Magicians, witches and legendary figures
The wise woman, the sorcerer, the legendary mage: Merlin, Baba Yaga, Circe and their kin.
Magical figures are the people, real and legendary, who stand for magic: Merlin, Baba Yaga, Circe, Hermes Trismegistus, Dr John Dee, Madame Blavatsky, the sorcerer in a village story, the Bulgarian seer Baba Vanga, and the performers Houdini and Chung Ling Soo. Some lived, some are composite, and some are pure myth. This page looks at who becomes a magic figure, and why. They are described here as stories and as history, and kept apart.
Who becomes a figure
Figures often sit at the edge of society. In many stories the witch is an older woman living alone, the sorcerer a foreigner or a rival tribe, the wise man a hermit. Real figures include John Dee, adviser to Elizabeth I, and Agrippa, whose De occulta philosophia (1533) shaped European occultism. Others are legend: Merlin appears in Welsh and French tales, and Baba Yaga is a Slavic folk figure who both helps and threatens.
Gender and reputation
The witch figure has been mostly female in Europe, where trials in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries killed tens of thousands of people, most of them women. In other places accusation falls on men, on the old, on the poor or on the outsider. The learned magician, by contrast, was often male, literate and protected by rank, a division that shows how class shaped who was punished. Not every figure carries a stigma: Chinese immortals, Indian rishis and Irish saints are honoured, and the line between holy person and magician depends on who is telling the story.
Colonial and modern use
Missionary and colonial writers often cast African and Indigenous healers as the witch-doctor, a term most communities reject. The word covers healers, diviners and rulers who had very different roles. Today, figures are re-used in fantasy and branding. The Merlin of modern fantasy films is a long way from the Welsh Myrddin, and the name of a real tradition may be turned into a costume. Their stories have also been tools of politics: rulers have claimed legendary magicians as ancestors, and enemies have painted rivals as sorcerers to justify their removal.
Scholars and the real person
Historians separate documented people from legend and warn that many reports of magicians were written by their enemies. Evidence for some famous names, including Hermes Trismegistus, who was long thought to be an Egyptian sage, turned out to be later Greek-language writings. Treating a figure as legend rather than biography is no insult to those who revere them. A figure who may be a real person with a name, a date and a grave belongs in a different category from a legend, even when popular memory blends them, and the entries here try to keep them separate.
Figure on EveryJaadu
The entries written up so far, best known first.
🇷🇸 Serbia and 5 moreVampire
An undead creature from folklore that feeds on the blood or life force of the livingBeing · Cursing and harm · Luck and prosperity Legendary
🇫🇷 FranceHoly GrailSaint Graal
A cup or stone from Arthurian tales that grants healing and eternal lifeFigure · Healing · Luck and prosperity Legendary
🇨🇳 ChinaZhang Guolao张果老
A Taoist immortal known for his white donkey and fish drum, said to be a bat spirit.Figure · Protection · Luck and prosperity Legendary
🇻🇺 VanuatuJohn Frum
A Melanesian cargo cult figure on Tanna Island who promises wealth and the return of American supplies.Figure · Luck and prosperity · Power and authority Living
🇮🇹 ItalyBefana
An Italian witch-like figure who delivers gifts on Epiphany EveFigure · Luck and prosperity · Wonder and entertainment Living
🇬🇧 United Kingdom and 3 moreJack
A trickster hero from English folklore who outwits giants and oppressorsFigure · Cursing and harm · Luck and prosperity Living
🇩🇪 GermanyPied Piper of Hamelinder Rattenfänger von Hameln
A medieval legend about a piper who leads children away from the town of HamelinFigure · Cursing and harm · Luck and prosperity Legendary
🇨🇳 ChinaPixiu貔貅
A winged Chinese creature that guards wealth and wards off evil spiritsFigure · Protection · Luck and prosperity Living
🇷🇺 Russia and 3 moreFirebird
A glowing bird of Slavic folklore that brings both fortune and peril to those who seek itFigure · Wonder and entertainment · Luck and prosperity Legendary
🇮🇹 ItalyWitches of Benevento
A medieval Italian legend of witches gathering under a walnut treeBelief · Cursing and harm · Luck and prosperity Historical
🇨🇳 China and 2 moreEight Immortals八仙
Eight legendary Taoist figures of China, each with a power and a vesselFigure · Protection · Healing Living
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Firebird: Philippe Giabbanelli, CC BY 3.0, source
- Eight Immortals: Fanghong, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Holy Grail: Photographed by the National Library of Wales, CC0, source
- Vampire: Edvard Munch, Public domain, source
- Zhang Guolao: Hong Zicheng, Public domain, source
- John Frum: Tim Ross, CC BY 3.0, source
- Befana: El Ágora, Public domain, source
- Jack: Internet Archive Book Images, No restrictions, source
- Pied Piper of Hamelin: Edmund Evans, Public domain, source
- Pixiu: Sol lc, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Witches of Benevento: Guglielmo della Porta, CC0, source