History Workshop Journal

Abstract

Witches were women who did not feed others except to harm them. Failed exchanges of food typified a witch’s interactions with her neighbours. So one woman, suspected of being a witch, offered two sisters who lived in her house a dish of Bavarian carrots. Yet this was a two-edged peace offering. The woman insisted the sisters eat the food, and sat with them until it was all consumed. One of the two was pregnant, and the dish made her ill.38 The witch said the food would strengthen the child within her, yet this this period when her life was predominantly lived in the world of women, she could not leave the house and some believed her to be under the power of the Devil.43 Evil influences might make their presence felt; ghosts might appear. At the end of this time she would go to church for the ceremony of purification or churching, which marked her return to marital cohabitation and public life; and the lying-in-maid would be dismissed. Today the attendant psychic conflicts of this period of the mother’s life might be described as relating to the loss of the pregnant state and the ending of the unity of mother and child. Together with the incessant demands on time and energy that the new infant makes, these might be related to maternal depression and to a mixture of feelings toward the infant which may extend to anger, envy or even to wishing harm to the child.

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