The Herbalist and the witch, part V?

[bunnyjadwiga]

In their pursuit of role models, of analogies, of mythic figures, feminist historians siezed upon the witch. Diane Purkiss, in her excellent The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-Century Representations gives us this excellent word-picture, that I think you'll recognize:

Here is a story. Once upon a time, there was a woman who lived on the edge of a village. She lived alone, in her own house surrounded by her garden, in which she grew all manner of herbs and other healing plants. Though she was alone, she was never lonely; she had her garden and her animals for company, she took lovers when she wished, and she was always busy. The woman was a healer and midwife; she had practical knowledge taught her by her mother, and mystical knowledge derived from her closeness to nature, or from a half-submerged pagan religion. She helped women give birth, and she had healing hands; she used her knowledge of herbs and her common sense to help the sick."

Sounds like a great life, right? I'd sure jump at an existence like that.

"However, her peaceful existence was disrupted. Even though the woman was harmless, she posed a threat to the fearful. Her medical knowledge threatened the doctor. Her simple, true spiritual values threatened the superstitious nonsense of the Catholic church, as did her affirmation of the sensuous body. Her independence and freedom threatened men. So the Inquisition descended on her, and cruelly tortured her into confession to lies about the devil. She was burned alive by men who hated women, along with millions of others like her."

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? That would be our prototypical fantasy healer/herbalist.

But the fascinating part here, is what Purkiss says next:

"Do you believe this story? Thousands of women do. It is still being retold, in full or in part, by women who are academics, but also by poets, novelists, popular historians, theologians, dramatists. It is compelling, even horrifying. However, in all essentials it is not true, or only partly true, as a history of what happened to the women called witches in the early modern period."

It's when we begin to imagine the variety of the history obscured by this idea of the herbalist, of the healer, that we can see the diversity of fantastic possibilities which that history suggests.

Comments

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

I haven't read that Purkiss-- so you like it? I didn't reckon much on her book on fairies....

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

Yes, I like it. But she won me over right away with her idea that it isn't really fair to the women of the witch trials to see them primarily in terms of their symbolism, their place in some great long parade of male-on-female prejudice and violence, and not for themselves and their individual experiences, insofar as such can be discovered.

[pedropadrao.livejournal.com]

Actually, Johannes Kepler's mother was tried as a witch. Although he was afraid that some of his writings would be used by the prosecution (especially his Somnium, in which the narrator's mother is an old lady who does the whole herbal nostrums/communes with spirits thing), what mostly seems to have caused Mrs. Kepler to get into trouble was that she was an argumentative old lady from a family that had once been important in the neighborhood, but had since had a 2 or 3 generations-long run of alcoholism, foolhardy heirs, etc..