✦ Ancient Wisdom · by Wooly the historian
The Real History of Witchcraft
Cunning folk, the witch trials, and how the witch became a symbol of wisdom and freedom.
Europe & beyond · antiquity – todayThe witch is one of history’s most misunderstood figures — and her true story is far more human, and more moving, than the myth. It runs from village healers to a terrible injustice to a modern symbol of freedom. Let’s walk it honestly, and give the real women and men behind the word the care they deserve.
Before the trials: the wise women and cunning folk
For most of history, the “witch” as we imagine her didn’t exist. What did exist, in villages everywhere, were the cunning folk — healers, midwives, herbalists and charm-makers who helped people with illness, childbirth, lost objects and matters of love. Many were women, and many held real practical knowledge: herbal remedies that sometimes genuinely worked.
These people were largely valued, not feared — a normal, useful part of community life. This is the true root of “witchcraft”: not devil-worship, but the everyday wisdom of ordinary people who cared for their neighbours.
How “witch” became a crime
Something dark shifted in late-medieval and early-modern Europe. A new and terrible idea took hold: that certain people made pacts with the devil to work harm. Fear hardened into doctrine, most infamously in the Malleus Maleficarum (1487), a manual for hunting witches that spread with the new printing press.
This wasn’t the discovery of real witches — it was the invention of a monster. Religious conflict, social anxiety and deep suspicion of women fused into a fantasy that could be projected onto almost anyone.
The witch trials: a human tragedy
Between roughly 1450 and 1750, that fantasy became a catastrophe. Tens of thousands of people — most of them women, often poor, widowed, elderly or simply “difficult” — were accused, tortured and executed across Europe and colonial America, with Salem in 1692 as the most famous case.
It is important to say this plainly and with grief: these were not witches. They were real human beings, caught in a machinery of fear, injustice and misogyny. Their story deserves to be remembered soberly, as one of the great tragedies of the age.
What the accused actually were
The people swept up in the trials were, overwhelmingly, ordinary and vulnerable: healers and herbalists, the poor, the outspoken, widows without protection, or simply convenient scapegoats when plague struck or crops failed. The “witch” of the trials was largely a fearful fantasy pressed onto the powerless.
It’s worth gently correcting two myths, too. The hunts did not kill “millions” — the careful figure is tens of thousands — and the victims were not members of a secret surviving pagan religion (an old idea, associated with Margaret Murray, that historians have since set aside). The truth is sadder and simpler: innocent people, punished for a crime that did not exist.
The witch reborn: Wicca and modern witchcraft
After Britain repealed its last witchcraft laws, a very different chapter opened. In the 1950s Gerald Gardner introduced Wicca, weaving together folklore, ceremonial magic, seasonal festivals and a deep reverence for nature into a new spiritual path. Other traditions of modern witchcraft blossomed from there.
Honesty asks one gentle clarification: modern witchcraft is a heartfelt 20th-century creation, inspired by older fragments rather than an unbroken ancient religion. That doesn’t lessen its meaning for the many who find beauty, empowerment and connection to nature in it today.
Why the witch endures
The witch has become one of our most powerful modern symbols — of female strength, of healing, of independence, of closeness to the earth, and of a demonised figure reclaimed with pride. To call oneself a witch today is often to claim autonomy, wonder and a refusal to be made small.
And knowing the real history makes that reclamation stronger, not weaker. It honours the wise women who healed, mourns the innocent who suffered, and turns an old word of accusation into one of freedom. That’s a transformation worth celebrating — with open eyes.
The myth vs the record
The witch hunts did not kill “millions,” and the victims were not real witches or members of a secret pagan religion — they were mostly ordinary people (often women, poor, or marginal) scapegoated in times of fear, and the honest figure is tens of thousands. Modern witchcraft (Wicca and its kin) is a sincere 20th-century revival inspired by folklore, not an unbroken ancient line. Held honestly, the witch’s true story is more moving than the myth: real healers and wise women, a tragic injustice to remember with grief, and a modern symbol of freedom and reverence for nature, reclaimed with pride.
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- Malleus Maleficarum (1487) — le tristement célèbre manuel des chasseurs de sorcières.
- Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon (sorcellerie moderne) & The Witch — références historiques.
- Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe — estimation des exécutions (dizaines de milliers, pas des millions).
- Owen Davies — les « cunning folk » (guérisseurs et faiseurs de charmes populaires).
- Procès de Salem (1692) ; la thèse (aujourd’hui réfutée) de Margaret Murray d’un culte païen survivant.
- Gerald Gardner & la naissance de la Wicca (années 1950, après l’abrogation des lois contre la sorcellerie).
A documentary history article. It tells what the sources and archaeology show, and separates established facts from legend.