It’s October, where the onset of fall, Halloween, and the alleged thinning of the veil between the living and dead initiates interests in ghosts, sorcery, and witches. But in the last few years, there’s been a proliferation of witches in literature, including romance, cozy mystery, science fiction, and urban fantasy, among others—and not just at Halloween. It’s a current trend that’s created a social media label “witch lit.” On TikTok, the subcategory “witchtok” has garnered almost 7million posts.
“Witches are definitely a big thing, which is exciting and fun,” Phoebe Morgan, a publisher at Hodder Fiction, was quoted as saying in The Guardian’s article, “Spellbound: why ‘witch lit’ is the hottest new genre on our bookshelves.” There have always been witches in novels, but the current trend has grown exponentially, the article stated.
Much of the genre places women in powerful roles, their magic shaping their futures and sometimes those around them. Madeline Miller rewrites the Greek witch Circe in her novel of the same name, even adjusting Odysseus’s role from Homer’s Odyssey, in which Circe becomes the heroine. Alix E. Harrow’s New York Times best-selling novel The Once and Future Witches features three sisters joining the suffragette movement in the fictional town of New Salem. They reignite witchcraft of old to give women the vote. Bianca Marais’s modern-day coven fights the patriarchy threatening their livelihood in The Witches of Moonshyne Manor, which author Susan Wiggs calls “a celebration of womanhood at its brightest.”
Have female characters as witches performing magic become popular to their mostly female demographic because of the sense of empowerment magic gives?
“I feature witches in both paranormal cozies and urban fantasy, and I definitely think female empowerment is a big draw,” said Annabel Chase. “The cozies are whodunits where the witch solves the case that law enforcement can’t or won’t, and in UF she is oftentimes saving the world. She may use magic as a tool, but it’s the woman herself who saves the day. Readers love that.”
“Witches are feminists with a dose of magic,” said Jane Thornley. “I, for one, love to read about women becoming visible by virtue of their abilities and superpowers.”
The history of witches
Historians define the history of witches and witchcraft from the magical, in which witches guided fate with spells or performed evil deeds, to the practical, where certain women in villages acted as healer, midwife, and counselor.
“The village witch of legend would be called doctor today,” said Lynn Cahoon, who pens the Kitchen Witch series. “They found the plants that eased pain, cured illnesses, and made potions to help other women. I think they were tapped into a power we’ve given up in the modern world.”
The word “witch” derives from the Old English wicce and wicca with the root “wit” meaning wisdom. Margot Adler, in her tome on witchcraft, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers and Other Pagans in America, leans toward the Indo-European roots “wic” and “weik,” which means to bend or to turn.
“According to this view, a witch would be a woman (or man) skilled in the craft of shaping, bending, and changing reality,” she wrote.
Over centuries, women and other marginalized people were accused of everything from inflicting the evil eye and working with the devil to using their healing skills to take away business from working (male) doctors. Thousands were killed, including during the famous Salem witch trials of 1692–1693. Many were burned at the stake.
“Any woman with a thinking mind, outspoken, who did not follow the herd at one time was considered a witch,” Thornley said. “Society was that afraid of free-thinking women. If we didn’t ‘behave,’ we were punished. Of course, witches possess secret powers and there isn’t a woman today living in what is still a patriarchal society that hasn’t dreamed of being seen for who she really is—powerful. We are always struggling to define ourselves beyond stereotypes.”
Changing the image
Halloween, with its costumes and role-playing, brings out the image of the patriarchal witch that began during the witch trials—an ugly, cackling hag riding a broom to inflict evil on the world. Examine the items this witch depiction holds and one finds the broomstick, one of the most valuable pieces of a woman’s household, and the cauldron, the pot in which women brewed herbs and poultices to heal members of their village.
On the other hand, readers now have strong witches performing magic in popular fiction titles.
