The Witch: Historical Accuracy Meets Folk Horror

BY NICOLE LAU

"Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?" Black Phillip the goat asks Thomasin in a human voice, offering her butter, a pretty dress, and the chance to see the world. She's lost everything—her family dead or destroyed, her faith shattered, her innocence gone. She signs the Devil's book. She strips naked. She flies to the witches' sabbath in the forest, laughing in ecstatic liberation.

Robert Eggers' The Witch (2015, stylized as The VVitch) is the most historically accurate depiction of 17th-century New England Puritanism and witchcraft beliefs ever put on screen. But it's also a film about female liberation, religious trauma, patriarchal oppression, and the moment when you realize the Devil might be offering a better deal than God.

Let's enter the wilderness. Let's see what lives in the woods.

The Historical Context: 1630s New England

The film is set in 1630s New England, decades before the Salem witch trials (1692-93), but in the same cultural milieu:

• Puritan settlers – Extreme Calvinists who fled England for religious freedom, then created their own theocracy
• Predestination theology – Belief that God has already chosen who's saved and who's damned; nothing you do can change it
• Total depravity – Humans are inherently sinful, corrupt, deserving of hell
• Constant vigilance – Satan is real, active, and seeking to destroy the faithful
• Wilderness as evil – The forest is Satan's domain, civilization is God's
• Women as vulnerable – Especially susceptible to the Devil's temptations

Eggers' Research:

Eggers spent years researching:

• Primary sources – Puritan diaries, sermons, court records, witch trial transcripts
• Period language – The dialogue is taken directly from 17th-century texts
• Material culture – Clothing, tools, architecture all historically accurate
• Witchcraft beliefs – The witch's actions (baby-killing, flying, sabbath) come from actual accusations

The result: This is what Puritans actually believed. This is how they actually spoke. This is the world they actually inhabited.

The Family: Isolation and Paranoia

William, the father, is banished from the plantation for being "too proud" in his faith. He takes his family into the wilderness to start their own farm:

• William – The patriarch, prideful, rigid, failing as provider
• Katherine – The mother, grief-stricken, descending into madness
• Thomasin – The eldest daughter, on the cusp of womanhood, blamed for everything
• Caleb – The eldest son, sexually awakening, tempted by sin
• The twins (Mercy and Jonas) – Young children who claim to speak with Black Phillip
• Baby Samuel – Disappears while Thomasin is playing peek-a-boo

The Isolation:

The family is:

• Physically isolated – Miles from the plantation, alone in the wilderness
• Spiritually isolated – Cut off from their church community
• Economically failing – Crops won't grow, traps catch nothing
• Psychologically fracturing – Paranoia, accusation, and fear consume them

This is the perfect environment for scapegoating. When things go wrong, someone must be blamed. And in Puritan theology, that someone is usually a woman.

The Witch in the Woods: Is She Real?

The film's opening scene shows a witch in the forest:

• She takes baby Samuel – Steals him while Thomasin plays peek-a-boo
• She kills and grinds him – Makes a paste from his body
• She rubs the paste on her body – Anoints herself with infant fat
• She flies on a broomstick – Literally, not metaphorically

The Historical Basis:

Every detail comes from actual witch trial accusations:

• Baby-killing – Witches were accused of stealing and sacrificing infants
• Flying ointment – Made from fat (sometimes human), herbs, and psychoactive substances
• Broomstick flight – The classic witch image, based on real accusations
• Sabbath gatherings – Witches supposedly met in the forest to worship Satan

The Ambiguity:

Eggers shows us the witch is real. But he also shows:

• The family's paranoia creates the witch hunt – They turn on each other
• Thomasin is innocent – She's accused but hasn't done anything (yet)
• The Devil is real, but so is patriarchal oppression – Both are destroying this family

The film asks: Does it matter if the witch is real, if the belief in witches destroys you anyway?

Caleb's Seduction and Death

Caleb, the young son, goes into the woods and encounters a beautiful woman in a cottage:

• She appears as a young, beautiful maiden – Seductive, inviting
• She kisses him – His first sexual experience
• She transforms into a crone – The maiden becomes the hag
• Caleb returns possessed – Naked, delirious, speaking in tongues
• He dies in religious ecstasy – Praising Christ while vomiting an apple (the forbidden fruit)

The Symbolism:

• Sexual awakening as damnation – Caleb's puberty is his downfall
• The maiden/crone – The dual nature of the feminine (virgin/whore, life/death)
• The apple – Original sin, Eve's temptation, knowledge and death
• Religious ecstasy and death – Salvation and damnation look the same

Caleb's death scene is the film's most disturbing: He's saved and damned simultaneously. He praises God while dying from the Devil's kiss. There's no difference.

Black Phillip: The Devil as Goat

Black Phillip is the family's goat, but he's also:

• The Devil – Literally Satan in animal form
• The twins' playmate – They claim he speaks to them
• Violent and aggressive – Gores William to death
• Thomasin's tempter – Offers her the deal at the end

The Goat as Satan:

The association is ancient:

• Pan/Satyr – Greek god of wilderness, sexuality, chaos (half-goat)
• Baphomet – Medieval demon depicted as goat-headed
• Scapegoat – Biblical ritual of transferring sins to a goat and driving it into wilderness
• Witches' sabbath – Satan supposedly appeared as a black goat

"Wouldst Thou Like to Live Deliciously?"

Black Phillip's offer to Thomasin:

• Butter – Richness, pleasure, sensory delight
• A pretty dress – Vanity, beauty, femininity
• To see the world – Freedom, travel, escape from isolation
• To live deliciously – Pleasure, autonomy, choice

This is the Devil's offer: Everything your religion denies you. Everything your family withholds. Everything you've been taught to fear and suppress.

