At Miss Robichaux's Academy, we pride ourselves on educating our young witches to the very best of our abilities. With studies in skills ranging from mind control to knowledge of witch history, we work every day to make sure that our students are learning everything they need to know to live a healthy and powerful life. Showcased here is the work created by our students in their classes.
Optimism by Marie Robinson
For centuries our kind has hidden, Considered evil and devil-ridden, No real place to call our home, Forced to always flee and roam.
Puritan beliefs began our downfall, Persecuted for transgressions, no matter how small, Masking their hate with so called devotion, Holy men threw our sisters into the ocean.
America’s favorite little scapegoat, Forced into the sea to find if we would float, Used to carry a society’s fears, Experiencers of a million tears.
One day I hope that we will find peace And that our endless turmoil will finally cease, The time will come for the people to look inside themselves And we will have the chance to make a home for ourselves.
The future is bright for my people, Finally peace and acceptance lives under a steeple, It’s time for us to reach for the sky And craft a new world for you and I.
AP Potionmaking Final Create-a-Potion Assignment Caroline Ebony
Mild Love Potion
Ingredients 1 liter of spring water 3 tablespoons horse blood 13 ounces spider eyes 2 black cat tongues 1 bundle of rose petals 4 chunks of honeycomb 1 vial of an ex-lover’s tears ½ cup of Eastern Green Slug slime
Begin by heating your cauldron to 350 degrees, (325 for nonstick cauldrons.) You will want to start by bringing the water to a boil. The water will prevent the love potion from progressing to an inescapable infatuation. Add your spider eyes and horse blood to the cauldron, stirring occasionally until well blended. In a separate bowl, mix together the slug slime, the honeycomb, the ex-lover’s tears, and the black cat tongues. (For the best results, the tears should be fresh, and preferably caused by jealousy over you living your best life without that two-timing John.) This should become a sticky, jelly type consistency. Blend this mixture in with the mixture in your cauldron, and raise the heat to 450 degrees.The increased heat should melt the jelly down into the water. Finish the concoction by adding rose petals and letting it cool overnight.
Potion of Waterbreathing (Good for NO MORE THAN ONE HOUR AND 10 MINUTES. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.)
1 gallon of swamp water 3 sets of Pumpkinseed Sunfish gills 5 ounces of Salmon roe Half a dozen beaten duck egg yolks 4 Atlantic barnacles 1 mashed wood frog eye 2 tablespoons leech blood
Begin by washing out your cauldron with ice cold water. It is very important for this potion to stay below room temperature at all times. It must also remain below sea level for the duration of the brewing process. Other versions of this potion may not require this. You will want to start by pouring the swamp water into the cauldron, and then blending in the wet ingredients: (salmon roe, beaten duck egg yolks, mashed wood frog eye, and leech blood.) While you are waiting for these ingredients to fully blend, you will want to place the pumpkinseed sunfish gills on a inflammable surface. Ignite the gills, and let them burn until there is nothing left but ashes. Wait for them to cool, and then put them in a separate bowl. Grind down the Atlantic barnacles, and then add them into the ashes of the sunfish gills. This mixture should be mixed into the chilled mixture in your cauldron, and the entire potion should be refrigerated for at least 24 hours. Serve chilled.
