Emotions in the History of Witchcraft by Laura Kounine & Michael Ostling

Author:Laura Kounine & Michael Ostling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK, London

As elsewhere in Europe, male Polish literary culture attributed to the female gender an unbridled, insatiable lust that could motivate a turn toward the dark arts. Drawing on the biblical image of the evil Queen Jezebel, who performed ‘countless harlotries and sorceries’ (2 Kings 9:22), the polemicist-priest Stanisław Orzechowski described the unpopular Queen Barbara Radziwiłłówna as having been raised by ‘shameless women, all poisoners and witches’. 26 A parallel tradition, derived more from Greco-Roman than from biblical traditions, depicted women as overcome with lust and jealousy. Here we can adduce examples from the witch trials themselves, while also worrying whether such examples tell us anything beyond conventional tropes. Consider the arsenal brought to bear by Zofia Philipowicowa, housekeeper in the manor of Sir Jan Podlodowski, to regain the affection of her noble master:The late Mrs Zawadzka (it would be ten years ago) taught me to get the heart of a pigeon, dry it, powder it, and give it to his late honour Sir Jan in a drink, so that he would be friendly toward me; I gave that pigeon’s heart to his honour to drink, and his house servants and I myself ate the boiled [heart] and drank it, sharing it half and half with his honour, and saying the following words: ‘Just as a male pigeon cannot live without his female pigeon, so let it be that you, christened and called Jan, cannot live without me, christened and called Zofia.’

Also that same late Mrs Zawadzka taught me to let a drop of blood fall from my heart-finger [i.e. ring-finger] into a drink, and give it to his honour to drink, saying the following words: ‘Just as I cannot live without my blood, so you christened and called Jan, cannot live without me.’

Thirdly she testified: That same Anuska [Zawadzka] taught me to tie a stick of aspen wood in the fireplace on a string from [my] underclothing so that he would have a yearning toward me. 27

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