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WitchesWitches are yet another symbol of Halloween. The belief in witches has always existed in nearly every region of the world, including Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. In Western culture, the concept of a witch has existed since at least the days of the ancient Greeks, as witches figure prominently in many Greek tragedies. In colloquial use, the word witch is now applied almost exclusively to women, though in earlier English it applied to men as well. Most people now call male witches wizards, sorcerers or warlocks. Witches and wizards practice witchcraft, a form of magic which can produce effects that are beyond the natural powers of man. For example, witches have often been imagined to have the power to fly on broomsticks or distaffs. Witches appear as villains in many 19th- and 20th-century fairy tales, folk tales and children's stories, such as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", "Hansel and Gretel", "Sleeping Beauty", and many other stories recorded by the Brothers Grimm. Such folktales typically portray witches as either remarkably ugly hags or remarkably beautiful young women. In the classic story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum the villain is a bad witch but two good witches play important roles as well. Witches have come into the mainstream in the last decade as well as common pop-culture figures. Teenage and young adult witches have been the focus or appeared in the movies "The Craft," "Practical Magic," "Blair Witch Project ", and the "Harry Potter" movies, as well as the television programs "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Charmed," "Sabrina the Teenage Witch," and some episodes of "The X-Files".
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Witch" and from www.ShiningRise.com
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