Witch or demon? Fairies, vampires, and nightmares in Early Modern Spain

Abstract

Any scholar devoted to the study of the witch figure in Early Modern Spain will soon realize that the Iberian bruja is a peculiar character in European folklore. The Spanish bruja was a malevolent agent specialized, almost exclusively, in the murder of newborn babies. Her infanticide compulsion was associated with vampirism. She possessed the extraordinary capacity to enter rooms through the smallest chinks in doors or walls. She had amazing metamorphic powers. When she attacked the sleeping adults, she threw herself upon them, crushing them with her weight. On occasions, she was considered the victim of a tragic destiny from which it was impossible to escape. Some specific behavior, such as drinking the wine kept in cellars or washing clothes at the side of rivers, was also attributed to her. In these traits, the specialist in Mediterranean folklore and comparative mythology inmediately discovers the basic characteristics of a series of clearly identified mythical figures: the child-killing demon, the vampiric revenant, the fairy society and the Nightmare, specific avatars of the archaic mythology of the Double and the nocturnal spirits of the mahr-type. We can postulate, then, that the Spanish bruja, before embodying in Spain the figure of the satanic worshipper at the sabbat, gave name to a Pyrenean variant of the pan-European nocturnal demon. The evidence provided by diverse peninsular testimonies about the original meaning of the terms bruxa and xorguina, between the decades of 1280 and 1480, cover in an almost perfect way the spectrum of activities attributed to those fiends of the night. The historical evidence reinforces, then, the elements provided by the morphological analysis and by comparative mythology.

Bruxas y meigas andan xuntas. Mitoloxía y realidá de la bruxería llionesa = Witches and sorceresses walk together. Mythology and reality of leonese witchcraft

“…Rescampla que nos sínodos llioneses nunca se denomine brujas, bruxas ou meigas a quien practicaban esas artes máxicas ou curativas. 11 Campagne (2008;2009), despuéis d'estudiar diversas fuentes documentales hispanas sobre las bruxas, cumo trataos demonolóxicos, procesos inquisitoriales y materiales folclóricos nun pe-ríodu temporal qu'abranca dende'l siegru XIII al XX, destaca dalgunas singularidades de la bruxa ibérica respective a las que presentan las bruxas del restu del continente européu, entre las qu'anota la capacidá pa entrar en llugares zarraos, l'asasinatu de nenos chupando-ys el sangre, la sua presencia nocturna aprastando'l cuerpu de las suas víctimas, el sou gustu pol vinu yá seya pa bebelu ou pa mexar nél, las suas manifestaciones polas nueites nas oriellas de cursos d'augua, la capacidá de metamorfosis pa convertise en toda crase d'animales, y, en dalgunos casos, l'asimilación a figuras vampíricas. Campagne compara estas características de la bruxa ibérica con outros entes míticos europeos pa chegar a la conclusión de que la bruxa española, antias d'identificase cona figura de l'adoradora satánica que vai volando al sabbat pa practicar los sous rituales demoníacos, diou nome a un espíritu nocturnu presente nas creyencias de toda Europa.…”

"Del Orlando Furioso" a "Las lágrimas de Angélica. La mujer del Orco como mágica heredera de Canidia y Ericto"

“…25 F. A. Campagne (2008), P. Castell (2014) y A. Montaner (2014) señalan como la característica más definitoria de la bruja ibérica el vampirismo y el asesinato de tiernos infantes. 26 No el uno del otro, sino el Orco de Angélica y Canidia de Sacripante.…”