Fear The Hag: The Aged Witch

The figure of the witch occupies a complex and enduring place in cultural imagination, embodying anxieties about gender, ageing, and social deviance. Far from being a mere folkloric trope, the witch was historically constructed to symbolise women who fell outside normative social and reproductive roles. The European witch trials have long been understood as profoundly gendered phenomena (Levack, 2016; Roper, 2004). However, gender alone cannot account for the patterns of persecution. Historical and sociological analyses suggest that age, bodily aesthetics, and generational status intersected to render certain women, particularly vulnerable women to accusations of witchcraft (Koeijer, 2022). Older women, widows, healers, and those living on society’s margin were disproportionately targeted. These demographic patterns align with what Butler (1969) later theorised as ageism: systematic prejudice and discrimination against older adults. Early modern visual and textual representations of witches reinforced these ageist stereotypes, associating female ageing with moral corruption, supernatural threat, and social disruption (Hults, 2005). Such cultural binaries between youthful beauty and aged ugliness foreshadow contemporary feminist critiques of beauty, such as Wolf (1991) who present it as a tool of patriarchal control.

Ageism, as defined by Butler (1969), operates through stereotyping and discriminatory practices that devalue older people. In early modern Europe, this cultural logic combined with gender to marginalise older women in ways that were both socially and legally consequential. Witchcraft accusations disproportionately targeted women who were past childbearing, widowed, socially isolated, or economically precarious. Cultural constructs such as the “hag” or “crone” further reinforced perceptions of older women as liminal, disorderly, and threatening. Some have argued that the ageing female body was constructed as “unnatural” or “monstrous,” its loss of reproductive capacity marking it as socially and morally suspect (Wray, 2013). In this context, the witch figure functioned as a vehicle for projecting anxieties about ageing and gendered deviance. Minois (1994) observed that in witch lore, the ageing female body “became a source for a dangerous power redirected towards the community,” highlighting the complex interplay between social marginalisation and cultural imagination.

Demographic evidence confirms that older women, particularly widows and women over fifty, were disproportionately accused of witchcraft (Levack, 2016; de Koeijer, 2022). These patterns reflect structural disadvantages: economic precarity following widowhood, lack of patriarchal protection, and engagement in informal or marginal labour such as healing or midwifery (University of Cambridge, n.d.). Such vulnerabilities reinforced cultural anxieties about ageing and femininity, rendering older women socially expendable and morally suspect. Ageism thus functioned not only as prejudice against decline but as a mechanism for policing the boundaries of acceptable female behaviour, visibility, and authority.

The persistence of the witch figure in contemporary culture demonstrates the enduring impact of these narratives. While feminist movements have reclaimed witchcraft as a symbol of empowerment and autonomy, media representations continue to rely on ageist tropes. A continuity of old prejudices in new clothes with older women continuing to be depicted as eccentric, wise, or threatening. Similarly, while younger women often romanticise witch imagery, older women remain coded as liminal, embodying wisdom but existing outside mainstream representations of ageing and femininity. These contemporary patterns illustrate that ageist cultural scripts remain embedded, shaping perceptions of older women even in progressive discourses.

The witch figure combines multiple dimensions of ageist and gendered anxieties. Historically, older women were othered precisely because they had exited socially sanctioned reproductive and domestic roles. The witch trope reinforced this marginalisation, linking bodily ageing with moral corruption and social threat. At the same time, the witch often appeared when older women exercised forms of informal power—knowledge of herbal medicine, midwifery, or community influence—that challenged patriarchal authority. Their perceived autonomy rendered them threatening, demonstrating that ageism functioned not merely as a response to decline but as a tool to regulate visibility and social legitimacy (Minois, 1994; Federici, 2004). The witch was thus a complex symbol of danger, decline, and power, intertwining societal fears about ageing, fertility, and female autonomy.