“I absolutely believe that with more writers bringing witches to the page as smart and wonderfully powerful women, it has helped in moving the needle from hags and evil women,” said Mindy Klasky. “I’ve always pushed hard against blanket statements about any group in particular, especially the witch as a horrible monster and evil woman, but with witches, there is still a stigma. I’m hopeful that showing them in a different light will bring more understanding and acceptance, even if it’s just highlighting the view of them through a fantasy pane.”
But how do witches in literature, particularly in more lighthearted roles, appeal to those who actually practice the craft? Does a witch accidentally turning her boyfriend into a cat, which happens in Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels, insult those who consider witchcraft a religion?
“As a Wiccan, psychic, and evidential medium, I’ve had plenty of time over my life to note how TV, movie, and fiction reflects the general outlook about anything seen as ‘woo-woo,’” said Denise A. Agnew. “For example, entertainment doesn’t generally portray psychics and mediums realistically. It’s harder to make paranormal entertainment interesting if you can’t make it more over the top than real life. A movie I think is well done but still vastly entertaining is the movie The Gift with actress Cate Blanchett.
“Although Wicca/witchcraft is recognized as a religion and/or spiritual practice, it is shown in entertainment and books as if neither one actually exists or is evil,” Agnew continued. “I think as long as witchcraft is seen as hocus-pocus or evil on the whole, it probably won’t get the respect it deserves in fiction. If there is a fictional story which portrays Wicca/witchcraft the way it really is, I’ve missed it and would love to hear about it.
“That being said,” she concluded, “I don’t have heartburn about fiction portraying witches as people who can move objects at will, fly brooms, or anything else out of the realm and ability of witches I know. As someone who creates horror novels and movies, I’m also writing woo-woo where fantastical things happen.”
Cahoon agrees that novelists may stretch the truth in regard to witches because writers are delving into fantasy in one way or another.
“I’ve had reader emails saying I got something in the magic side wrong, that what I wrote doesn’t match up with their beliefs,” Cahoon said. “I’m not writing a true witches story, I’m writing my interpretation of what a witch and a coven would be, including all the bureaucracy and petty back-biting that happens in any organization, especially an international coven of witches. I get to make up all the rules. I do have my magic books and I use them for inspiration, but not material, if that makes sense.”
How to add realism to the fantasy
To create witches in literature who more accurately represent modern witchcraft, there are numerous books on the market that explain modern witchcraft and Wicca. Adler’s ground-breaking book and Raymond Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft are two more academic guides to the craft. Publishers such as Llewellyn and Hay House have published lots of books on modern magic practices, but the big publishers have now joined the markets. Two of my favorite books, leaning toward embracing power, are Witch: Unleashed, Untamed, Unapologetic by Lisa Lister and Revolutionary Witchcraft: A Guide to Magical Activism by Sarah Lyons. An easy-to-read explanation is The Modern Guide to Witchcraft: Your Complete Guide to Witches, Covens, and Spells by Skye Alexander.
In my Viola Valentine mystery series, my main character’s psychic abilities derive from her family’s history as witches, but her powers come from the interconnectedness with nature, the basis of witchcraft. If nothing else, remember how tuned witches are to their environment and the cosmos.
In the end, however, the best recourse is to ask a witch.
“If an author isn’t a witch themselves, they’d have no reference for it unless they contacted a practicing witch or Wiccan and asked questions to get the flavor of how it might be done,” Agnew said. “I say might be done, because although there are books on witchcraft that they can use for reference, rituals can vary widely. So my advice would be try to snag a real witch. The author could then incorporate these things into their story even if it is fantasy genre and get more of a ‘flavor’ of the real deal into their story.”
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Cheré Coen (aka Cherie Claire) writes paranormal mysteries featuring a psychic witch named Viola Valentine. She’s also the author of Magic’s in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris-Gris Bags and Sachets under her birth name. She’s still in the broom closet but her office covered in stones and cat hair might give her away. She does practice moon magic in the hopes she’ll become a best-seller.