Cannibalism, orgies and suckling demons: Gruesome exhibition charts history of witchcraft through art



Exhibition charts the history of witchcraft through art

In the Middle Ages, witches were thought to be cannibals



They were also thought to offer child sacrifices and indulge in orgies



Blamed for everything from illness to failing crops

Witches and Wicked Bodies runs until the 3rd November in Edinburgh

From the infamous crones immortalised by Shakespeare in Macbeth to the chilling Pendle Witch Trials, witches have long fascinated and terrified in equal measure.

But who were Britain's witches and were they really as black as they were painted? The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is attempting to provide the answers via Witches and Wicked Bodies - an often gruesome attempt to shed some light on witchcraft through paintings and illustrations.

Among the works on show are pieces by Goya, Henry Fuseli, Albrecht Dürer, Salvator Rosa, William Blake and John William Waterhouse, many of which show just why witches were so feared for so long.

Gruesome: Naked crones cavort under a hanged man in Salvator Rosa's Witches at their Incantations



Terrifying: Durer's The Four Witches (left) and Invidia, an illustration from Virtues and Vices by Jacob de Gheyn



Particularly terrifying is Salvator Rosa's Witches At Their Incarnations which shows a group of naked crones stirring their pots underneath a tree from which a dead man hangs.

To one side are a gruesome group of familiars [demon attendants] that include a skeletal dragon and a glaring frog-like beast.

Equally creepy is a woodcut featuring Shakespeare's Weird Sisters ('three women in strange and wild apparell, resembling creatures of elder world'), mid incantation, their bat-like familiar drifting evilly around their shoulders.

Another frightening offering is a depiction of Invidia (envy) that shows the crone-like, snake-haired Invidia sprinting past a group of terrified peasants, stuffing a child's foot into her mouth as she runs.

Grisly though the images are, the real lives of British witches were often far more mundane, although that didn't prevent wild stories of ritual infanticide, orgies and dates with the Devil from spreading among the general population.

'Creatures of elder world': Shakespeare's three witches or Weird Sisters feature in Macbeth

Cannibalism: Sir Joseph Noel Paton's Faust in the Witches' Kitchen is dotted with human skulls and demons

Witchcraft has a long and gory history in the UK, beginning with the word 'witchcraft' itself which has its origins in two Anglo-Saxon words - wiċċe (witch) and cræft (craft).

One of the earliest written records of witchcraft in England is that left by Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham who between 955 and 1010 produced a series of texts condemning witchcraft and all types of pagan belief.

In his On False Gods And The Twelve Abuses, he fulminated against necromancy - a practice strongly associated with witches - saying:

'Witches still go to cross-roads and to heathen burials with their delusive magic and call to the devil; and he comes to them in the likeness of the man that is buried there, as if he arise from death.'

Goddess: William Blake's The Triple Hecate refers to the ancient Greek goddess of witchcraft and sorcery

Battle: The Witches Rout by Agostino Veneziano shows angry villagers chasing witches intent on evil deeds

Alarming: In Robert Burn's poem Tam O'Shanter, the hero stumbles upon a coven doing evil deeds in a church

Demonic: Hans Baldung, a student of Albrect Durer, was famous for his witchy woodcuts

But necromancy wasn't the only charge laid at the feet of Britain's witches. People in the mediaeval period believed that witches had sex with demons, suckled their familiars from a secret third nipple and could cause crops to wither on the branch and die - a serious charge in an era when the threat of starvation was ever-present.

Despite the grave superstitions flying around, the earliest witch trial wasn't recorded until 1324 when the Irish witch Alice Kyteler was accused of witchcraft and sorcery following the death of her fourth husband Sir John Le Poer.

Condemned to burn, she fled the country leaving her servant and fellow witch Petronilla de Meath to be flogged and immolated alone.

Witch hunts began in earnest after the 1484 publication of the Malleus Malificarum (Hammer of the Witches), a mediaeval spotter's guide penned by German monk Heinrich Kramer and used by both the Spanish Inquisition and British authorities.

But in the UK, things didn't begin in earnest until 1590, when the North Berwick Witch Trials saw 70 people accused of witchcraft over two years, including Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell.

Among the more lurid allegations were accusations of attempting to poison King James VI and of bringing storms down upon the fleet carrying the monarch and his Queen Anne back to Scotland from Denmark after their wedding.

So terrified was James of the witches in his realm, one of the women on trial - Agnes Sampson - was fastened to the wall of her cell with a witch bridle, which used four sharp prongs inserted in and around the mouth to prevent her from uttering curses and incantations.

In England and Wales, a 1542 law made witchcraft punishable by death although the laws were little used until the infamous Pendle Witch Trials began in Lancashire in 1612, which saw 20 men and women tortured and later executed after accusations of sorcery were made by their neighbours.