According to the superstition, Shakespeare got a few of the lines from an actual coven of witches and when they saw the play they were greatly offended and cursed the play.

Although first attested in the sense ' sharp pain caused by elves ', it is later attested denoting Neolithic flint arrow-heads, which by the 17th century seem to have been attributed in the region to elvish folk, and which were used in healing rituals, and alleged to be used by witches ( and perhaps elves ) to injure people and cattle.

Inversion of normative gender roles is most famously associated with the witches and with Lady Macbeth as she appears in the first act.

The first night of the London version featured Robert Anton Wilson, accompanied by Shea, as a naked extra in the witches ' sabbat scene.

The first recorded use of it being applied to witches comes much later, from 1662 in the witch-trial of Isobel Gowdie, which describes a coven of 13 members.

Centuries ago, Sir Rupert Murgatroyd, the first Baronet of Ruddigore, had persecuted witches.

Around 1760 he turned to Shakespeare, depicting a scene from Macbeth where Macbeth and Banquo encounter the witches, noteworthy as being one of the first paintings to portray theatrical characters in a landscape.

The first major persecution in Europe, when witches were caught, tried, convicted, and burned in the imperial lordship of Wiesensteig in southwestern Germany, is recorded in 1563 in a pamphlet called " True and Horrifying Deeds of 63 Witches ".

But in contrast to Witch Hazel from Trick or Treat, first released on October 10, 1952, or Mad Madam Mim she would not be in the image of the old hag usually associated with witches.

When Aradia descended, she became the first of all witches, and promised her students that " ye shall all be freed from slavery, / And so ye shall be free in everything ".

They are also usually associated with witches, wizards and vampires ; the best-known stage version of Dracula, which first made actor Bela Lugosi prominent, featured him wearing it so that his exit through a trap door concealed on the stage could seem sudden.

He can discard his general principle in search of a better one ( for example, only obeying the Ten Commandments ), modify his general principle ( for example, choosing a different translation of the Bible, or including Jesus ' teaching from John 8: 7 " If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to cast a stone " into his understanding ), or change his opinions about the point in question to conform with his theory ( by deciding that witches really should be killed ).

* Goethe described the Brocken in his Faust, first published in 1808, as the center of revelry for witches on Walpurgisnacht ( April 30 ; the eve of St Walpurga's Day ).

She is the High Priestess and the founding mother of the Susan B. Anthony Coven # 1, the first feminist, women-only, witches ' coven.

Argento planned for Suspiria to be the first of a trilogy about " The Three Mothers ", three ancient witches residing in three different modern cities.

The later prophecy by the first apparition of the witches that Macbeth should " Beware Macduff " is also a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Christian Sabbathkeepers, who never accepted Emperor Constantine's edict in 321 A. D., the first enforcing Christian worship on Sunday rather than on Sabbath, were demonized and accused of witchcraft ; hence, the accusatory nomenclature, " witches ' sabbath.

In the first decades of the 20th century, familiars are identified as " niggets ", which are " creepy-crawly things that witches kept all over them ".

He was among the first to publish against the persecution of witches.

After his return to Scotland, he attended the North Berwick witch trials, the first major persecution of witches in Scotland under the Witchcraft Act 1563.

He also says that at first he attempted to create a confession in which he could not identify the other witches, but was forced to name names under threat of further torture.

Of Vysotsky's new songs of this period several stand out: a semi-biographical one-two punch of Medical Records: A Grand Mistake ( a superb semi-paranoid assessment of Vysotsky's medical woes ) and History of Illness ( a sober take on the same subject ), humorous Why Did the Savages Eat Captain Cook, and also the first version of Two Fates ( a chilling delusional fable of the hero being hunted by two malevolent witches ).

The first camp, sometimes called " Murray-ists ", supports British anthropologist Margaret Murray's theory of the witches ' mark.

Agnes first appears in Lords and Ladies as one of the ' cool ' new witches, led by Lucy " Diamanda " Tockley.

Flying ointment, also known as witches ' flying ointment, green ointment, magic salve and lycanthropic ointment, is a hallucinogenic ointment said to be used by witches in the Early Modern period ( first described by Johannes Hartlieb in 1456 ).

Prior to this point, any malicious acts on the part of witches were treated identically to those of other criminals, until it was seen that they owed their powers to a deliberate act of their choosing.

