Hey, readers, how are you? Today the writer Stefania Gil is going to talk to you about witches in romance literature, from their origins, as well as their evolution, to their appearance in other genres. I think all the material she put together for you is great. At the end there are excellent recommendations, so if you like the post, then share it.
Talking about paranormal things and the whole wide range of characters that are part of the paranormal world is one of my favorite things; and if you add a romance story to that, you can take it for granted that I’m going to spend hours immersed in that world, so you can get an idea of how much I’m going to enjoy writing this post for you, about witches in romance literature.
Origins of Witches
To talk about witches in literature, I have to mention a bit about these characters in the history of humanity.
In the book Wicca: Practices and Principles of Witchcraft by Raymond Buckland, there is a passage that mentions Dr. Margaret Murray as a reference in the research into the origins of witchcraft.
Dr. Murray “discovered that the origins of witchcraft date back to the Paleolithic era, twenty-five thousand years ago. According to her, it was almost a direct line to the present, and a fully organized religion for centuries before Christ, in Western Europe.”
And although many researchers questioned her theories, she was able to present tangible evidence and a lot of material that gives you something to think about.
I don’t plan to keep you here for hours and hours reading about witchcraft or witches, that’s not the topic, but it’s important for you to know what was considered a witch back then.
Twenty-five thousand years ago!
The beings who inhabited the earth twenty-five thousand years ago depended on hunting to survive; they ate if they managed to hunt something; they protected themselves from the cold if they got skins; and if they happened to find bones, then they could make weapons with which to hunt and defend themselves.
Men and women were polytheists, they worshipped many gods, and nature overwhelmed them, so they had great respect for it, attributing a supernatural force to every natural phenomenon.
They healed themselves with plants, they made requests for all these gods to watch over their crops and always provide them with food and shelter.
This whole cycle of worship of nature and the gods continued until we reached the time when this was called witchcraft and it began to be associated directly with the devil and, of course, women stood out, becoming worshippers of the demon.
When do witches appear in literature?
The first prominent witch in a book was Lilith.
Lilith, supposedly, was the first woman created for Adam, and she got tired of being ruled by a man, so she decided to leave him to live a life of her own on earth.
But of course, that independence in those far-off times of Adam and Eve was a scandal, which they attributed to the demon right away, making Lilith the demon’s harlot, with whom he had many children they called: The Fallen.
Although Lilith is a creation of Jewish folklore, she is mentioned in the Catholic Bible once, and I know all of this because the places where I’ve researched online tell me so.
I’ve never read a religious text like the Bible, because I’m a bit superstitious and because, truth be told, I don’t believe in many of the things told there.
So if I’m saying something wrong, and if you’re an expert on the subject, I invite you to leave your clarifications below, so we can all learn.
So, why consider Lilith the first witch in literature?
Because one way or another, ever since the macabre witch hunts of the past, every woman who was considered a witch had a pact with the demon.
That simple.
Witchcraft, witch, sorceress — every woman who knew the cycles of nature, worshipped the ancestral gods, and was a healer or something similar was called a witch and, therefore, the demon’s harlot.
Just as happened with Lilith.
Evolution of witches in literature
And so we move forward, and in Greek literature, specifically in The Odyssey, you can find a witch named Circe who falls in love with Ulysses and bewitched his sailors so they wouldn’t leave her.
In Medea, the story is told of a priestess of the moon goddess Hecate with a personality ahead of her time. Hecate is considered an evil goddess.
Morgan Le Fay, the sorceress of Avalon.
And so many others who, within Western literature, are shown in very diverse ways, where they weren’t always linked to evil, although it should be noted that the accounts of these characters — who, as I mentioned before, were mostly female — were written by men, which meant that this perspective implied, in the past, a disapproving and moralizing tone that was no accident, because in the history of literature, women always appear marginalized.
It wouldn’t be surprising if, in the times of the witch hunts, it had been the executioners themselves who wrote about these — supposedly evil — characters.
Who could forget these witches in literature?
The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Lyman Frank Baum, or the three witches of Macbeth, by William Shakespeare.
Sorceresses in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.
The short story “The Dreams in the Witch House” by Lovecraft, where Walter Gilman, the protagonist, is a mathematics student fond of urban myths who rents the room of a house where Keziah Mason, a sorceress who escaped the Salem trials, used to live.
Arthur Miller, many years after Lovecraft’s story, wrote about what happened in Salem in the play The Crucible.
And so we arrive at the beloved Harry Potter, written by J. K. Rowling, who created a whole world full of wizards.
What makes witches in literature fascinating?
With evil as a common trait, we realize that witches in literature are always declared the villains in the plot.
#1 The one who knows how to use enchantments, who handles the elements as she pleases, who has supernatural powers that terrify others.
#2 The one who has a contact in hell to control demons, black magic, and cause catastrophic things.
#3 The one who keeps a mystery that makes her more seductive.
Like everything, this evolved, fortunately, and in more recent times, we no longer see green-skinned witches with huge noses and a horrifying wart on their faces, laughing with diabolical laughter and hungry to devour children.
Nor do we see them as so diabolical or evil, and their actions have a reason for being.
Although they still keep that halo of temptation and a certain connection with evil, their powers have been softened, poured into the well of good, showing us that they are not monsters and that their powers, granted by the gods and the elements, are used only to act in favor of human beings.
And that’s how we get to witches in romance literature, turning them into beings who love, feel, and suffer like anyone else.
Well, there will always be a rotten apple, but they aren’t the majority, as used to happen before.
Teaching us that, because of their differences, they have been marginalized at some point, but also accepted by other human beings; valued and loved by men capable of doing anything for them.
What do we expect from a witch in a romance novel?
As a reader of paranormal romance novels, what I expect when I come across a witch is that she knows how to evolve with her powers.
As a general rule, you find them very young, completely unaware of what they can come to do and even of the magical world they come from.
Just as happens to Catherine Applewhite, the protagonist of my first novel Presagios (and its continuation Sincronía), who is descended from a long and powerful line of Wicca witches. She doesn’t find out about the magical world around her until she is initiated into the family magic circle at sixteen. She knows something about the religion in her family, but she doesn’t know what awaits her when she discovers everything she can come to do and everything she must avoid.
As happens in these kinds of novels, witches are drawn to evil, to the dark, to what tempts, to seduction; that’s something that holds in the great majority of paranormal romance novels with witches and, also, that they end up falling in love with the forbidden.
That’s just how life is: we always go after what’s forbidden, it’s tempting to us and it becomes a challenge.
Within paranormal romance novels, witches know when to move forward, step back, or simply withdraw.
They will keep carrying their magic in silence, but they will evolve over time, and if they do good, perfect love will come into their lives.
Along the way, they will learn to trust and to defend themselves from people who try to hurt them.
Some witch novels in romance literature I recommend:
- A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
- The Mayfair Witches trilogy by Anne Rice
- Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
- Brianda by Mayte Esteban
- The Guardians Trilogy by Nora Roberts
- La hija del apocalipsis by Patrick Graham
- The Donovan Legacy by Nora Roberts
Tell me in the comments which witches in romance literature you’ve liked the most and, of course, I invite you to recommend paranormal romance novels full of magic and love.
Other novels about witches you can look for and read:
I’m Kassfinol, a Venezuelan author of paranormal romance published on Amazon KDP since 2012. Witches have a special place in my catalogue: in my Invocation Series there are witches who are neither cardboard villains nor perfect heroines, but characters with real powers, their own motivations, and a love story that doesn’t ask them for permission to exist. If you want to meet them, start with the Invocation Series, or first try my free short stories, where you’ll also find witches from my universe.