Folklore in The VVitch Everyone Missed

Folklore in Film is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission.

Watch till the end of Robert Eggers’ The Witch, and you’ll be treated to a block of text that reads, in part: 

“This film was inspired by many folktales, fairytales, and written accounts of historical witchcraft…”

To which I say…

Oh, really?

Which ones?

Which folktales, fairytales, and other accounts specifically inspired 2015’s The Witch?

The answer: 

These ones. 

The ones in this book. 

I’m I. E. Kneverday, let’s take a look.

Pssst. You can watch a video adaptation of this essay right here. Text continues below.

The Salem Witch Trials (1692-93)

First published in 1884, A Book of New England Legends and Folk Lore in Prose and Poetry by Samuel Adams Drake is the holy bible of New England folklore.

Especially New England folklore from before the American Revolution. 

For those familiar with this period of history, it should come as no surprise that this book is full of witches.

The Salem witch trials of 1692 and 1693—during which hundreds of alleged witches and wizards were imprisoned and twenty were executed—rightfully gets a lot of attention. 

Drake reiterates in his book that while the Salem trials were a tragedy, the existence of witches was widely accepted as fact throughout the 17th century—at least among the English.

“Had the  conviction  that  witches  existed  not  been  universal,  public  sentiment  would  never  have  countenanced  the  executions  that  took  place  in  New  England…

“Indeed,  the  most  exalted  personages  in  Church  and  State  yielded full  credence  to  all  those  marvels,  the  bare  mention  of  which now  calls  up  a  smile  of  incredulity  or  of  pity.  New  England  was  the  child  of  a  superstitious  mother.”

Back then, witches weren’t seen as conceptual representations of evil, but as physical actors—in league with Satan—who interfered with people’s everyday lives, either directly or through the help of agents (more on those later).

Eggers has made those beliefs a reality in this film.

When Is The VVitch Set? (1630s)

The world of The VVitch is a dark reflection of New England in the early 17th century—the 1630s to be precise. 

Putting our main characters smack-dab in the middle of the Great Puritan Migration, the peak of which lasted from 1629-1640. 

So this family is setting up shop in the deep woods of New England only a few years after Salem is even settled (in 1626).

For context, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded in 1628.

And if you’re wondering how the Pilgrims and the Mayflower and Plymouth fit into this timeline, that was in 1620. 

All this to say:

The VVitch is set during a liminal time.

A time when New England’s European population is just starting to boom (Salem will grow from a community of dozens to a community of hundreds in the 1630s) buuut the majority of the land is still considered wild.

Clearly what Eggers is going for here is this primordial or foundational New England witch folk tale, hence the film’s subtitle (A New-England Folktale).

Or as the man himself phrased it in an interview with Criterion: 

“I thought that I could make an archetypal New England horror story.”

I’d say he succeeded. 

But to do it, he needed Drake’s book.

Not to copy it. 

But to draw inspiration from it.

The Tragical Story of Urbain Grandier (1634)

For example, there could be another reason Eggers set The VVitch in the 1630s:

Because he read about Urbain Grandier, the French priest-turned-alleged sorcerer, who was burnt alive in 1634.

Here’s Drake comparing the episode to the Salem trials that are to come later:

“The  tragical  story  of  Urbain  Grandier  develops  the same  characteristics.  His  popularity  as  a  preacher  having  excited the  envy  of  the  monks,  they  instigated  some  nuns  to  play the  part  of  persons  possessed,  and  in  their  convulsions  to  charge Grandier  with  being  the  cause  of  their  evil  visitation.  This horrible  though  absurd  charge  was  sanctioned  by  Cardinal Richelieu  on  grounds  of  personal  dislike.  Grandier  was  tried, condemned,  and  burnt  alive,  April  18,  1634,  more  than  half a  century   earlier    than   the   proceedings   occurring  at  Salem.”

Okay, now I’m wondering:

What if the witch, as in the film’s main witchy woman in the woods, is actually someone from the village who followed Ralph Ineson’s William and his family to torment them for their insubordination?

It’s a stretch. 

Regardless, the kernel of The VVitch’s inciting incident is still there: 

A dispute amongst the ranks of a devoutly religious group.

