I'm writing a story about hags and witches and have been trying RELENTLESSLY to find books or essays or anything that examines the trope of hags in history/mythology/folklore. Also interested in crones and witches, as the title states, but hags are really my central focus.
I went into this expecting a dearth of information and have been really surprised to see a lot of the stuff I've found so far is not really readily available – this seems like a feminist topic a lot of people would have studied already? But a lot of what I've found that goes in depth about hags has been D&D related, and while that's helpful in its own right I'm kind of looking for all different examples of hags to study.
I AM looking specifically for writings that examine hags through a gender study/theory lens but I'm open to anything I can get at this point. Thank you in advance!
by nikkidubs
2 Comments
R / fantasy might be able to help.
Not a scholarly suggestion but there’s this book called HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt that sort of subverts the trope of an evil witch. It starts off with the witch being the “villain” but ends up being more about the fact that women are often victimized and then villainized, how the true evil comes from those in power and mob mentality.
Also there is a book called “In Defense of Witches” by Mona Chollet examining different types of women accused of witchcraft and how those types of women are still victimized in today’s society. The description says “arguments that range from the scholarly to the cultural”