Lama identify witches ( pem ), act as the mouthpiece of deities and spirits, and diagnose spiritual illnesses.

The bull recognized the existence of witches :" any persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother's womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of the trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals ; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external ; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving, whence husbands cannot know their wives nor wives receive their husbands ; over and above this, they blasphemously renounce that Faith which is theirs by the Sacrament of Baptism, and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls, whereby they outrage the Divine Majesty and are a cause of scandal and danger to very many (...) the abominations and enormities in question remain unpunished not without open danger to the souls of many and peril of eternal damnation.

The black cat in folklore has been able to change into human shape to act as a spy or courier for witches or demons.

Architectural finials were once believed to act as a deterrent to witches on broomsticks attempting to land on one's roof.

They were brought to Crestfallen by the founding coven of witches to act as jesters and messengers.

The witches also return at the end of the film, viewing the drama from afar and uttering " Peace, the charm's wound up " as the final line ( this line is spoken in the first act in the original text, when the witches initially confront Macbeth ).

The rest of the first act demonstrates most of the other plays, with all of the comedies being combined into one convoluted reading ( the justification being that they all recycle the same plot devices anyway ), all of the histories being acted out through an American football game with the British Crown as the football ( or as a soccer match in at least one German production or an Australian Rules football game in the recent Australian production ), a reduction of Julius Caesar to his death, followed immediately by a reduction of Antony and Cleopatra, and a reduction of Macbeth to one duel while explaining all the other elements ( witches, Macbeth's downfall, etc.

Aside from a quaint concern with witches and devils which provides the immediate problem in the opening scene, it is a quite normal community.

For all involved in this discussion the devil is a real entity who can really be confronted in the woods on a dark night, the demon world is populated with real creatures, and witches actually can be seen flying through the air.

Mr. Kadabra is a member of the 13th floor witches, in Vertigo's Fables series.

The Charge is the promise of the Goddess ( embodied by the High Priestess ) to all witches that she will teach and guide them.

: The fluidity and wit of the witches is evident in the ever-changing acronym: the basic, original title was Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell [...] and the latest heard at this writing is Women Inspired to Commit Herstory.

Whatever the precise nature of Hecate's transition into folklore in late Antiquity, she is now firmly established as a figure in Neopaganism, which draws heavily on folkloric traditions associating Hecate with ' The Wild Hunt ', witches, hedges and ' hedge-riding ', and other themes that parallel, but are not explicitly attested in, Classical sources.

It is thought that it was shortly afterwards, from the 1250s, that the Church began to undertake the finding and punishment of witches and death did not become the usual penalty until the 15th century.

In both the earliest materials and Geoffrey he is a great and ferocious warrior, who laughs as he personally slaughters witches and giants and takes a leading role in all military campaigns, whereas in the continental romances he becomes the roi fainéant, the " do-nothing king ", whose " inactivity and acquiescence constituted a central flaw in his otherwise ideal society ".

Macbeth is Shakespeare ’ s shortest and bloodiest tragedy, and tells the story of a brave Scottish general named Macbeth who receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland.

He is certain that the witches ’ prophecies guarantee his invincibility, but is struck numb with fear when he learns that the English army is advancing on Dunsinane shielded with boughs cut from Birnam Wood.

Birnam Wood is indeed coming to Dunsinane, fulfilling half of the witches ’ prophecy.

Although Malcolm, and not Fleance, is placed on the throne, the witches ' prophecy concerning Banquo (" Thou shalt get kings ") was known to the audience of Shakespeare's time to be true: James VI of Scotland ( later also James I of England ) was supposedly a descendant of Banquo.

As the play appears to celebrate King James's ancestors and the Stuart accession to the throne in 1603 ( James believed himself to be descended from Banquo ), scholars say that the play is unlikely to have been composed earlier than 1603 and suggest that the parade of eight kings — which the witches show Macbeth in a vision in Act IV — is a compliment to King James.

Most notable is the inclusion of two songs from Thomas Middleton's play The Witch ( 1615 ); Middleton is conjectured to have inserted an extra scene involving the witches and Hecate, for these scenes had proven highly popular with audiences.

In each case, ambition, spurred by the prophecies of the witches, is what drives the couple to commit their atrocities.