A man removed from that group.

We’ve also got possessions.

We’ve got convulsions.

But believe me, that’s just the tip of the witch’s hat.

Time to Make the Magical Flying Ointment

In Drake’s summary of how people thought about witchcraft in 17th-century New England, we can find the building blocks of writer/director Robert Eggers’s world and the worldview of his characters.

To quote Drake:

“Witches,  according  to  popular  belief,  had  the  power  to  ride  at  will  through  the  air  on  a  broomstick  or  a  spit,  to  attend  distant  meetings  or  sabbaths  of  witches ;  but  for  this  purpose  they  must  first  have  anointed  themselves  with  a  certain  magical  ointment  given  to  them  by  the  Fiend.

“This  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  what  our  forefathers  believed,  what  was  solemnly  incorporated into  the  laws  of  the  land,  and  what  was  as  solemnly  preached from  the  pulpit.  A  perusal  of  the  witchcraft  examinations  shows us  how  familiar  even  children  of  a  tender  age  were  with  all  the forms  of  this  most  formidable  and  fatal,  but  yet  not  unaccountable, superstition.”

Almost all of this shows up in The VVitch in one way or another. 

Eggers’s story is essentially bookended by a witch making the aforementioned magic flying-ointment and a whole coven of witches enjoying some ointment together during a… let’s call it a business meeting.

Kids Say the Darndest Things: VVitch Edition

Ellie Grainger’s Mercy, who I think qualifies as being of “a tender age,” certainly utilizes her knowledge of witch lore to frightening effect in the film when she intones:

“I be The Witch of the Wood. I have come to steal ye! Hear me stick a-flying through the trees: clickety-clackety-clicketyclakety!”

But of course Mercy’s older sister, Anya Taylor-Joy’s Thomasin, outpranks the prankster when she declares herself the witch who stole their baby brother Samuel.

“Twas I what stole him. I’m the witch of the wood. I am that very witch. When I sleep my spirit slips away from my body and dances naked with The Devil. That’s how I signed his book… 

“He bade me bring him an unbaptized babe, and I stole Sam, and I gave him to my master. And I’ll make any man or thing else vanish I like…

“And I’ll vanish thee too if thou displeaseth me…

“Or perchance I’ll boil and bake thee since we are lack of food…

“How I crave to sink my teeth into thy pink flesh…

“I’ll make thee afraid before I have done with thee!…

“If ever thou tellst thy mother of this, I will witch thee and thy mother! And Jonas too!”

Ummm is it just me or does Thomasin know a witch-ton about witches?

But again, that’s historically accurate.

Witch Familiars: Animal Friends With Benefits

Given her knowledge of witch lore, it’s likely Thomasin wouldn’t have been too surprised to see a witch subcontracting her scares to hares and ravens (scared, yes, but not surprised).

To be fair, I did not not find a hare in Drake’s book. 

But I did find two passages that deal with witches taking the forms of various animals (or possessing said animals, it’s not really specified) in order to spy or send messages.

And I quote:

“In  the  course  of  those  remarkable  trials  at  Salem,  several  of the  accused  persons,  in  order  to  save  their  lives,  confessed  to  having signed  their  names  in  the  Devil’s  book,  to  having  been  baptized by  him,  and  to  having  attended  midnight  meetings  of witches,  or  sacraments  held  upon  the  green  near  the minister’s house,  to  which  they  came  riding  through  the  air.  They  admitted that  he  had  sometimes  appeared  to  them  in  the  form  of a  black  dog  or  cat,  sometimes  in  that  of  a  horse… “[I]t  was  in  the  orchard  here  that  the alleged  midnight  convocations  of  witches  met  to  celebrate  their unholy  sacraments,  and  to  renew  their  solemn  league  and  covenant with  Satan,  in  draughts  of  blood,  by  partaking  of  the Devil’s  bread,  and  by  inscribing  their  names  in  his  fatal  book.”

So we’ve got a book-signing scene in The VVitch, of course. 

The orchard reference here is interesting given the role apples end up playing in the film.

The draughts of blood and Devil’s bread references are a bit more… on the nose.

