Superstition paints a very dark picture of witches, they are described as old, bent, unattractive, bow legged, stringy haired practitioners of dark magic, always accompanied by their ever faithful and equally dastardly familiar. It was believed that a witch was unable to shed tears unless succumbing to the pain of torture, whereby the witch would cry and at this point it was said they lost their powers. Severe punishments for practicing witches were imposed from the seventh century and in the twelfth century the death penalty was brought in.
