Fortune Telling Games

Divination by Young Girls

    The girls of Salem read their future by putting egg whites in warm water. This practice was called oomancy, and it apparently made John Hale very uncomfortable. In his account of the Salem trials, he said that the girls "tampered with the Devil’s tools so far that hereby one door was opened to Satan to play those pranks"(The Salem Witch Hunt, page 53). He also said this practice led to one of the girl's deaths, after she had seen a coffin in her future. I wonder what he would have thought of the future telling games my friends and I would play in elementary school.

    

    The game we played the most was M.A.S.H. This was a paper and pen based fortune telling game. When we played it, the letters stood for Mansion, Apartment, Shack, and House, but I've seen other variations. The players would write out MASH, a list of people they might marry, a job they may have, the number of kids, a place to live, and the car they may drive. Then, one of the players would close their eyes and draw a spiral until the person who is getting their fortune told tells them when to stop. They would count the number of rounds in the spiral and that would be their magic number. They would go down the list in each category until they reached the magic number, and whatever they landed on would be their future. I played this games many times, but have yet to marry one of the Jonas Brothers or members of One Direction, like was predicted.

        Another fortune telling game I remember fondly was the paper fortune teller. This one was much more involved because you had to learn how to fold the fortune teller. I was always bad at it, but once you got it down, you had the power of divination literally in the palm of your hand.  In this game you would fold a piece of paper to create layers where the players would choose different options that would reveal their future. To start, the player would pick a color and the fortune teller would spell it out loud, opening the fortune teller to a different side with each letter. Then, the player would pick a number and again the fortune teller would open it that many times. Finally, the player would pick a number to open and that would be their fortune. Of course, the fortunes were just written by other kids, so their legitimacy is unclear.  

    

    We always knew that these were just games. They didn't really mean anything about our future. We did them for fun in between classes or during recess. I wonder if the girls in Salem thought the same thing. Were these just silly games to pass the time, or did they really believe in those eggs? Would John Hale call me a witch for knowing how to fold a fortune teller?

I'm not sure, but I would bet the girls of Salem cracked those eggs for the same reasons we drew spirals all over our papers.

Witches in Music Videos

Witchy Music

    Our discussion of witches in film and TV has had me looking for depictions of witches everywhere. This led me to think about witches in music and music videos. For my blog this week, I compiled three of my favorite examples of witches in music.

W.I.T.C.H. by Devon Cole

    

    This song changes the word "witch" to an acronym meaning "Woman In Total Control of Herself". In the song, a W.I.T.C.H. is a confident and powerful woman. The video takes a really fun and lighthearted view on witches. The girls in the video are just dancing to the music and enjoying nature. There are multiple references to witchcraft, like when she says "it's such a wonder to be under her spell" and "I swear to God, I saw her howling at the sky", but the witches are never seen as bad or scary. The witches in this video "ain't out to get you, but [they're] better on your side". 

Seashore by The Regrettes

    This song is about the singer's experiences with being a young woman in the music industry. For context, when this song came out, she was 16 years old. The lyrics talk about her frustrations with being talked down to by older men. In the music video, she plays the part of a woman being burned at the stake after being accused of being a witch. She's not exactly angry about this, more mildly annoyed. I took this as a statement on how she is so used to being treated this way that it doesn't surprise or enrage her anymore. It's annoying, but it's nothing new. This music video makes an interesting statement on the specific kind of misogyny that younger women face.

Willow by Taylor Swift

    We talked a little about the live performance of this song in class where Taylor and her dancers look like witches at Sabaat, throwing glowing orbs around. The music video has a similar scene, where Taylor finds herself at a witch meeting in the woods. The witches are shown summoning something (orange orbs?) from the ground. Taylor joins in and the magic they produced leads her back to the love interest of the video. What we didn't talk about in class was the many official witchy versions of this song. After the song released, Taylor released remixes of this song, each a different witchy vibe. There's Willow (dancing witch version), Willow (lonely witch version), and finally Willow (moonlit witch verison). Overall, Willow is a really interesting depiction of witches in music.

    I'm sure there are many more depictions of witches in music videos, these are just the ones that stood out to me immediately. I find it interesting that all of these depictions are created by women. I wonder how these songs and their videos would differ if they were made by men.

Witchy Children's books

 The Witch who was Afraid of Witches by Alice Low

This week in class we are discussing how witches are depicted in children's books. The book I picked is called "The Witch who was Afraid of Witches" and it is by Alice Low. The title of this book stood out to me because I thought it might follow the classic "good witch/bad witch" characterization. It takes a very interesting approach to this idea.

Plot overview

The book begins follows Wendy, a young witch. She is afraid of "older, bossy, mean witches like her two sisters". Her sisters have their own special powers, but Wendy only has weak powers. On Halloween, a young boy dressed as a ghost comes to their house to trick or treat. She goes with him and learns that she has the power to make up her own spells, she just has to use her own voice. She casts a spell on him that turns his ghost costume into a witch costume. When she goes home, she casts spells on her sisters so they can't fly their brooms. They come home and realize Wendy's powers have changed. They respect her more because she has come into her power. The book says "they knew she was different... just like one of them".

Analysis

First, I want to discuss the way this book visually depicts witches. The witches in this book have a very classic witch look. They have the long black dresses, pointy black hats, brooms, and are often seen around black cats. I think this was a good choice for a kids book because the witches are very recognizable. Interestingly, Wendy is often shown without her hat and in more colorful clothes. I think this was done to set her apart from her sisters and make her more relatable to the audience. The classic witch look Wendy's sisters rock matches the classic "bad witch" personality they have in the book, while Wendy is more sympathetic.

This book is interesting because the main character is a "bad" witch, but it's not really depicted as a bad thing. Wendy wants to be scary and put powerful spells on people. She even puts spells on her sisters so they can't fly. She's doing things that "bad" witches do, but it's presented in a fun and silly way. This silly tone let's children better understand the real message of the book, the importance of being yourself. Wendy learns that to be the most powerful witch she can be, she has to be herself and stop comparing herself to her sisters. 

I think that this message aligns well with the witchy theme. Witches are by definition, different. They are something other than human and they have special magic or knowledge that gives them power over people. This identity lends itself to the lesson that it's important to be different.

Overall, I thought that this book was really cute. It's a nice story and message with vintage style drawings. I give this book 4/5 broomsticks. It misses one broomstick because in the end, she doesn't tell her sisters about her power and I didn't think that was a satisfying ending.