The Lore and Myths of Witches – Chapter 1: From Clay Tablets to Roman Alleyways

0:00 Speaker 1: Due to the upcoming Halloween season, the Strange History Podcast

0:04 Speaker 1: will be celebrating with a multi part series on the

0:07 Speaker 1: history of witches. No, we do not mean your mother

0:10 Speaker 1: in law or the cranky lunch lady from grammar school

0:14 Speaker 1: who always skimped on the French fries and whose hairnet

0:18 Speaker 1: looked questionable at best. We mean witches, a person thought

0:23 Speaker 1: to have magic powers, especially evil ones, popularly depicted as

0:27 Speaker 1: a woman wearing a black cloak and pointed hat and

0:30 Speaker 1: flying on a broomstick. Buckle up so you do not

0:34 Speaker 1: fall off your broomstick, and get a cup of hot

0:36 Speaker 1: cider and your furriest familiar and enjoy the next few episodes.

0:43 Speaker 2: Welcome, dear listeners to the Strange History Podcast. I'm Amy,

0:46 Speaker 2: your guide through history's dustiest corners and strangest broom closets.

0:51 Speaker 2: Today we're launching an epic journey, a mega episode tracing

0:55 Speaker 2: witches through every twist of the human story. Not just

0:58 Speaker 2: the wardy cartoon for variety, but healers, rebels, midwives, and

1:03 Speaker 2: mischief makers who shaped and sometimes terrified their societies. So

1:08 Speaker 2: grab a mug of something warming or something bubbling if

1:11 Speaker 2: you're feeling theatrical because we're heading back nearly five thousand

1:15 Speaker 2: years to wear. The first whispers of witchcraft scratched themselves into.

1:19 Speaker 1: Clay Mesopotamia sorcery on clay tablets circa two thousand to

1:26 Speaker 1: six hundred BCE.

1:29 Speaker 2: The world's earliest surviving witch trials weren't held in a

1:33 Speaker 2: gloomy courthouse, but in the mind of a worried Sumerian

1:37 Speaker 2: farmer somewhere along the Euphrates. Goats were getting sick, grain

1:41 Speaker 2: was failing, and neighbors began muttering about Kishpu spells meant

1:46 Speaker 2: to blight crops or strike enemies. Cooneyformed tablets record a

1:50 Speaker 2: whole lexicon of magical worry. The ashi Po think of

1:54 Speaker 2: them as priest detectives specialized in sniffing out curses. If

1:59 Speaker 2: you suspect did someone hext your beer supply, you called

2:02 Speaker 2: an Ashipu, who would chant over clay figurines representing the culprit,

2:07 Speaker 2: then burn them in a brazier. The ashes, they believed,

2:11 Speaker 2: scorched the evil right out of the world. Sumer Akad, Babylon, Assyria.

2:17 Speaker 2: Every city had archives of charms to unbind sorcery, legal

2:22 Speaker 2: texts punishing malevolent magicians, and rituals like the maklu or burning.

2:29 Speaker 2: This wasn't superstition in isolation. It was part of law, medicine,

2:33 Speaker 2: and state craft. The king himself might order a counterspell

2:36 Speaker 2: if omens looked bad.

2:38 Speaker 3: Today's Mesopotamian segment is brought to you by Hexof, trusted

2:43 Speaker 3: since eighteen hundred BCE, whether it's kishpu or just bad irrigation.

2:48 Speaker 3: Hexof keeps your goats happy and your neighbor's nervous.

2:51 Speaker 1: Egypt heka isis and the magic papyri circa one thousand,

2:58 Speaker 1: eight hundred to three hundred BCE.

3:02 Speaker 2: Down the Nile. Magic wasn't just tolerated, It was sacred.

3:06 Speaker 2: The Egyptians called it heca, a cosmic force as essential

3:10 Speaker 2: as bread or sunlight. Priests used it to maintain harmony

3:14 Speaker 2: between the gods and mortals, carving protective spells into tomb

3:18 Speaker 2: walls or hiding amulets in linen wrappings. Ordinary people joined

3:23 Speaker 2: in a mother might whisper charms over a newborn. A

3:26 Speaker 2: fisherman might scratch prayers on a potsherd before casting his net.

