by Gina S.
Most often, in literary and artistic works of the last many centuries, regardless of their aesthetics and mediums, we see representations from which we recurrently deduce a fixed association between the practice of witchcraft and the female gender, irrespective of the geographies where they were produced. Inquiring what exactly favors the formation and circulation of such a stereotype reveals a whole map of possible interconnected answers within a dynamic historical-ethnographic context. There is a very solid body of sources presenting data about male practitioners of magic, with different purposes, but these have not yet become more popular than the stereotype in question. Below, we will see a few perspectives and data that can help explain this model of representation and which bring witchcraft into discussion without attributing it to a specific gender.
Spells at the Edge of the World
Local culture continues to allow – for example, through pop music and programs dedicated to public opinion, though not limited to these – the dissemination of a predefined association between witchcraft and the Roma ethnicity. It is a type of mentality we find in different periods and currents throughout the cultural history of the European Middle Ages, where any ethnic population in the process of marginalization is sooner or later accused of various forms of witchcraft. The same causes that lead to the peripheralization of populations can also be recalled if we wish to discuss the marginalization of the female presence and its isolation in an environment parallel to any political-administrative function, throughout a comprehensive section of history. This is the background against which literature, broadly speaking, underestimates the presence of men in that “magical dimension” of existence. As Alison Rowlands shows in the work “Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe”, in the early phases of European modernity, male persons represented, in most countries, roughly a quarter of the persons accused and punished for witchcraft, and this proportion became significantly larger in the northern areas of the continent, namely in Russia, Estonia, Iceland, or Normandy.
“Țiganiada” (1800–1812), the epic poem written by Ion Budai-Deleanu, is one of the best-known local literary examples where witchcraft is attributed to a female Roma person and summarily included among the critical and ironic subterfuges addressing the superstitions that, from the author’s perspective, were characteristic of Roma communities. In the 18th century, in Wallachia, there were already accusations against women that they had attempted, or succeeded, in poisoning people with mercury, or other “diabolical deeds” (Bogdan, 329, 2020). Although at this historical moment publishing activity was developing, a very good part of the accessible archival content is composed of the travel notes of diplomats from all over Western Europe and beyond. Throughout the last century and the preceding decades, these records became the main sources for most authors in the humanities. Aesthetic trends observed in contemporary prose can also be interpreted based on that section of archival sources, especially if we want to track representations of the “Gypsy witch” myth, and examples in this sense are titles such as: “Mîţa Vinerii” by Doina Ruști, “O formă de viaţă necunoscută” by Andreea Răsuceanu, or “Hanul lui Manuc” by Simona Antonescu, published between 2014–2018. (Ibid.)
Ioan Pop-Curşeu, a specialist in cinematography, media, and interested in the anthropological aspects of witchcraft, insists in turn in a work on this mythology, synthesizing various accusations of magical practice and persecutions against the Roma in multiple European spaces, including Transylvania and Wallachia. For the latter two territories, we can name authoritative figures like Petru Maior, or Dimitrie Cantemir, among others, who declared their opposition to the “superstitious customs” of the Roma population and often presented it in insulting forms. From Pop-Curşeu’s perspective, medieval and modern policies failed, despite authoritative aggression, to undermine the magical power of Roma groups and mentions in this context “a kind of syndicate”, a Union of Witches of Romania about which today we find no concrete data, further explaining that the profile of those who routinely resort to witchcraft practice has not strayed from that described by the Church Fathers in Late Antiquity. In his interpretation, witchcraft is attributed, with little deviation, to “impostors”:
“Contemporary witches enrich themselves at the expense of the gullible and build villas with underground garages for the luxury cars they own. Therefore, the Gypsy witch did not die after so many centuries of xenophobia and persecution, but has been transfigured, demonstrating an astonishing capacity for adaptation and living a new youth with the help of the written press, television, and the internet. Thus, the story of xenophobia and fascination is not yet nearing its end…” (Pop-Curșeu, 2014, 43)
While this combination of xenophobia and fascination proposed by Pop-Curșeu presents too high a degree of ambiguity for the dissemination space of our research, it is sufficient for now to state only that such a perspective excludes multiple crucial historical approaches for documenting the phenomenon of witchcraft. Next, a few historical and ethnographic contexts relevant to explaining the gender confusions in the field of witchcraft will be summarized.
