy. Jalal further explores the stereotyping of women by stating:

“In fairy tales, which is used a powerful symbol and reflection of the wicked inner conscience of the human self. Witch depicts the archetypal deviant woman who denounces the norms of patriarchy and exercises the privileges of freedom, autonomy, and outspoken nature often enjoyed by men. A witch thus challenges the conventional order of male-centrism by not conforming to societal expectations (Jalal 144).

Fairy tales serve as a potent representation and mirror of the dark inner conscience of humanity. A witch represents the typical rebellious woman who rejects the rules of patriarchy and embraces the same rights of freedom, independence, and assertiveness usually reserved for men. Challenging the traditional male-centric order, a witch defies societal norms according to Jalal (144).

Jalal’s examination removes any uncertainty that in the eyes of the Catholic Church, women’s autonomy and freedom were seen as synonymous with challenging the Church and attempting to dismantle its patriarchal structure. In this situation, women are labeled as witches to exclude them and, in the most extreme cases, harm them. Anthony Jackson asserts that the Church created and enforced the stereotype of witches as being completely different from normal individuals.

He states that “thus in many societies, witches are depicted as having all the opposite characteristics of normal people, viz. witches are asocial and evil, they meet at night, they fly, they go naked, they have dealings with spirits, etc.”(Jackson 124). The development of sorcery carried out by females allowed the Church to control, persecute, and silence women.

From the start of Christianity, the Church has rejected the idea of sharing power between men and women as it could endanger men’s dominance over women and potentially undermine the Church’s authority. The Church has implemented a carefully planned system to dehumanize women in order to uphold their lower social status. Claudia Honegger explains that women lost control over nature and became victims of masculine power, which she describes as satanic.

She underscores that female witches paid the price for progress with their bodies and souls, and emphasizes that “woman lost mastery over nature and became the passive victim of masculinity-now satanic in and of itself” (Honegger 798), and that “the cost of ‘progress’ was paid with the bodies and souls of female witches” (Honegger 798 The Church justified blaming women for wanting to violate the established moral guidelines by categorizing women as lesser creatures compared to men, and as wicked individuals.

Dr. Charlotte-Rose Millar, from the University of Queensland, highlights the prevalence of women being accused of witchcraft and put to death by referencing statistics from various regions such as England, the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, Switzerland, and France.

In her research, Dr. Rose Millar explains that “In England, we estimate that women made up approximately 90 percent of the accused; in the largely German-speaking Holy Roman Empire, this number was 76 percent; in Hungary, 90 percent; in Switzerland, over 95 percent; and in parts of France, 76 percent” (Rose-Millar).

Many contemporary theologians and historians believe that during the 15th to 17th centuries, the Church blamed women as the main source of temptations that hindered men from meeting the Catholic Church’s standards. Nachman Ben-Yehuda describes the European witch hunts of the 14th to 17th centuries as a distinct historical period where many people, mostly women, were wrongly accused and linked to theological beliefs. He explains that

“The European witch craze of the 14th to 17th centuries was a unique historical combination of accusations against people, especially women, of whom the overwhelming majority were probably completely innocent, and the creation of a theological system in which witchcraft became a phenomenon of central importance” (Ben-Yehudo 8)

The prevailing belief is that this viewpoint on witchcraft highlights important insights into the evolution of women’s roles within early modern society, showing a correlation between role changes and a society dominated by men.

Jarad Johnson offers another notable explanation for why women were portrayed as witches in fairy tales. In his article “Diggin In: How fairy tales witches got…complicated,” he states that the portrayal of the wicked witch in fairy tales mirrored societal attitudes towards women, specifically those who held power or were without children.

These conflicting emotions resulted in the creation of the monstrous figure of the anti-mother, a distorted mirror image of the only role women was thought to have (Johnson). This is exactly the case for the stepmothers in Snow White and Rapunzel.

They are among the childless women identified by Johnson because they do not have their own children. Some may argue that Cinderella’s stepmother has two daughters, Anastasia and Drizella, yet she fits into this classification due to her love for her biological daughters and disdain for Cinderella.

Due to the Church’s demand for women to maintain societal morals and pass them on to their children, it is understandable, though not justified, that women faced repression and witchcraft accusations when they went against the norms.

Although men were sometimes accused of practicing witchcraft, it was usually because of their association with the women who were accused, such as being the spouses or siblings of the alleged female witches.

They were charged with safeguarding their women, not practicing magic. One more important factor was the vulnerability and powerlessness of women in a society that is mainly Christian. Women’s decreased social status made it easier for the Catholic Church to scapegoat them.

The females in these stories were powerful and self-sufficient, but they were not sorceresses. The weakened social status of women allowed the influential Catholic Church to blame them more readily. The females in these fairy tales displayed strength and self-reliance, yet they were not witches, nor were numerous women in history accused of witchcraft in the Middle Ages.

Ultimately, the depiction of women as witches in contemporary fairy tales stems from societal views, especially from the Catholic Church, on women who sought equality and questioned male dominance in a society where women were oppressed and undervalued, presenting the ‘witch’ as a symbol of rebellion and the victory of evil over good.

Work Cited:

• Anderson, Alan and Gordon, Raymon. “Witchcraft and the status of women the Case of  England.”, British Journal of Sociology, Volume 29, Number 2, June I978
• Ben-Yehuda, Nachman. “The European with the craze of the 14th to 17th centuries: A sociologist’s perspective.”, American Journal of Sociology, Vol 86, No 1, (Jul 1980), pp. 1-31
• Honegger, Claudia. “Comment on Garrett’s “Women and Witches” Signs, Vol. 4, No. 4, The Labor of Women: Work and Family, (Summer, 1979), pp. 792-798
• Jackson, Anthony. “The Science of Fairy Tales?”, Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 2 (Summer, 1973), pp. 120-141.
• Jalal, Jasna. “Reconstructing the ‘Witch’ Image in Fairy Tales: Exploring Katherine Arden’s Winternight Trilogy”, NEW LITERARIA: An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, Volume 3, No. 1, January-February, 2022, PP. 141-147
• Johnson, Jarad. “Diggin In: How fairy tales witches got…complicated”, Sacred Chickens, 2020.
• “Medieval Sourcebook: Charlemagne: Capitulary for Saxony 775-790”, Editor: Paul Hallsal, Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies, 1996.
• Rose-Millar, Charlotte. “Women as witches: past, present and future”, University of Queensland, 2018
• Zipes, Jack Zipes. “The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre”, Princeton University, 2013