Kestrell

Witches, Sex, and Queer People in Massachusetts: 1644-2021
by The History Project: Documenting LGBTQ Boston

Event Information
Author Peter Muise on the intersection of sex, queer people, and witchcraft in Massachusetts history and folklore

About this event
Author Peter Muise will explore the intersection of sex, queer people, and witchcraft in Massachusetts history and folklore, and discuss his new book
Witches and Warlocks of Massachusetts
https://bookshop.org/books/witches-and-warlocks-of-massachusetts-legends-victims-and-sinister-spellcasters/9781493060245
(Globe Pequot, 2021).

Peter Muise is an avid folklore fan and New England native who blogs at
New England Folklore.
RSVP on Eventbrite
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/witches-sex-and-queer-people-in-massachusetts-1644-2021-tickets-168263750407
link to the Zoom will be sent out the day of the event. Email info@historyproject.org with any questions. For security purposes, Zoom meetings require an authenticated Zoom account, so please be sure to register with Zoom prior to the event.

For years, a mutual friend and I have been sending scare packages to a friend who moved to LA from Boston. We are all horror fans, and we all love Halloween, and autumn, so we try to include a little of all these things in the packages we send her.

What goes in a scare package? Anything spooky, or autumnal, or just plain silly.

Things we have included in previous scare packages:

a small jar (spice jar sized) labeled "Autumn," which included autumn leaves, acorns, tiny pinecones, a tiny pumpkin (these came in an autumn-themed potpourri), cinnamon and cloves
Handmade cards, handmade art, postcard with crows on it, Edward Gorey cards
A small bat finger puppet (this was a big hit)
Halloween socks
Bat earrings, handmade bead necklaces
Halloween balloons
Rubber bats with a suction cup to stick to a window/wall
Edgar Allan Poe temporary tattoos (we bought these in Salem during a one-day trip)
A thumb drive with spooky/Halloween/goth/horror movie soundtrack music on it
A thumb drive with old Halloween movies on it
Halloween chocolate or peeps, depending on the sendees favorites
An orange (it's her favorite color) silk handkerchief, fabric with autumn or Halloween themes, Halloween-themed ribbon
Mysterious-looking boxes into which to pack everything
Real or silk autumn leaves, black feathers, real acorns scattered through the contents to lend the contents a sense of having drifted there and being layered over time.

We, the senders, acquire spooky/Halloween-themed odds and ends all year long, so usually we just plunder our supply for things to include in the scare package, and then we get together and have a fun time constructing it as an art object. The other sender is great at making the handmade items, so the package really does have an overall sense of being thoughtfully and carefully put together.

The first few times we sent the scare package, we didn't tell the sendee, so we got to be something like secret witches, instead of secret Santas.

2020 could really use some secret witches sending scare packages to friends and family who usually celebrate Halloween in a big way, but may not be able to do so this year, so I'm circulating this idea in hopes that scare packages become a thing: you could even include a tag that says "Do not open until October 31."

2020 has been full enough of the bad scares: let's put some good scares in it.

The Malleus Maleficarum turned out to be all true and Heinrich Kramer, instead of being a complete crackpot, was actually right about the powers possessed by certain witches?

Heinrich Kramer, sitting at a wooden table, glares at the three female witches standing before him.
HK: Do you confess?
Witch 1 quakes in fear.
Witch 2 attempts to look even more pitiful than she is.
Witch 3: Whatever. Guess what I have?
HK: You will answer the question!
Witch 3: Okay, I totally confess...I actually do have your penis.
[Pulling penis from behind her back and waggling it at HK].
Witch 3 [ in a squeky voice]: Heeeeelllllp me, Heiny!
Witch 1, who was not quaking in fear, cackles with laughter.
Witch 2, who may or may not be blind, runs to the other side of the room: Over here, over here!
Witch 3 tosses penis to Witch 2, who pauses to examine it: It doesn't look very hammer-like...
HK is too busy checking his pants to offer a counterargument as Witch 2, wiggling her nose to make the shackles disappear, says: I still don't get why we couldn't just leave it in a tree on the way out of town, like all the other times.
Witch 1, who has gotten a Sharpie from somewhere, is drawing a face on the penis, completing it with an eye patch, and merely replies "Arrrrrrrrgh!"
HK is still staring disbelievingly down his pants.
Witch 3: Okay, girls, enough fun, let's get this time-traveling show on the road. I want to be back in 21st century Salem in time for half-price margaritas at The Witches' Brew.

A few days ago I was listening to the local classical music radio station and I heard an interview with the director of a Boston-area production of Verdi's opera, "Macbeth." The director said that, in his interpretation, the witches had all the power and that Macbeth was basically a cat's paw to them. I am unfamiliar with Verdi's opera, but this comment made me think of all the versions of "Macbeth" I have seen in which the witches and/or Lady Macbeth, who is sometimes considered to be the fourth witch in the play, seem to manipulate a malleable Macbeth into the violence he commits. I feel torn about this sort of interpretation for, on the one hand, it is gratifying to see strong female characters; however, on the other hand, it is not so gratifying to see these female characters portrayed as femme fatales or manipulators who are made culpable for the evil acts which Macbeth commits. In addition, the female characters are not seen that much in the second half of the play, so how are we to interpret Macbeth's increasingly savage murders?

Thus, I went searching for books which address the various possible meanings of the witches in "Macbeth." Gary Wills's book, _Witches and Jesuits_ (1996), jumped out at me, especially as it also explored the links between "Macbeth" and the Gunpowder Plot. With yesterday being Guy Fawke's Day, it seemed particularly timely.

Early in this short book (Wills originally wrote this as a series of lectures to be delivered at the New York Public Library), Wills addresses how "the Scottish play's reputation for being unlucky is associated with the unbalanced nature of how the title role is interpreted in modern productions. Wills links this difficulty in interpretation to the somewhat ambiguous role of the witches in modern versions, and Wills attempts to overcome this difficulty by linking the witches in "macbeth" to a number of other Jacobean plays which emerged at the same time in the 1606-1607 play season, which came soon after the execution of the man accused of being the leader of the Gunpowder Plot. James I had written and spoken about how he interpreted his narrow escape from the assassination attempt, and in his official interpretation, it was his own expertise in theology and of witchecraft in particular which allowed him to realize the plot in time to save himself. James's interpretation, and the specific language he used, became part of how the event was interpreted, and Wills explores this language closely. He also explores how the use of witches in plays was linked to political plotters and to the Jesuits, with a discussion on what was perceived as Jesuit rhetorical practices of equivocation.

Wills is a Catholic writer who has often found his literary subjects in Catholicism, so he may not be an entirely objective interpreter (if such a person exists at all), but James I was a king who based much of his rule upon theological rather than secular grounds, and Wills interpretation does help to make sense of much that is often confusing about "Macbeth." Perhaps most intriguing is Wills's claim that Macbeth himself is a male witch, and that his invocations of the witches are precisely that: magical invocations. In light of this interpretation, Wills gives a close reading of Macbeth's language as it is concerned with darkness, magic, and time.

While somereaders may disagree with Wills's interpretations, I found this book very useful for clarifying the (intentionally, as it turns out) convoluted language of "Macbeth," and an excellent book for Guy Fawkes's Day.