Isabelle Ashcroft Ms. Foxx History of American Witchcraft 08 January 2018 Why Does American Society Have a Fear of Witches? Since the beginning of modern societies, those societies have used various types of people as scapegoats to make it easier for them to cope with their fears. The native Chumash people of southern California described “Dark Watchers” that would stalk and appear to settlers with few supplies (Kriegman). Japanese culture has a fear of the number 4. Puritan America feared witches. Fear of witchcraft is as American as apple pie, and the reasons behind this fear goes back to the very values that this country was built upon. Fears about the sexuality and freedom of women, people, specifically women, breaking the mold and not doing what is expected of them, and the fear of evil hiding in plain sight all manifests in an American fear of witches. Women and their sexualities have been taboo subjects throughout most of history in most cultures. Along the way, there have always been women that broke that standard. Women like Cleopatra VII and Messalina of Rome used their sexualities to gain political power (history.com). These women were rejected for being sexual creatures, as were most other women that had a reputation of promiscuity. Witches are often used as a scapegoat for society’s fear and disdain for promiscuous women. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the Salem Witch Trials are begun due to a young woman’s adulterous behavior. She herself is not accused of being a witch, but Abigail Parris decided that to begin accusing people, such as her lover’s wife, as witches to cover her own tracks of adultery and “witchcraft” (Miller 19). In her review of Robert Eggers’ The Witch, Margolis says this about societal fear: Societal fear of female sexuality permeates The Witch like a gnarled and spindly tree branch. The entire witch trope, of course, was built on confessions extracted via torture. Under duress, thousands of women in 16th- and 17th-century Europe and America admitted to all sorts of now stereotypically witchy things, like child sacrifice and sex with the Devil (Margolis). The fear of female sexuality uses witches as a device; they are shown as terrible creatures who do explicit things such as dance around naked, chanting in the woods and drinking chicken blood, or kissing a young child, only to have him end up dead. Along the same line as disgust for female sexuality, another popular trope in witch stories is people, mostly women, not following their gender roles or what society expects of them. Women are expected to love and nurture children, and many witches prey on and despise children. In Roald Dahl’s The Witches, the narrator says “A REAL WITCH hates children with a red-hot sizzling hatred that is more sizzling and red-hot than any hatred you could possibly imagine” (Dahl 3). The entire premise of the book is that these hideous witches in beautiful disguises are trying to exterminate every child that they can. During the Salem Witch Trials, the main accusers were children, claiming that witches were afflicting them. This aspect of fear stems from the fear of women choosing not to become mothers, or becoming independent and earning in their own right. A third trope common in tales about witchcraft is the devil infiltrating the town and acting through witches. To a Puritan society, having the devil in your town doing bad works and driving people to sin is pretty much the number one fear you could have. In The Crucible, people confess to seeing the devil, and they blame him for their sins. Tituba says she spoke with the devil to start all of the witchcraft in the town. In The Witch, the family has a black goat that,at the end, turns into a Satan-like man who takes the teenage daughter of the family off to join a coven of witches (Eggers). Witches are almost always tied to the devil, and in a society built onPuritan beliefs, that makes them enemy number one. In reality, there is no more reason to fear a witch than a person with a gun. Just because someone has a power, it doesn’t make them evil. Witches are a popular horror movie trope, and are used to explain some of America’s fears. Fear of women breaking out of their shells and fear of the devil make witches an easier answer to the question “What are you afraid of?’
Works Cited Dahl, Roald. The Witches. Puffin Books, 2017. Eggers, Robert, director. The Witch. A24, 2015. History.com Staff. “Cleopatra.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009, www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/cleopatra. Kriegman, Mitchell. “In Search of the Dark Watchers.” In Search of the Dark Watchers, 13 Nov. 2014, www.independent.com/news/2014/nov/13/search-dark-watchers/. Margolis, Eleanor. “By Turning Fantasy into Reality, The Witch Exposes Society's Fear of Female Sexuality.” New Statesman, 25 Mar. 2016, www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2016/03/turning-fantasy-reality-witch-exposes-society-s-fear-female-sexuality. Miller, Arthur. The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts. Penguin Books, 2016. Multiple Contributors. “Coven (Story).” American Horror Story Wiki, americanhorrorstory.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Coven_(story). Murphy, Ryan, and Brad Falchuk. American Horror Story, Season Coven, FX, 9 Oct. 2013.
Endnotes: This section was largely inspired on the base material of American Horror Story: Coven. I wanted to do a section on student life at the school because I wanted to drive home the point that these witches are, in almost every sense, just like everybody else. Sure, they're making magic potions and learning to teleport, but students at this school would be doing things that normal high school age kids would be doing. The research paper aspect was a way for me to explore my thesis in an in depth way. I wanted to really look at the reasons that witches are feared in a way that a student would, probably through similar research. This essay used many references to prove my points, such as the History Channel and The Witches by Roald Dahl.