Visual culture played a central role in constructing the witch as the embodiment of ageing and ugliness. Artists such as Dürer and Baldung Grien depicted elderly witches as skeletal, wrinkled, and monstrous, contrasting them with eroticised images of younger witches (Hults, 2005). Trevor-Roper (cited in Hults, 2005) observed that physical appearance often served as evidence of guilt in trials, demonstrating how aesthetic judgement and moral suspicion were intertwined. In this visual taxonomy, youthful beauty represented temptation and vitality, while aged ugliness signified corruption and alignment with the diabolical. These representations normalized violence against older women, framing ageing as both morally and physically threatening. Although the term “ageism” is modern, the prejudice it describes was deeply embedded in early modern culture. Older women were frequently portrayed as socially unproductive, emotionally volatile, sexually undesirable, and physically decaying (Minois, 1994). Federici (2004) further argues that the rise of capitalist reproductive labour intensified anxieties surrounding women’s ageing bodies, linking economic productivity with social worth. The witch hunts can thus be understood as an early manifestation of gendered ageism, simultaneously devaluing women for being old and for being female.

Modern beauty culture illuminates the historical continuity of these dynamics. Wolf (1991) argues that aesthetic norms function as a form of patriarchal governance, disciplining women through unattainable standards. In the witch trials, older women’s failure to conform to ideals of youth and reproductive capacity rendered them culturally expendable. Trial narratives frequently emphasised barrenness, wrinkling, or bodily “unnaturalness,” linking physical appearance with moral threat (Wray, 2013). Similarly, older women who wielded informal authority—through midwifery, healing, or community mediation—were portrayed as threatening to religiously led, patriarchal order (Gibson, 2024). Roper (2004) highlights that witchcraft fantasies reveal anxieties surrounding female sexuality, domestic autonomy, and social power, demonstrating that targeting older women reinforced the societal message that value lay in youth, fertility, and obedience.

Contemporary manifestations of witch imagery further illustrate the ongoing intersection of ageism, gender, and aesthetics. Witchcraft accusations continue in parts of the world, disproportionately targeting older women and relying on the same logics of fear, misogyny, and disgust that characterised early modern Europe (McGill Human Rights Centre, n.d.). Popular culture perpetuates the witch archetype—whether as the evil stepmother, the hag, or the crone—while simultaneously valorising youthful femininity, sustaining dual systems that marginalise older women and equate ageing with moral and aesthetic decline.

The European witch trials, therefore, were not merely products of superstition but expressions of deep-seated anxieties about women’s bodies, ageing, beauty, and power. Older women became scapegoats not only because of socio-economic vulnerability but because their ageing bodies symbolised transgressions of patriarchal norms. By examining the witch through the lens of ageism and aesthetics, it becomes clear that societies have historically policed the boundaries of acceptable femininity, rendering older women marginal, feared, and morally suspect. These dynamics persist in contemporary culture, shaping both social attitudes and lived experiences. Understanding the witch figure as a site where age, gender, and beauty converge illuminates the historical and ongoing mechanisms through which older women are othered, demonstrating the urgent need to challenge ageist scripts and revalue older female bodies, roles, and agency.

References

Butler, R.N., 1969. Age-ism: Another form of bigotry. Available at: agisme.eu [Accessed 24 November 2025].

Calasanti, T. & Slevin, K., 2001. Gender, Social Inequalities, and Aging. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

de Koeijer, B., 2022. Witch hunts and the intersections of gender, age and class. Master’s thesis. DiVA Portal.

Federici, S., 2004. Caliban and the Witch. New York: Autonomedia.

Gibson, M., 2024. Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials. New York: Scribner.

Hults, L.C., 2005. The Witch as Muse: Art, Gender, and Power in Early Modern Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Levack, B.P., 2016. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. 4th ed. London: Routledge.

McGill Human Rights Centre, n.d. Human Rights Violations and Accusations of Witchcraft. McGill University.

Minois, G., 1994. History of Old Age: From Antiquity to the Renaissance. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Pickard, S., 2016. Age: Sociological Perspectives. London: Sage.

Roper, L., 2004. Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany. New Haven: Yale University Press.

University of Cambridge, n.d. Witchcraft: work and women. Cambridge Public Engagement.

Wolf, N., 1991. The Beauty Myth. London: Vintage.

Wray, S. (2013) ‘“The dried witch”: ageing, gender and power in A.S. Byatt’s fiction’, Journal of the Short Story in English, (61).
Available at: https://journals.openedition.org/jsse/3479 (Accessed: 24 November 2025).