Genderless Witchcraft within Romanian Magical Practice
A first clue found among local sources regarding the general confusion about the genders of witchcraft is precisely the linguistic form, as can also be observed in several other European countries. We have, on one hand, studies that refer exclusively to witchcraft as a female practice (vrăjitoare, fermecătoare, meșteroaie etc.), where the terms vary with the regions studied (sometimes taking on pejorative meanings) and, on the other hand, studies where we find the masculine form (fermecător, vrăjitor, magician, descântător, vraci), either encompassing both genders, or referring only to the male gender. For a good number of those concerned with the subject of witchcraft, the differences identified in debates have more to do with the offensive/defensive character of the practice (white magic versus black magic) and less with the gender of the practitioner. We also find in various ethnographic studies the expression “magical technician,” which obviously does not draw attention to gender, but to method, from a perspective that does not seem to distinguish magic from other trades or usual activities.
In an article dealing with witchcraft in the manuscript tradition, Bogdan Neagota, who also uses the expression “magical technicians,” publishes fragments from ethnographic questionnaires where male practitioners are also mentioned. One of them is indicated by a woman from the village of Valea Copcii, Mehedinți, who was included in the field research because she was suspected of being a witch. Her responses did not specify differences between female and male magical practice, the emphasis being on the practitioners’ “fall from grace,” a condition imposed by the policies of the Catholic churches, implicitly the Orthodox ones. Also, the magician she discussed did not live in the same village but was settled in the mountainous area near Oltenia. Neagota described that condition of “fall from grace” as a common element of the ecstatic techniques of Mehedinți and Banat, but this can be discussed in a much broader register, where the linguistic form varies, but the content indicates the same Christian tradition of thought. The author draws attention to a term no longer used today, iatromancy, referring specifically to “iatromants,” male witch doctors specialized in medical therapies and divining the “term of life and death,” who “are not as efficient as the witches fallen from Grace, whose qualification is superior.” (Neagota, 2015, 85–86) The example of Moș Nincu, from Gârliște, Banatul Montan, is brought here, who became a witch during his military service and about whom a village neighbor said he used the services of “a simple devil,” “held captive in a glass of water,” thus arguing the practitioner’s lack of connection with “the holy.”
During the field investigation coordinated by Antropoflora in the summer and autumn of 2025, in Dobrogea, multiple examples of men recognized for practices considered magical in the villages of this region are recorded. Moș Enciu from the village of Nalbant, who lived until the first part of the 2000s, remains well-known among local communities as a healer, specialized in bone treatments, but also a good preparer of plant-based remedies, skilled in applying bandages and with a particular sensitivity of tactile perception, which he reportedly discovered from his early years, according to sources. His name remains well-impressed in the village’s memory, as a street was named here “Moș Enciu Street.” In Maliuc, there was reportedly again a man renowned for incantations, whom a source from Letea remembers practicing different rituals on full moon nights, or in Vișina, another incantation specialist visited by a multitude of clients from Constanța and probably other nearby areas.
Also, within a series of interviews with an ethnographic stake in 2017 (independent research published under the title “Dreadful Folktales from the Land of Nosferatu”), which sought to discover “specimens” of oral folklore as remembered by inhabitants of different origins from Bucharest and Ilfov, one of the persons who contributed stories presented a series of intense moments experienced by a man, known as Constantin al lui Vrăjitoru’ (Constantin the Witch’s Son). He was captured by the Russian army and sent to the Siberian taiga because he fought alongside German troops in the Second World War, and in captivity he had “supernatural” type connections with his family, who believed him deceased. The example is relevant for the history of magical practices in Oltenia, as the central “character” of that narrative was the son of a family of witches from near Craiova. The details offered on the occasion of this story highlighted a principle of collaboration between the witch and the warlock of the 19th-20th centuries in the rural environment, which in this case appears in the form of a partnership, a marriage, a dynamic we do not observe too often in conventional local literature.