And the film makes you understand: Why wouldn't she take it?

Thomasin's Choice: Damnation as Liberation

By the film's end, Thomasin has lost everything:

• Her baby brother – Stolen by the witch (blamed on her)
• Her older brother Caleb – Seduced and killed by the witch (blamed on her)
• Her mother – Accuses her of witchcraft, tries to kill her
• Her father – Gored to death by Black Phillip
• The twins – Locked in the goat pen, fate unknown

She's alone, accused, with no future in Puritan society. A woman accused of witchcraft has three options:

1. Confess and be hanged
2. Deny and be hanged anyway
3. Actually become a witch

Thomasin chooses option three.

The Signing:

She signs the Devil's book with her blood. This is:

• A contract – Selling her soul for freedom
• A baptism – Initiation into a new faith
• A rebellion – Rejecting God, family, and patriarchy
• A liberation – Choosing her own damnation over imposed salvation

The Sabbath:

Thomasin walks naked into the forest and finds the witches' sabbath:

• Naked women dancing around a fire – Ecstatic, free, wild
• Levitating – Rising into the air, defying gravity and God
• Laughing – Pure joy, liberation, ecstasy
• Thomasin joins them – She rises, she laughs, she's free

The Final Image:

Thomasin floating in the air, laughing, naked, free. This is:

• Damnation – She's joined the Devil, she's a witch, she's going to hell
• Liberation – She's escaped patriarchy, poverty, oppression, and shame
• Transcendence – She's literally rising above the earth, above the rules
• Ambiguous – Is this horror or triumph? Tragedy or victory?

The film refuses to answer. It's both. It's neither. It depends on your perspective.

The Constant Beneath the Woods

Here's the deeper truth: The Witch's depiction of Puritan theology, the historical reality of witch hunts, and modern understanding of religious trauma are all describing the same phenomenon—systems of belief that create the very evil they claim to fight, that scapegoat the vulnerable, and that offer salvation through submission or damnation through freedom.

This is Constant Unification: The Puritan's Devil, the patriarchy's "hysterical woman," and the scapegoat mechanism in all cultures are all expressions of the same invariant pattern—when a system is failing, it blames the outsider, the woman, the other, rather than examining its own structure.

Different eras, same witch hunt. Different theologies, same oppression.

The Feminist Reading: Witchcraft as Resistance

The Witch can be read as a feminist allegory:

• Thomasin is blamed for everything – The family's failures projected onto the eldest daughter
• Her sexuality is feared – She's becoming a woman; this is seen as dangerous
• She has no power in the family – Her father controls her, plans to sell her as a servant
• The witch offers autonomy – The only path to freedom is through damnation
• The sabbath is sisterhood – A community of women, free from men

Historical Witch Hunts:

The real witch hunts (1450-1750) primarily targeted:

• Women – 75-80% of accused witches were female
• The poor – Especially widows without male protection
• The old – Post-menopausal women, no longer "useful"
• The independent – Women who owned property, practiced healing, or refused marriage
• The scapegoats – When crops failed, plagues struck, or economies collapsed

The witch hunt was a tool of patriarchal control: Any woman who stepped out of line could be accused. The threat kept all women compliant.

The Witch shows: If you're going to be accused anyway, you might as well actually become a witch.

The Theological Horror: Predestination

The film's deepest horror is Calvinist predestination:

• God has already chosen who's saved – Before you were born
• Nothing you do matters – Good works can't save you; you're already damned or saved
• You can't know your fate – You might be damned and not know it
• Anxiety is constant – Every sin might be proof you're not elect

This theology creates:

• Paranoia – Am I saved? Are my children saved?
• Scrupulosity – Obsessive examination of every thought and action
• Despair – If I'm damned, why try?
• Projection – If I'm anxious about my salvation, I'll accuse others

The film shows: This theology is psychologically toxic. It creates the very evil it fears.

Practicing Witch Wisdom (Without Signing the Book)

You can apply the film's insights:

1. Recognize scapegoating – When a system fails, it blames the vulnerable; don't participate
2. Question inherited beliefs – Is your theology creating fear, or liberation?
3. Reclaim the witch – The witch is the woman who refuses to submit; that's power, not evil
4. Leave toxic systems – If your family/religion/culture demands your submission or damnation, leave
5. Find your sabbath – Create communities of liberation, not oppression
6. Live deliciously – Pleasure, beauty, autonomy aren't sins; they're birthright

Conclusion: The Witch in All of Us

The Witch is a film about the moment when you realize the Devil might be right. When the system that promises salvation only delivers oppression. When damnation looks like freedom. When the witch in the woods is offering a better life than God in heaven.

Thomasin's choice is horrifying because we understand it. We might even envy it. She's free. She's flying. She's laughing.

The film asks: What would you choose? Salvation through submission, or damnation through liberation?

The Puritans would say she chose wrong. The feminists would say she chose right. The film says: She chose. And that's what matters.

Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?

Yes. Yes, I would.

As you weave these threads of historical truth and folkloric shadow into your own understanding, let the archetype of the Witch guide your deeper explorations. For those drawn to the liminal spaces between worlds, the Tarot The Moon tapestry can serve as a daily reminder of the mysteries that dwell just beneath the surface. To further align with the potent cycles that have always shaped the witch's path, consider the Cosmic Alignment Ritual Kit for syncing with the celestial flow, a tool to honor the very forces that our ancestors once read in the stars. And when you seek to deepen your personal gnosis through reflection, the Shadow Work Tarot Internal Locus Practice Guide offers a sacred container for embracing the wild, misunderstood parts of yourself that the folk horror tradition so powerfully evokes.