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Pinkbits: A lesson in etymology
Compiled by Margaret Chernela Husbandry: farm work. (Anglo-Saxon). The woman’s husband (“one bonded to the house”) worked on her farm in exchange for marriage. Bitch: One of the goddess Diana/Artemis’ sacred titles. She was the goddess of hunting and leader of the hunting dogs. Eventually became a negative word in Christian Europe. Hag: Originally meaning “holy woman”. In Greece, “Hag” was the Queen of the Dead (or Hecate) incarnate in high priestesses. It came to mean “fairy” in the 16th century, also when “hagazussa,” or “moon-priestess” was used in Old High German to describe a wise woman. “Hagiology” is still the term used for the study of saints, but “hag” now, according to the dictionary, refers to a woman who is “vicious, frightful, and repulsive because of her age.” Broomstick (and its Connection to Witches): One reason the broomstick is connected to witches is because of its prevalence in pagan rituals relating to marriage and birth. In Rome, pagans believed that the goddess Hecate’s midwife swept doorways to rid bad spirits that could harm a new-born baby. Hecate herself was the overseer of all marriages, whose broomstick symbolized sexual union. The married couple jumped over a broomstick at their ceremony. During the Renaissance, when the church took control of previously churchless marriage ceremonies, they ruled “by the broom” unions illegitimate. Another reason why broomsticks are associated with witches is because the predominantly female witch cults of the past saw the broomstick as a phallic-god symbol. They actually used the broomsticks to masturbate after applying a “flying ointment” to the broom, usually consisting of drugs like aconite which produced feelings of “giddiness, confusion, lethargy, tingling sensations followed by numbness, and quite possibly the illusion of flying” (Walker, B. 1983). This practice of female-masturbation gave the church yet another reason to label witches as immoral and perverse. Sources: |
