Witches in Portuguese Folklore

And they came, in the whisperer wing of the breeze,
Claps, screams, cristal laughter,
Ripping sharp slits in the silence.
They were the accursed witches, poor nymphs, 
Lovers of Satan, the old Pan... 
They love darkness and evil places, 
Those deep and schismatic mouths, 
The thick forests and pale waters
Where the nocturnal things are reflected,
Dematerialized, reduced
To its simple and animic skeleton.

And other witches, in moolight gangs, 
Passed in the air, fantastical, dancing 
With sparkling winged devils... 
And Fear, grandfater of ghosts and gods, 
Condensed the moonlight in cold tears,
And turned into marble the distant and vague fluids...

Teixeira de Pascoaes, O Doido e a Morte, I 

In Portugal the majority of folk stories, or what most would call fairy stories, are related to evil creatures and to the other wordly. When my family would get together and share stories that are passed down from one generation to the other these were the type of stories that were told. In this collection of preternatural narratives a prominent place is reserved to witches. Almost everyone knows of a story about the sound of an inexistent sewing machine that all could hear at night, women who unwittingly became witches by accepting an inheritance or even the famous “iron hand”. All these acounts are related to witches in one way or other.

The Nature of the Witch according to Portuguese Folklore

I’ve heard that in some places, like Eastern Europe, witches may be seen in a positive light: in Portugal that is not the case - witches are always evil. It may be important to remember that portuguese people are and always have been Catholic, and witches represent an oposition to Catholicism, since their “god” is Satan. This worship of Satan is patent in numerous folk stories such as “O companheiro das Bruxas”, “O Homem e as Bruxas” and “Os dois Almocreves”, where they are servants of the devil and practice certain rituals that clearly demonstrate they are his subjects.

To become a witch one may learn, inherit (passar o fado or passar a sina) or even bey be the victim of a curse and become a “corredor de fado” (fado runner).

A person may be born a witch or learn to be witch and then be initiated in that life through rituals. This is the process that today people would better understand, because it conforms itself with the modern way of life. However, in folklore is not so common. The most common are corredores de fado and the witch who inherits that life.

So, how does the witch inherits this fate? Well, when a witch (usually the mother, or a woman in the family) is dying she can pass down her fado/sina. Sometimes her children may not know what they are accepting, other times they know and want it. According to Tia Desterra’s father, the decrease in witches’ numbers is preciselly due to the understanding that this fate was being passed down on the time of death, and to avoid that, instead of holding the hand of the witch, people would give the woman a stick, so that the fate would pass into it, and afterwards it would be burnt, erasing that line of witches forever¹.

The last type of witch is the corredores de fado (Fado runners) - they are people who were cursed. At night, they will get out of bed and run the fado (correr o fado): they have, in one night, to run through seven bridges, seven hills, etc., and only after doing so can they return to their senses. They will take off their clothes and run. To break the curse there are two possibilities: the first is to burn the runner’s clothes, the second is to make a small cut (one that bleeds) on the person while they are in that “transe”. Usually someone could get this curse if they were the seventh daughter or son in a row or even if the godfather mispronounced the words at the Baptism. These people are not evil per se, but they are still related to the devil since they are possessed by him and, because of that, are dangerous in the state of transe, since they are not in control of themselves - the devil is.

Witches: Rituals and powers given by the devil

In Portugal the witch has no particular physical feature other than to be dressed in white. She can be anyone and generally, as some stories show, even family would be unaware she was a witch. This was possible because a witch, it seems, does not earn money making potions and casting spells - that’s the job of the sorceress - the witch does all that and more because she is evil and because she is under the devil’s orders. She dresses in white to go to the conciliable, not all the time, and the name of these meetings in portuguese is senzala, according to F. Manuel do Nascimento, but Leite de Vasconcelos writes that he was never able to confirm this information, since the portuguese population he interviewed was never able to give him a name². Portuguese fairy stories do not give the name of the witches conciliable, but tell the reader that they would meet in forests³ and that the population would call it dancing balls.

In folk stories describing these conciliables the witches would start by kissing the devil’s anus, which might seem ridiculous when one is reading or listening to the tale, but in reality this practice submits and degrades to the extreme the one who practices it. Next, the witches will tell the devil their wrongdoings - bigger the crime, bigger the reward, smaller the crime, bigger the punishment - a strange distortion of the Sacrament of Confession, where the penitent confesses their wrongs to the priest so that the sins can be nullified by the Blood of Christ and then given a penitence - bigger the sin, bigger the penitence, smaller the sin, smaller the penitence.

In portuguese folklore witches do not have brooms, nor pointy hats, nor dress in black. As I wrote above they dress in white, problably when they get together in their dancing balls, and it’s impossible to know if someone is a witch or not, unless they are seen in a middle of a ritual, casting spells or in a conciliable. Several stories tell about people who found out family members were witches because they saw them casting spells or were told by others who knew. The witches have the power of shape-shifting, being able to transform themselves into cats, ducks or even insects like flies or mosquitos, that could enter any house by the keyhole. They also have the power to “suck people” (chupar pessoas), this means that witches are able to suck blood like vampires, and like vampires they can be draw out with garlic.

Another famous power of witches, but not exclusive to them, is the iron hand. When they are being troubled by someone or someone offended them they can give them an invisible slap with a preternatural force.

Although portuguese witches do not have brooms, they are still able to fly. They do it by anointing themselves with oil and afterwards casting a spell.

I will now translate some folkstories. You will notice that some are told as if the teller knew the protagonists. This is how this stories are usually told, because they happened to people near to the story teller.

Examples of Folkstories

THE LOST RING⁴

Once upon a time, a lady lost her ring, so her husband and servant went to a sorceress’s house, who told them to sleep there.

At night, the Devil met the sorceress, who told him what her guests wanted. The Devil then told her that the ring was inside a yellow pig, that ate it on the watering trough, because the lady, while giving water to the pig, let it slip through her finger; but, the Devil said that the sorceress should say the ring had been given to a male friend, “so that soul could be lost” (because the husband would then return home, kill the wife and would go to hell). However, the servant heard everything the Devil said.

When the sorceress told the consultant all that the Devil told her to, he quickly mounted his horse to go home and kill his wife. The servant went right behind him screaming for him to stop. But he wouldn’t stop. Then the servant said: “"Stop, or I will shoot you!” The master stopped and the servant told the truth. They went home, the pig was killed and the ring was found.

I believe this very small sample of folkstories is enough to give you an idea of how this stories are. I may write more about this subject later, since there’s much more information to share.

1. https://www.memoriamedia.net/index.php/expressoes-orais/p%C3%B3voa-de-varzim/122-expressoes-orais/povoa-de-varzim/ti-desterra/2098-o-fim-das-bruxas

2. VASCONCELLOS, J. Leite de, Contos Populares e Lendas Vol. I, Acta Universitatis Conimbrensis, 1969, pág. 433

3. VASCONCELLOS, J. Leite de, Contos Populares e Lendas Vol. I, Acta Universitatis Conimbrensis, 1969, pág. 433

4. VASCONCELLOS, J. Leite de, Contos Populares e Lendas Vol. I, Acta Universitatis Conimbrensis, 1969, pág. 403