Everything is seasonal, and for those of us that live in Salem the Witching Season begins on October 1st. You can feel everyone getting ready, getting on guard, as our city turns into Witch City. Tomorrow night is the grand Haunted Happenings parade, sponsored by the Salem Chamber of Commerce, of course. The carnivalesque atmosphere is apparently good for business, so we’re all supposed to forget that we are trading on a tragedy. I can never do that, so I’m kind of annoying to be around in October: this is my fair warning for new readers not yet exposed to my October rants. Despite the fact that I disdain absolutely everything about Halloween in Salem, I do like all the other seasons, and I also have an intellectual interest in the creation of Witch City, which definitely took some time–at least a century, maybe more. I’ve explored many of the contributing ingredients here before (including witch spoons, German witches, witch postcards, witch plates, and the Witch House), but there is a lot more that can be added to the mix. Casting witches in a celebratory environment is really nothing new: in the late medieval and the early modern periods they were stereotypically depicted in a hedonistic way: partying and dancing and whirling in wild abandon. One of the most graphic texts on early modern witchcraft, Francesco Maria Guazzo’s Compendium Maleficarum (1608) presents dancing as a key ritual of demonic homage, as do many other contemporary texts. Witches dance with the Devil.
Guazzo, Compendium Maleficarum, 1608; Wellcome Library woodcut illustration, 1720.
Most people stopped believing in witchcraft in the nineteenth century but yet still witches danced, in more of an entertaining (as opposed to threatening) way. The best example of the “romantic” dancing witch is of course Niccolò Paganini’s Le streghe (‘Witches’ Dance’), composed about 1813. The subject matter, combine with Paganini’s seemingly “unnatural” skills on stage, created another variation on the Dance with the Devil: perhaps his virtuosity was the result of a Faustian pact! When the Witches’ Dance was published in the middle of the century, Paganini actually assumes the traditional position of the Devil on several sheet music covers. The popularity of Paganini and his Witches’ Dance inspired many variations on the theme, musical and otherwise, including one by Salem’s famed band leader, Jean Marie Missud (1852-1941), the (very) long-time director of the Salem Cadet Band: March of the Salem Witches (1896). Appropriately for Salem, which by that time had marshaled witchcraft as a marketing tool, and for the March’s commissioner, the Winslow Lewis Commandery, Knights Templar, Salem witches marched rather than danced to this particular tune.
The Celebrated Witches’ Dance transcribed for the Piana Forte by Wm. Vincent Wallace, William Hall and Son, New York, 1852, Library of Congress; J. DeLancey, Witches’ Dance. Grand Galop de Concert, 1909, New York Public Library Digital Gallery; Jean M. Missud, “March of the Salem Witches” Sheet Music, Journal of Antiques and Collectibles and Digital Library of America.
October 1st, 2014 at 8:01 am
yes, ‘trading on a tragedy’. When I lived in Andover, I learned that town’s part in the trials – about those accused – where they lived, walked, hid. about the man who read the names of the accused and stopped at the 43 name, not believing what he read – and then had to flee the town because the citizens wanted the rest of the names. It is today part of my understanding of the world. I cannot celebrate it.
October 1st, 2014 at 8:21 am
Andover played a big role in what we know as the “Salem Witch Trials” yet it has not become Witch City.
October 1st, 2014 at 8:51 am
I really enjoyed your blog. I have always been curious about the Salem and the witches. It is sad that Salem now celebrates such tragic events. Thank you for being a voice for the victims!
October 1st, 2014 at 3:18 pm
I appreciate your perspective, Donna. “Trading on tragedy” is spot on. Denial is rampant, isn’t it?
October 1st, 2014 at 6:00 pm
It certainly is here in Salem in October, Candace! Thanks so much for commenting–love your books!
October 1st, 2014 at 8:11 pm
Similar phenomenon with the Shakers: because they danced in services, they were perceived unfavorably (Satanic Papists, once you factor in that “Ann Lee is their Pope” element), and their early ecstatic dancing was gradually supplanted by organized “laboring,” which was more deliberately paced and not unlike a march.
October 1st, 2014 at 9:27 pm
Such an interesting comparison!
June 26th, 2015 at 6:25 pm
[…] Finally, what better post to end October’s Carnival on than Donna Seger’s post on the image of the dancing witch! […]
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December 28th, 2017 at 1:11 am
Do you know if the original copies of any of the above variations of “Witches Dance” would be considered rare? How hard would it be to aquire one?
December 28th, 2017 at 8:22 am
I think they’re pretty rare, Searra.