3:31 Speaker 2: The famous magical papyri spanning the late Ferionic to Greco

3:36 Speaker 2: Roman periods read like a grab bag of life, hacks,

3:39 Speaker 2: protection from crocodiles, formulas for seduction, recipes, to compel spirits,

3:45 Speaker 2: to fetch information. Isis, queen of sorcery, set the bar

3:50 Speaker 2: high by resurrecting Osiris with her words, proof that language

3:54 Speaker 2: itself could restitch the world. But Egyptians also told cautionary

3:59 Speaker 2: tales about necromancers overstepping, like setnikamwas a prince who stole

4:05 Speaker 2: forbidden spells and almost doomed himself.

4:10 Speaker 3: This portion of our cruise up the Nile is brought

4:12 Speaker 3: to you by Papyrus plus the only scroll tough enough

4:15 Speaker 3: for resurrection spells and grocery lists alike.

4:19 Speaker 1: Greece wise women, moon drawers, and tragic potions eight hundred

4:25 Speaker 1: to one hundred BCE.

4:27 Speaker 2: Cross the Mediterranean and you find witches with theatrical flare.

4:32 Speaker 2: Circe in Homer's Odyssey, lives on an island surrounded by

4:36 Speaker 2: bewitched lions and wolves previous guests who didn't mind their manners.

4:40 Speaker 2: She lures Odysseus's crew with wine and turns them into pigs,

4:44 Speaker 2: but later, over a polite dinner, gives him directions to

4:48 Speaker 2: the underworld. Hospitality counts even in sorcery. Medea, granddaughter of Helios,

4:55 Speaker 2: mixes her potions with a side of tragedy. She rescues

4:59 Speaker 2: Jason within chi panted Salves, then betrayed unleash's vengeance that

5:04 Speaker 2: makes every later breakup look mild. Philosophers argued about whether

5:09 Speaker 2: charms were real or clever psychology, while poets wrote of

5:13 Speaker 2: Thessalian witches who could draw down the moon, either a

5:17 Speaker 2: metaphor for astronomy or a wild herbal harvest under moonlight.

5:22 Speaker 3: This moonlit tail is sponsored by Luna Hook for safe

5:26 Speaker 3: effective lunar extraction. Always follow ethical moon harvesting guidelines.

5:31 Speaker 1: Rome Law, satire and lead curse tablets first BCE to

5:38 Speaker 1: fourth CE.

5:40 Speaker 2: When Rome inherited Greek culture, it imported the witch, along

5:44 Speaker 2: with olives and drama. Romans loved a good law, and

5:48 Speaker 2: as early as the Twelve Tables, they banned anyone from

5:52 Speaker 2: enchanting another's crops. That didn't stop people from sneaking cursed

5:56 Speaker 2: tablets to phixiones into wells, calling on underworld gods to

6:01 Speaker 2: blight competitors or make lovers more attentive. Poets gave witches

6:07 Speaker 2: a bad pr team Horace's Canidia stalked graveyards, brewing poisons

6:12 Speaker 2: with wolf liver and screech owl feathers. Ovid turned spells

6:16 Speaker 2: into punchlines, describing love charms alongside beauty tips. But satire

6:22 Speaker 2: couldn't erase demand. Market stalls sold amulets, charms, and powders

6:27 Speaker 2: for everything from toothache to treason. Roman witchcraft sat at

6:32 Speaker 2: the crossroads of religion, gossip and state anxiety. Emperors occasionally

6:38 Speaker 2: expelled astrologers and magicians when politics got tense, proving that

6:43 Speaker 2: even the Caesars worried about the power of a good hex.

6:47 Speaker 3: This Roman interlude is brought to you by cursed tab

6:50 Speaker 3: lead sheets. For every occasion, Ride it, fold it, toss

6:54 Speaker 3: it in a fountain, and remember the gods aren't liable

6:58 Speaker 3: for side effects.

6:59 Speaker 2: And there you have it. Our broomstick has flown from

7:02 Speaker 2: river valleys and royal tombs to moonlit Aegean cliffs and

7:06 Speaker 2: Roman back alleys. In every corner, magic lived alongside daily life,

7:12 Speaker 2: shaping laws, stories, and dinner party gossip. Next up, we

7:17 Speaker 2: head north, where Vikings, Celts and Slavs carved their own

7:22 Speaker 2: witchy legends into ice stone and spinning huts on chicken legs.

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7:31 Speaker 1: friends