Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Mexico's Unusual Witch Stories

Mexico brings us more regular stories of witches than any other place I can think of. I'm not talking about modern Paganistic movements, but actual stories of witches running around doing evil deeds.

There are lots of horror stories. I think in Mexico it might be normal to attribute strange things to witches just as easily as people in the U.S. will attribute everything to ghosts. But, unlike ghost sightings, people are actually seeing things - and what they're seeing is difficult to take seriously.

These witches aren't of the modern variety. Instead of Sandra Bullock's character from Practical Magic we are hearing about stereotypical witches from Halloween stores.  The Mexican witches are seen riding brooms and waring crooked hats while cackling with laughter.  There's even a video:



Whatever it is, it travels in a straight line and doesn't real move at all.  Probably just a few different cheap video editing effects, but I still find it interesting because there aren't many places where anyone would believe that a real broom-riding witch could be real.  For some reason, this is still normal in Mexico.  I don't know why.

Inexplicata (and English language blog about Mexican paranormal events) has a nice post about this, and the author reminds us of an old saying to put things into perspective:

It must be a hoax, one thinks automatically, since witches don’t exist, or at least not in that particular form. Or do they? As the old Spanish saying goes: las brujas no existen, pero las hay – witches don’t exist, but they’re there. 

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