An essential research for exploring this subject dedicated to the genders of witchcraft was carried out by Alexandra Coțofană between 2011–2017 and targeted the ritual magic characteristic of Romanian Orthodoxy. Her results show that both practitioners and those who use magic from the perspective of “clients” can be associated with any gender. Developing this aspect, we can redefine magical practice itself in less strict terms, as a technique for regulating multiple aspects that can be medical, emotional, social, or of any kind. Also using the results of a study from about 20 years ago, conducted by C. Gavriluță in Moldovan villages, Coțofană notes a high number of male practitioners in this country, contrary to stereotypes that present women as the predominant practitioners and clients of witchcraft services, prejudices that work to the detriment of all practitioners. (Coțofană, 2017, 71) Alexandra Coțofană’s research included interviews with 15 magic practitioners from Bucharest and Suceava, 12 female and three male, of which six persons of Roma ethnicity, three persons considered by the community to be of ethnicity but who did not identify with this description, and another six persons without belonging to a marginalized ethnicity. Her analysis emphasizes how beliefs in the supernatural have been approached throughout history for the purpose of obtaining or extending political power, referring to an entire tradition of thought concerned with explaining the role of magic in politics. From what we understand here, both in the case of Romania and other states, the history of witchcraft cannot be written without the history of secularism. This process of secularization taking shape through a multitude of “imaginary histories” starts from a Western cultural model that post-colonial states had to follow in their turn, local examples in this case being the pilgrimages of Orthodox communities to the ceremonies of exorcist priests, or the negative public opinion regarding Roma women and their magical practice. (Ibid, 84)
The Parapsychologist and the Priest, Undeclared Witches
Under the circumstances of Romania’s modern development after the ’90s and, later, its accession to the European Union, witchcraft was often proposed as a response to the “ruptures introduced by communism, post-communism and the various secularization projects present in these epochs and political regimes.” Coțofană describes how the neoliberal policy characterizing the Romanian state seeks to empower male figures to the detriment of female ones, thus correlating the factual situation with the gender hierarchies in the pantheon of ancient deities. The author observes that the magical practices of both genders invoke entities of the Orthodox Christian cosmology which are predominantly male. Also, she draws attention to the fact that in the context of political debates for the taxation of witchcraft, men were never as affected as women by these measures, they being able to be integrated into much more stable professional environments, such as the Church or psychological pseudo-sciences. (Ibid, 86–87) An example from the 2010 presidential elections is proposed here, when Mircea Geoană accused Traian Băsescu of winning thanks to “occult” aids received from the parapsychologist Aliodor Manolea. The example of the parapsychologist is meant to accentuate the contrast between the so-called professional “guru”, of white race, and the “queen of white magic”, the Roma woman portrayed by television and other media in their chase for the sensational, who lacks a resonant name, a profession, or a recognized form of education. (Ibid, 81).
Valer Simion Cosma emphasizes the hypothesis that, despite the discourses of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, which aimed to catechize the populations and label popular beliefs and practices as traces of paganism or superstition, members of the clergy were also practitioners of magic and believed in what they “combated”. It is discussed that, within church teachings and liturgical literature, charms, curses and other forms of magic and witchcraft are perceived as “real threats”, not just as “superstitions” and customs or “primitive” beliefs, which is why church traditions propose a series of rituals and prayers. (Cosma, 2019, 47) In an 18th-century Greek-Catholic catechism, magical formulas appear in a version encouraged by the church, a fact which also applies in the case of the Orthodox prayer book (molitvelnic). Whence it results, as Cosma shows, that not all magical practices were forbidden by church authority, but only those adopted by the faithful from rural environments. (Ibid, 50)
From the first centuries of Christianity, the main function of the priest was to heal both the soul and the body through rituals, prayers, and various offices. The fundamental book, in the tradition of the Romanian Church, as well as in other Eastern and non-Eastern Churches, includes rituals, blessings, and prayers that the priest must serve on various occasions. The prayer book (molivtelnic) or euchologion, the liturgical book with the most published editions, contains rituals and prayers for various problems and situations, such as: invocations against spells and curses, prayers for exorcisms following the model of those of Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Basil the Great, prayers for driving out demons and unclean spirits, invocations in case of various human or animal illnesses, and rituals for various crises, such as drought or torrential rains. (Ibid, 51) While church regulations impose a clear opposition between the clergy and witches, for the faithful, the distinction was never clear, because magic was evaluated based on context, not as being intrinsically good or evil. Also, Cosma recalls Nicolae Cartojan’s research on medical folklore, which described how manuscripts were Christianized in order to be tolerated by the Church, a process left to priests and monks, as they represented the only literate group in Romanian society. (Ibid 55)