And as for the animal appearances, we’ve got ourselves an alleged wizard appearing to a bunch of alleged witches as a black dog (remember that for later), a cat, and a horse.

Meanwhile, the second and arguably more intriguing passage on that subject describes a sort of adopt-a-demonic-pet program, enrolling in which was apparently part of the process if one wanted to become a witch or wizard in 17th-century New England.

To quote Drake:

“The  fatal  compact was  consummated  by  the  victim  registering  his  or  her  name  in a  book  or  upon  a  scroll  of  parchment,  and  with  his  own  blood… The  bargain  being  concluded,  Satan  delivered  to  his  new  recruit  an  imp  or  familiar  spirit,  which  sometimes  had the  form  of  a  cat,  at  others  of  a  mole,  of  a  bird,  of  a  miller-fly,  or of  some  other  insect  or  animal.  These  were  to  come  at  call,  do such  mischief  as  they  should  be  commanded,  and  at  stated  times be  permitted  to  suck  the  wizard’s  blood.  Feeding,  suckling,  or  re-warding these  imps  was  by  the  law  of  England  declared  Felony.”

This passage makes me think immediately of the scene where Harvey Scrimshaw’s Caleb is in bed and starts rattling off animal names: 

“A toad. A cat. A crow. A raven. A great black dog. A wolf… She desires of my blood. She sends ‘em upon me. They feed upon her teats, her nether parts. She sends ‘em upon me.”

And lookie what we have here: a “black dog” just like in the passage from earlier.

And a cat—color unspecified, same as before and in the passage we just looked at.

Birds we’ve got covered too: a crow, a raven.

And the feeding part, although it’s not exactly the same.

Look, I’m not saying Eggers copied this.

I just think he read this book, these passages in particular, and it helped inspire his story. 

And I think that’s cool…because I’m a huge nerd.

What’s My Prayer Again?

Okay, more evidence. 

Remember when the twins “forget” the words to their prayers?

A variation of that also appears in Drake’s book:

“It  was  generally  held  to  be  impossible  for a  witch  to  say  the  Lord’s  Prayer  correctly ;  and  it  is  a matter  of record  that  one  woman,  while  under  examination,  was  put  to this  test,  when  it  was  noticed  that  in  one  place  she  substituted some  words  of  her  own  for  those  of  the  prayer.  Such  a  failure of  memory  was  considered,  even  by  some  learned  judges,  as  a decisive  proof  of  guilt.”

No, not the same thing, but similar.

And the deeper we go down the rabbit hole, the more…uh… carrots we find

The Case of Mistress Ann Hibbins

One of those carrots being The Case of Mistress Ann Hibbins from 1656.

This tale of witchcraft accusations appears under Drake’s section on Boston Legends, and it includes the following gem of a line:

“[T]he notion of a witch was like that of a serpent in the house whose sting is mortal.”

What does that remind me of?

Right, when William is grilling his daughter Thomasin:

“I saw The Serpent in my son. You stopped their prayer Thomasin.”

Okay, yes, I’m getting hung up on the word serpent. 

But then there’s this line from a little later in that same retelling of the 1656 account.

“No  wife  or  mother believed  herself  or  her  infant  for  one  moment  safe  from  the witch’s  detestable  arts,  since  she  might  take  any  form  she pleased  to  afflict  them.”

The Witch of Hampton, Goody Cole

Also in 1656, the good wife Eunice Cole a.k.a. Goody Cole of Hampton, New Hampshire was formally accused of witchcraft for the first time. 

To quote Drake:

“The  witch  of  Hampton,  was  for  a quarter  of  a  century  or  more  the  terror  of  the  people  of that  town,  who  believed  her  to  have  sold  herself  body  and  soul to  the  Devil.  Whom  we  hate  we  also  fear.  The  bare  mention of  her  name  would,  it  is  said,  hush  crying  children  into  silence, or  hurry  truant  boys  to  school. Although  she  was  repeatedly thrown  into  prison,  she  was  yet  unaccountably  suffered  to  continue to  live  the  life  of  an  outcast,  until  death  finally  freed  the  community  from  their  fears.

