I Saw Three Witches

Posted on 31st October 2015 by Sam George

I saw three witches
Asleep in a valley,
Their heads in a row, like stones in a flood.
Till the moon, creeping upward,
Looked white through the valley,
And turned them to bushes in bright scarlet bud.

(From Walter de La Mare ‘I Saw Three Witches’)

normal_Alla_va_eso_Goya_le_on_de_volGoya_-_Caprichos_(68)

V0025829 Three witches or Fates spinning, with bodies of babies tied Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org Three witches or Fates spinning, with bodies of babies tied up behind them. Etching by F. Goya, 1796/1798. 1796 By: Francisco Goya y LucientesPublished: [1796/1798] Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

V0025829 Three witches or Fates spinning, with bodies of babies tied
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
images@wellcome.ac.uk
http://wellcomeimages.org
Three witches or Fates spinning, with bodies of babies tied up behind them. Etching by F. Goya, 1796/1798.
1796 By: Francisco Goya y LucientesPublished: [1796/1798]
Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

I went to see the wonderful Goya Portraits at the National Gallery yesterday and whilst there are no paintings of the witches above I did discover a fantastic book from a previous show in the shop which contains all these dark and diabolical images:  Goya: The Witches and Old Women Album . This is well worth a browse. Witches have been quite prominent on the blog recently so do take a peek. You can listen to  Catherine Spooner talking about Witch Craft Trials , peruse a Literary History of Witchcraft , and read my thoughts on Rise of the Sympathetic Witch and the Book of Witches from my childhood.

Happy Halloween OGOMERS everywhere!!

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About Sam George

Associate Professor of Research, School of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire Co-convenor OGOM Project
This entry was posted in Books and Articles, Critical thoughts, exhibitions, Fun stuff and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

0 Responses to I Saw Three Witches

  1. William the Bloody says:
    31st October 2015 at 9:10 pm

    And Walter de la Mare (whose poem is quoted here) was much admired by the fabulous Angel Carter, of whom we blog a lot. I have a post on her poetry to add soon.

    Reply
  2. firekrank says:
    3rd November 2015 at 10:50 am

    I must dig out my childhood book of poetry. There are definitely some witchcraft poems in there and I feel like they must have had an effect on my childhood psyche.

    Reply

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