Besides rituals for combating spells and curses, the priest could also officiate a liturgy or a blessing of holy water (sfeștanie), to attract luck and divine blessing, as well as to nullify the effects of curses, which also represented a method of resolving various problems affecting a person or a family. A popular belief mentioned by Elena Niculiță-Voronca in Bukovina, at the end of the 19th century, held that if one pays for a liturgy in church on the first Sunday of the new moon, then any wish or request, be it for health, luck, or a good life, would be fulfilled. Beyond this economic factor, Dan Horia Mazilu highlighted in turn the importance of church curse books in resolving judicial problems. Various bishops issued such books to manage situations otherwise considered unresolvable. Kept by “initiated” priests and passed down from generation to generation, curse books were used only in cases considered extreme, such as identifying an unknown killer or punishing a criminal endangering the safety of a community. According to church law, only hierarchs had the right to curse, but, in practice, many priests used these books or curses taken from liturgical texts. The book “Afurisenie și blestem” (Anathema and Curse), published in Cluj-Napoca in 1907, after a Russian translation from 1868, describes the curse as an instrument for punishing the wicked and praising the good, mentioning the apostles’ power to bind and loose. Thus, the faithful who kept the divine commandments were blessed and forgiven, while those in the opposite category, who “deceived or harmed their neighbors,” were cursed and entrusted to “eternal darkness” along with those who were their allies. (Ibid, 61)
In the 18th century, a Franciscan monastery in Ciuc held one of the richest collections of blessings and exorcisms. Here was printed “Fasciculus benedictionum”, a 72-page volume dedicated especially to rituals against storms. The text was a compilation from semi-official European manuals, some of them on the list of books banned by the Vatican for their “superstitious” character, and the rituals, occupying 45 pages, were elaborate. A Franciscan priest confronted the storm under the open sky, uttering exorcisms and conjurations to drive away the “black angels”, the demonic forces into the depths, where they could no longer do harm. If one method didn’t work, the book instructed to move to the next. This practice, sometimes called the “white magic” of the Church, offered solutions for multiple problems of daily life, from agriculture and health to protection against witchcraft. The practice was based on the power of sacredness, although theologically, the effectiveness was attributed to God, and not to the objects or phenomena themselves. Although the Council of Trent (1545–1563) led to the marginalization of such superstitious practices, they survived for a long time in the missionary activity of the orders. In Hungary, this phenomenon persisted until the mid-18th century, when the Catholic Enlightenment brought a radical change of perspective, making the image of the priest exorcising clouds and skies seem, ultimately, bizarre or amusing. (Bárth, 2022, 62–63)
Regional Variations of Male Witchcraft Cases
To decentralize the issue of gender and undermine other generalizing assumptions, of Western inspiration, in the narratives about the persecution of witches, especially outside the sphere of influence of Western Christianity, the case of Russia proves the most interesting to study. There, men were much more exposed to the risk of being accused of witchcraft than women, and unlike cases with greater recognition, the trials that took place did not seek to prove a connection of the accused with demonic or anti-Christian elements. A single case from the 17th century presents a copy of a demonic oath, copied by court officials, which provided for the absolute renunciation of God, saints, and relatives, followed by an oath of loyalty to the Devil and his servants. Otherwise, the concerns of officials and accusers boiled down to the causation of harm as a result of magical activity, to physical effects such as inflammations, weakness, hernias, impotence, children’s illnesses, infertility, and spiritual possession, their importance being evidently greater than identifying the source of magical inspiration (pagan, demonic, etc.). (Kivelson, 2003, 606–609) The tribunals in Moscow were more interested in the power of analogy than in dark supernatural forces. Although women suffered less persecution for witchcraft in Russia compared to other areas of Europe, associations between the feminine and witchcraft were not lacking in this case either, once due to the “Judeo-Christian” convention connecting the figure of Eve with the feminine and a supposed “deceitful” character, and secondly through the classic mythology of Baba Yaga, which became popular in the 17th–18th centuries in Russian culture. (Ibid, 612)
On the other hand, in his theological works, Martin Luther approached witchcraft as a gender-neutral phenomenon. However, in popular writings, Luther distanced himself from this position and explicitly identified witchcraft as a predominantly female crime. He argued, like many others, that women, like Eve, are more vulnerable to the Devil’s temptations. In this context, Luther firmly supported the death penalty for witches, whom he accused of causing havoc in the community – from stirring up storms and administering poisons to destroying property. He labeled them as thieves, adulteresses, and murderers. Although theoretically Luther used both masculine and feminine terms for magic practitioners, his detailed descriptions consistently attribute the most serious witchcraft crimes to women, which would be committed in direct alliance with the Devil. Men were described in this context as practicing mainly magic of weapons, a completely different activity. This perspective determined his hierarchical view of the genders. Despite seeing women as God’s creatures and marriage partners, Luther was convinced that witchcraft originated in the female essence. He himself declared that he would show no mercy to witches and would burn them personally, invoking the Old Testament to justify his radical position. (Schulte, 2009, 103–104)
Nevertheless, in German areas, starting from Luther’s era until towards the end of the 17th century, the number of men who suffered persecution for magical practices increased significantly. For example, in the Duchy of Westphalia, if until 1570 an increase in the number of accused men was noted at 17.4%, by 1680, the percentage of increase was 58%. The reason is placed on the account of the elites who formed the noble society at the end of the 16th century and who, based on popular opinion, considered the sabbath as a village festival, where men highlighted in various ways their important role in organizing events, or attracted attention through the interpretation of music and dances. (Rowlands, 2009, 5).
