MovieChat Forums > The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2016) Discussion > Why Are Goats Associated With the Devil,...

Why Are Goats Associated With the Devil, Like Black Phillip in The Witch?


Goats are my kind of people. This article finds little connection to witches, Satanism is more likely.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/02/26/goats_and_the_devil_origins_black_phillip_in_the_witch_isn_t_alone.html

I followed the history a bit more to England, where Eggers and several American scholars also pointed me. Malcolm Gaskill, a professor of early modern history at the University of East Anglia, confirmed that goats play a more prominent role in European witch imagery. “In European engravings and painting[s] that depict the witches’ sabbath—that is, the remote meetings where witches were supposed to gather to pay homage to Satan—the devil is often depicted as a goat or a goat-like man,” he wrote. Still, contra The Witch, he said that in actual witchcraft trials, animals that were said to physically represent the devil tended to be smaller creatures like cats, mice, dogs, and birds.

reply

I think its the horns and cloven-footed thing

reply

It's a Biblical reference from one of Jesus' parables: https://www.gotquestions.org/parable-sheep-goats.html. Where Jesus got it from, I don't know. A Biblical scholar could probably tell you the culture perspective on goats and sheep at that time.

reply

Because they’re ugly and can be assholes? I dunno.

reply

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet

It's all based on bullshit.

reply

Duh. Goats are stubborn as hell. Not easily led. Sheep on the other hand.

reply