Chela

· 05 Aug 2022

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The Beginning of the Dark Stage

#history Chronicles of Ancient Greece detailed magical acts performed by women, who used them for amatory purposes. These classic authors describe the enchantments they performed, which were recited in verse in the form of a spell. Even in the Old Testament, in the first Book of Samuel (28-4), the existence of a necromancer capable of evoking spirits is mentioned. The biblical text provides important information about the repression exercised against these arts, since when Saul required their services, she did not want to collaborate in fear of suffering the penalty reserved for the necromancers and magicians of that time. These examples serve as a precedent for the most gruesome episodes that would go down in history.

Etymologically, the word witch has an uncertain origin, making it only clear that its dissemination and imposition date from medieval times. Without being able to forcefully assert its origin, according to some studies one could speculate on its Greco-Latin origin. In Latin there is the adjective of Greek origin phygius with its Latinized variant brugius and both refer to the person or thing from the region of Phrygia, which occupied much of the northwest of the Anatoli peninsula or Asia Minor. The presence in this area of women with supernatural powers is a constant in Greco-Roman mythology, due to the great diffusion that in antiquity and in the Middle Ages it had throughout Europe.