Witches have been a part of our culture for a long time. And, unsurprisingly, it wasn’t always the well-witching that got highlighted. Considering most of our elementary knowledge comes from learning about the Salem Witch Trials…not exactly a positive starting point. But when other types of magic in the media are celebrated, why are witches often painted in a negative light?
Some of the earliest writings about witches painted them as evil beings who used their magic to harm others, like Hecate in Greek mythology.
But before we get more into the history, we need to throw a few more witches at you. So whether you claim yourself for Wicked or Hocus Pocus, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina or American Horror Story: Coven, we have some facts (and books) that may be of interest.
Scroll down for a literary history of witches, and some dazzling witchy book recommendations!
The History of Witchcraft in Literature
Witches go way back—all the way to the 1400s. This is back when people like Joan of Arc were alive and the Aztecs were big, so yeah, it was a while ago.
Early on, witches were just seen as “wise women,” like someone you might go to when you need some homemade cough syrup or advice about your future. As time went on, rumors began (don’t you hate it when that happens?) and witches started to become misunderstood.
Many people believed they had magical healing powers, but also powers they might use for evil. Some even believed they could talk to dead people (!!). One of the earliest stories that featured a witch was the popular fable, you’ve probably heard of it… Hansel and Gretel by the Grimm Brothers.
Luring kids into your house to eat them may not have portrayed witches in the best light, but today, thankfully, witches are featured in tons of books, movies, and TV shows, and they are awesome instead of scary (for the most part).
Famous Witches in Folklore & Pop Culture
Witches were first written about in ancient folklore. This is where the fears began because these women had power and strength, and, of course, that scared the men a bit. (What?! Men feeling threatened by powerful women and then trying to turn society against them by spreading lies for their own personal gain? We’ve never heard of such a thing!) These growing cultural fears came more from stories and rumors rather than from actual facts and experiences. (Hmm…)
Hecate and Circe are two famous witches from Greek mythology. They are goddesses of witchcraft and are both known for their mysterious powers. Circe was written to enjoy turning men into pigs after luring them to her island with her beauty. Honestly, she’s kind of relatable. Some of those guys probably deserved it, but still, not cool. She appears in many Greek legends, including Homer’s Odyssey. The goddess Hecate gained cult followings throughout history and even had ancient poems written about her, called Homeric Hymns.
Hecate is the goddess you might see witches talking to or about in movies when they chant or call on some higher power for magic.
Most of the people burned or hanged for witchcraft through the years were women. As literature has continued to feature witches in more novels, they are frequently characterized as powerful and beautiful women. However, some witches still have a bad reputation! There’s often a stereotype of older witches being yucky and evil, while younger ones are pretty and nice. We don’t love that characterization, but we think there’s hope for even better tales on the horizon.
While more modern (and classic) depictions of witches in movies and TV attempt to use witches to represent female empowerment or feminism, there are plenty of shortcomings, especially when it comes to intersectionality. The pretty/good witch and ugly/bad witch trope has long stood in media: think of Glinda, the white-skinned and pretty good witch, and her evil sister, The Wicked Witch of the West, painted as ugly with a larger nose and green skin. This harmful trope enforces the narrative that white and conventionally attractive is good, while anything else is bad or evil.
Witchcraft and magic is largely practiced by people of different backgrounds, including Black people, indigenous people, Hispanic people, and other people of color, but that representation often falls short in the representation of witches in media. Witch representation in media is largely cisgender as well, but some modern literature aims to correct that.
Witches on Social Media
If you’re on TikTok, chances are, you’ve come across a TikTok witch. Yes, TikTok witches are a thing. And some of them really do know what they’re doing, even if others inspired nothing more than a few laughs. It’s important to remember that the heart of witchcraft is magic, and magic has different meanings for different people. While some representations of witches in media (including on social media) focus on using magic for personal gain or evil, there are plenty of witches, brujas, and brujos who practice magic in positive ways, for healing and coming together. Those witches are real and important, and their stories are, too.
While there is a complicated history of the representation of witches in media, there’s a much wider range of representation that celebrates all different kinds of witches nowadays—because witches aren’t a one-size fits all kind of thing. So no matter what kind of witches you want to read about, we’ve got a recommendation for you here.
11 Bewitching Books
THAT WILL HAVE YOU UNDER THEIR SPELL
1. Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart
This Jamaican-inspired fantasy debut about two enemy witches who must enter into a deadly alliance to take down a common enemy has the twisted cat-and-mouse of Killing Eve with the richly imagined fantasy world of Furyborn and Ember in the Ashes.
Divided by their order. United by their vengeance.
Iraya has spent her life in a cell, but every day brings her closer to freedom—and vengeance.
Jazmyne is the Queen’s daughter, but unlike her sister before her, she has no intention of dying to strengthen her mother’s power.
Sworn enemies, these two witches enter a precarious alliance to take down a mutual threat. But power is intoxicating, revenge is a bloody pursuit, and nothing is certain—except the lengths they will go to win this game.
2. Extasia by Claire Legrand
Her name is unimportant.
All you must know is that today she will become one of the four saints of Haven. The elders will mark her and place the red hood on her head. With her sisters, she will stand against the evil power that lives beneath the black mountain—an evil which has already killed nine of her village’s men.
She will tell no one of the white-eyed beasts that follow her. Or the faceless gray women tall as houses. Or the girls she saw kissing in the elm grove.
Today she will be a saint of Haven. She will rid her family of her mother’s shame at last and save her people from destruction. She is not afraid. Are you?
This searing and lyrically written novel by the critically acclaimed author of Sawkill Girls beckons readers to follow its fierce heroine into a world filled with secrets and blood—where the truth is buried in lies and a devastating power waits, seething, for someone brave enough to use it.
