Witchcraft in the Central Balkans I: Characteristics of Witches

Abstract

THE conservatism of the peoples of the Central Balkans ensured that many traditional beliefs and ritual practices survived till the end of the nineteenth century, and even that some traces of them remained in the first decades of the twentieth. Noteworthy elements in this inheritance are the various supernaturally evil beings (vampires, witches, demons, etc); the roots of such concepts are no doubt to be traced back to the prehistoric past, some 5000 to 3000 years BC. The written records of Greece and Rome allude to the reputation of Thessaly in Classical times as a region where witches abounded; this is mentioned by Apuleius, Lucian, Ovid, and Horace, especially in connexion with the great legendary sorceress Medea. But it is only in medieval times, when persecution of alleged witches began in the Balkans as well as in the rest of Europe, that more detailed documentation becomes available.