The Penis-Snatching Witches Who Terrorized Men In The 15th Century

Once upon a time, a man lost his penis. Or, rather, an evil woman took his penis and stored it in a bird’s nest, along with a brood of other stolen members, which she fed with oats.

After a long quest, the man found the witch and demanded that she return his manhood. She told him to climb a tree to find the nest filled with squirming penises, and take whichever one he wanted.

When he tried to take a big one, she said, “No, that one belongs to a priest.”

A nun harvests penises from a tree in a 14th century manuscript. Bibliothèque national de France. Département des manuscrits. Français 25526.

This story, told in the Malleus Maleficarum (1486), the most popular witch hunting manual in history, encapsulates the crime of witchcraft: witches were women who literally unmanned men. And penises pop up everywhere in witch trial records.

A witch had a lot of power over the penis. Witchcraft could make a man impotent, but only with a certain woman. A witch could turn a penis invisible, transforming an innocent man into a Ken doll. Or she might steal it completely and treat it like a pet, storing it in a box and feeding it grains.

Women surround a tree covered in penises in the “fertility fresco” from Massa Marittima, Italy.

Witch hunters — always men — were obsessed with the power of witches to steal what they most valued: their manhood.

During the peak of the witch trials in the 16th century, the vast majority of accused witches were women. And they shared one common characteristic: witches were drive by lust.

As the Malleus Maleficarum warned, “All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which in women is insatiable.”

A witch’s pact with Satan was often sealed with sex — or an “obscene kiss.”

Witches sealed their pact with Satan with the “obscene kiss.”

And witches used their demonic power to attack men.

It’s no wonder that the vast majority of witches were women. Witchcraft was a crime against society — it literally meant a witch had chosen to side with Satan over the godly community. And a witch’s crimes were always against what the society valued most: children, crops, and penises.

Witches were handmaidens of the devil, just waiting for a chance to attack the patriarchal order. And stories about witches often reveal a great deal about male anxieties.

In another story from the Malleus Maleficarum, a man dumped a woman he’d been sleeping with, and a few days later his penis vanished. He drowned his sorrows at a tavern until he came up with a plan: he’d beat the woman until she returned his penis.

After stalking his ex, the man choked her until she promised to restore his member. He throttled the woman’s throat until her face was swelling and growing black. Suddenly the man knew, without looking or touching, that his penis had been returned.

In Albrecht Dürer’s engraving of four witches, the women are young and attractive.

If the mythical penis-snatching witch from the Malleus Maleficarum sounds a lot more like a violent, misogynistic fantasy than a true story, well, you’ve just about gotten the gist of the witch trials.

Genevieve Carlton holds a Ph.D in history from Northwestern University and taught a class on the witch trials as a history professor at the University of Louisville.