In 1612, in the village of Bergedorf, Joachim Witte was accused of witchcraft and then tortured. He confessed that, at the Devil’s command, he had killed 88 animals, thus admitting both guilt of maleficium (harmful magic) and the existence of a demonic pact. Three women suspected of complicity were also arrested but did not confess their guilt. The authorities from Hamburg and Lübeck intervened, criticizing the abuse due to the level of torture used. The women were thus released, but Witte died in custody, which is why the locals stormed the tribunal, with weapons, and demanded the burning of Witte’s corpse and the torture of the women. The authorities refused, buried Witte according to Christian ritual and definitively released the women, then fined the protesters. This case illustrates two aspects typical of the “witch hunts” in the Holy Roman Empire: the popular pressure “from below” (provoked by living conditions imposed “from above”) for the criminal prosecution of those suspected of witchcraft and, the significant presence of men (here, 25% of the accused) among the victims. (Schulte, 2009, 52–53)
Various analyses of trials in areas like Holstein, Carinthia, and Franche-Comté show that men were convicted as witches in high numbers, independently of women, and not as collateral damage. They were perceived equally, not as inferior versions of witches. However, the gender distribution varied regionally, some areas recording clear female majorities, others attracting attention through the number of persecuted men. In territories like Bamberg or Trier, male victims came from all social classes, but especially from among food artisans (bakers, wine merchants), being easily suspected of poisoning. Most of the accused remained, however, from the lower social classes. The demonology of the period attributed to some men characteristics considered feminine, thus indirectly “feminizing” them. (Ibid, 246–247)
Also, in the same European area, in the Duchy of Lorraine, approximately 28% of those accused of witchcraft were men. During the main period of persecution (circa 1570–1630), between 500 and 600 men were probably tried, and the proportion between the persecuted genders remained constant. Over sixty years, the ducal authorities organized approximately 2000 trials, of which complete records survive for an estimated 400 of them. Given the population of 300,000 inhabitants, this was one of the most intense persecutions in Europe, surpassed only by those in the Duchy of Luxembourg and the Electorate of Cologne. (Briggs, 2009, 31)
Like Romania, most European countries (Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Spain, England, Ireland, and others) have had throughout history a consistent male presence in witchcraft practice. One last comparative example brought into this discussion corresponds to Italy (excluding Sicily) in the premodern period. In the Italian language, the terms differ according to gender: strega (witch) for women and mago (warlock) or necromancer for men. Although they belonged to different social groups, both had similar aims: healing, obtaining wealth, sexual favors, or knowledge. Criminal prosecution, part of another European campaign against “superstition,” targeted both women and men here as well. Doctors and the Church tried to monopolize the practice of healing and the supernatural, which led to the incrimination of lay practitioners, especially healers. However, men were also accused, although the proportions varied regionally: sometimes the majority of the accused were women (Venice, Modena, Siena), and in other cases a significant percentage were men (45% in Friuli). Italian demonologists, although influenced in turn by the Catholic treatise “Malleus Maleficarum,” like many others, were more hesitant to associate witchcraft exclusively with women, some even offering pertinent explanations for the predominance of men among the accused. The gender construction of witchcraft in Italy has a complex nature, being closely linked to discourses about mysticism and false sanctity (Herzig, 2013, 9–10), aspects that demand a broader examination also in a study applied to the territory of Romania.
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