Chapter 12
LATE-NIGHT TALK SHOW
CNN News Roundup
HOST If you’re just joining us, tonight we’re discussing the incidents that have occurred at witch registration centres up and down the country. With us is Professor Alyssa McCartney, who is an anthropologist from Showalter College, Ohio. Professor McCartney, something caught your eye today?
McCARTNEY Yes, Vanessa. It’s this symbol – I think your viewers can see it onscreen now. This was burned into the brickwork on the outside of the Portland registration centre. It looks like a six-petalled flower, drawn by a compass. Something your kid might do if they were bored in geometry class.
HOST Hey, who wasn’t bored in geometry? But you believe it’s something specific?
McCARTNEY It looks a lot like something we call an ‘apotropaion’.
That’s also known as a ‘witchmark’. They were common from medieval times, especially the Tudor period in Britain and elsewhere, when they’d be incised over doorways and windows, and up chimneys.
The idea is that they were protective. They would prevent a witch getting inside your home or doing you harm.
HOST And they looked just like this?
McCARTNEY Well no, that’s the interesting thing. The true apotropaion puts the mark inside a circle. To contain it, if you like.
HOST This one has no circle. So what’s that saying – these witches are … unleashed?
McCARTNEY That’d be one reading, yes.
HOST Wow. Well, is Professor McCartney’s interpretation correct? America may be about to find out …