“Goody  Cole  lived  alone  in  a hovel… and  in  this  wretched  hut,  without  a  friend to  soothe  her  last  moments,  she  miserably  died… [S]uch was  the  fear  her  supposed  powers  had  inspired,  that  it  required a  great  deal  of  courage  on  the  part  of  the  inhabitants  to  force an  entrance  into  her  cabin,  where  she  lay  dead.  When  this  had been  done,  the  body  was  dragged  outside,  a  hole  hastily  dug, into  which  it  was  tumbled,  and  then — conformably  with  current superstition  —  a  stake  was  driven  through  it,  in  order  to  exorcise the  baleful  influence  she  was  supposed  to  have  possessed.”

Yikes.

Goody Cole’s influence would indeed persist for centuries after her demise thanks in part to poet John Greenleaf Whittier’s 1864 ballad The Wreck of Rivermouth —an excerpt of which is included in Drake’s book. 

Here’s a taste:

“Fie on the witch!” cried a merry girl,

    As they rounded the point where Goody Cole

Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl,

    A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul.

[…]

“She’s cursed,” said the skipper; “speak her fair:

    I’m scary always to see her shake

Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair,

    And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake.”

Okay, admittedly this one’s more about vibes.

Just a solid example of an archetypal New England witch—the type of character Eggers set out to create.

She lives away from the community.

She’s got her little witch hut. 

And while Whittier turns her into a storm-conjuring supervillain in his poem two centuries after the fact, it’s clear from Drake’s account that at the time, Hampton residents believed Goody Cole was literally in league with Satan. 

They genuinely feared her. 

Hence, the staking. 

Old Mammy Redd of Marblehead

Of all the witch-filled tales showcased in A Book of New England Legends and Folk Lore, the one that seems to have most directly inspired Eggers’s film The Witch concerns a one Mrs. Old Mammy Redd of Marblehead, Massachusetts.

A witch so renowned that she has her own nursery rhyme:

Old  Mammy  Redd, 

Of  Marblehead, 

Sweet  milk  could  turn 

To  mould  in  churn. 

Wait a minute.

You’re saying we’ve got a New England witch messing with the milk supply?

Drake elaborates that Old Mammy Redd could “curdle  it  as  it  came  fresh  from  the  cow’s  udders, or  could  presently  change  it  into  ” blue  wool,”  which  we  take  to be  another  name  for  blue  mould.”

And while Eggers doesn’t go the mould route in his film, it’s possible this passage helped inspire the scene with Thomasin and the goat. 

You know the one.

But to be sure, the story of Old Mammy Redd is about more than milk.

To quote Drake: 

“The  witch of  Marblehead  was  an  old  crone  by  the  name  of  Wilmot  Redd  (or  Reed),  but  more  generally  known  and  feared  as  ”  Mammy Redd,  the  witch.”  This  woman  was  believed  to  possess  the power  of  malignant  touch  and  sight,  and  she  was  able,  so  it  was whispered,  to  cast  a  spell  over  those  whom  she  might  in  her malevolence wish  to  injure.  To  some  she  sent  sickness  and  death,  merely  wishing  that  a  ”  bloody  cleaver  ”  might  be  found  in the  cradle  of  their  infant  children.  Upon  others  she  vented  her spite  by  visiting  them  with  such  petty  annoyances  as  occur.”

And that, my dear readers, is our witch. 

Or what I mean is, I think Old Mammy Redd was one of the primary inspirations for Eggers’ creation. 

The malignant touch, casting a spell that results in sickness and death, a bloody cleaver in an infant’s cradle. 

Not to mention the creepy milk thing.

These powers and this imagery—is it coincidence that we can roughly map them over to the plot of The VVitch?

I mean, maybe.

The other explanation?

Eggers read this book. 

And I’ll link it here if you want to read it as well: A Book of New England Legends and Folk Lore.

It’s pretty good. 

Although admittedly I am a bit biased because I’m a witch. 

I mean I’m from Massachusetts.

---

Thanks for reading.

Fan of folk horror?

You might be interested in my short film Samhain, available over on the Irish Myths channel.

More the reading type?

Check out…

Neon Druid: An Anthology of Urban Celtic Fantasy

---