Sabat czarownic jako figura demonizująca noc
The Sabbath of witches as a figure demonizing the night

Summary/Abstract: The meeting of witches known as the “witches’ Sabbath” is a semantic construct that denotes a set of imaginary ritual and magical actions. The female participants of these meetings – known as witches – were believed to free themselves from all the constraints of mundane mortal existence. Visions of the world losing its structure during a “devil’s feast” on top of the “bald mountain” was bound to inspire fear, a reaction further intensified by the sense of a person losing one’s bearings in the dark of the night. The night became a category perpetually combined with the figure of the witch for at least the following reasons: diminished self-confidence brought on by a person’s wandering in the dark; lack of a set of rules that governed such meetings; uncritical belief in the reality of these meetings.

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