Topic
Southern Europe
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Witches’ Sabbath
The witches’ sabbath is the nighttime gathering with the Devil described by early modern judges and theologians. In Basque Zugarramurdi it led to history’s…
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Bruxa
The bruxa is the night witch of Portugal and Galicia. She turns into a bird, slips through any crack, and is a threat above…
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Lamia
Lamia is one of Europe’s oldest bogeys: a Greek queen whose children Hera took from her and who became a child killer herself. Her…
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Moura Encantada
The moura encantada is an enchanted woman from Portuguese and Galician legend. She guards treasure at springs and old ruins and can only be…
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The Witches of Zugarramurdi – The Largest Witch Trial in History and the Inquisitor Who Stopped it!
In November 1610 the Spanish Inquisition burns people from the Basque village of Zugarramurdi at Logroño as devil-worshippers – the climax of the largest…
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Lamia: How a Queen Became the Child-Killing Demon of the Greeks
She waits at the roadside, she is beautiful, she loves you — and she is fattening you to drink your blood. The Lamia is…
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The Moura Encantada – Portugal’s Most Beautiful and Saddest Legend is not a Monster at all…
At the edge of a spring, on the shortest night of the year, a woman of unearthly beauty sits combing her golden hair. She…
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The Bruxa – The Monster With a Thousand Names (The Witcher: 4 monsters and their origin, part 4/4)
The grand finale of our four-part series on the real myths behind the monsters of “The Witcher” takes us away from the Slavic forests…