3. Over My Dead Body by Sweeney Boo
In the days leading up to Samhain, the veil between the world of the dead and the living is at its thinnest.
One day, everything was exactly as it was supposed to be. And the next, the closest thing Abby ever had to a sister, Noreen, was just… gone.
Distracted by the annual preparations for the Samhain festival, Abby’s classmates are quick to put Noreen’s disappearance aside. The Coven will find her, Abby’s friends say. They have it under control.
But Abby can’t let it go. Soon a search for answers leads her down a rabbit hole that uncovers more secrets than Abby can handle. As mounting evidence steers her toward the off-limits woods that surround the academy, she begins to see that Noreen’s disappearance mysteriously has a lot in common with another girl who went missing all those years ago…
4. The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters
Girls have been going missing in the woods…
When Natasha’s sister disappears, Natasha desperately turns to Della, a local girl rumored to be a witch, in the hopes that magic will bring her sister home.
But Della has her own secrets to hide. She thinks the beast who’s responsible for the disappearances is her own mother—who was turned into a terrible monster by magic gone wrong.
Natasha is angry. Della has little to lose. Both are each other’s only hope.
From the author of Ghost Wood Song, this eerie contemporary fantasy is perfect for fans of Wilder Girls and Bone Gap.
5. How To Succeed In Witchcraft by Aislinn Brophy
Magically brilliant, academically perfect, chronically overcommitted—
Shay Johnson has all the makings of a successful witch. As a junior at T.K. Anderson Magical Magnet School, she’s determined to win the Brockton Scholarship—her ticket into the university of her dreams. Her competition? Ana freaking Álvarez. The key to victory? Impressing Mr. B, drama teacher and head of the scholarship committee.
When Mr. B asks Shay to star in this year’s aggressively inclusive musical, she warily agrees, even though she’ll have to put up with Ana playing the other lead. But in rehearsals, Shay realizes Ana is . . . not the despicable witch she’d thought. Perhaps she could be a friend—or more. And Shay could use someone in her corner once she becomes the target of Mr. B’s unwanted attention. When Shay learns she’s not the first witch to experience his inappropriate behavior, she must decide if she’ll come forward. But how can she speak out when her future’s on the line?
6. Improbable Magic for Cynical Witches by Kate Scelsa
Seventeen-year-old Eleanor is the last person in Salem to believe in witchcraft—or think that her life could be transformed by mysterious forces. After losing her best friend and first love, Chloe, Eleanor has spent the past year in a haze, vowing to stay away from anything resembling romance.
But when a handwritten guide to tarot arrives in the mail at the witchy souvenir store where Eleanor works, it seems to bring with it the message that magic is about to enter her life. Cynical Eleanor is quick to dismiss this promise, until real-life witch Pix shows up with an unusual invitation. Inspired by the magic and mystery of the tarot, Eleanor decides to open herself up to Pix and her coven of witches, and even to the possibility of a new romance.
But Eleanor’s complicated history continues to haunt her. She will have to reckon with the old ghosts that threaten to destroy everything, even her chance at new love.
7. Twin Crowns by Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber
Wren Greenrock has always known that one day she’d steal her sister’s place on the throne. Trained from birth to return to the palace and avenge her parents’ murder, she’ll do anything to become queen and protect the community of witches who raised her. Or she would, if only a certain guard wasn’t quite so distractingly attractive, and if her reckless magic would stop causing trouble. . . .
Princess Rose Valhart knows that with power comes responsibility—and she won’t let a small matter like waking up in the desert with an extremely impertinent (and very handsome) kidnapper get in the way of her duty. But life outside the palace is wilder and more beautiful than she ever imagined, and the witches she has long feared might turn out to be the family she never had.
But as coronation day looms and each sister strives to claim her birthright, an old enemy becomes increasingly determined that neither will succeed. Who will ultimately rise to power and wear the crown?
8. Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton
In the ancient river kingdom, where touch is a battlefield and bodies the instruments of war, Mia Rose has pledged her life to hunting Gwyrach: women who can manipulate flesh, bones, breath, and blood. The same women who killed her mother without a single scratch.
But when Mia’s father announces an alliance with the royal family, she is forced to trade in her knives and trousers for a sumptuous silk gown. Determined to forge her own path forward, Mia plots a daring escape, but could never predict the greatest betrayal of all: her own body. Mia possesses the very magic she has sworn to destroy.
Now, as she untangles the secrets of her past, Mia must learn to trust her heart…even if it kills her.
9. When The Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore
From the author of The Weight of Feathers comes a young adult novel about a girl hiding the truth, a boy with secrets from his past, and four sisters who could ruin them both.
To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Sam is known for the moons he paints and hangs in the trees and for how little anyone knows about his life before he and his mother moved to town. But as odd as everyone considers Miel and Sam, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful sisters rumored to be witches.
Now they want the roses that grow from Miel’s skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love. And they’re willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to make sure she gives them up.
10. Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can’t get rid of him.
When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his true gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.
However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school’s resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He’s determined to find out what happened and tie off some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave.
11. Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova
Alex is a bruja and the most powerful witch in her family. But she’s hated magic ever since it made her father disappear into thin air. So while most girls celebrate their Quinceañera, Alex prepares for her Deathday—the most important day in a bruja’s life and her only opportunity to rid herself of magic.
But the curse she performs during the ceremony backfires, and her family vanishes, forcing Alex to absorb all of the magic from her family line. Left alone, Alex seeks help from Nova, a brujo with ambitions of his own.
To get her family back they must travel to Los Lagos, a land in-between, as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland. And while she’s there, what she discovers about herself, her powers, and her family, will change everything…
Who’s your favorite witch, literary or otherwise? Let us know in the comments below!