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Witches of Pyris VII

The three witches on Pyris VII

A witch was a woman thought to possess magical powers granted to her by a pact with the Devil, a powerful and evil being, through the use of witchcraft and black magic. They were similar in nature to wizards and warlocks.

The witch's traditional connection to evil has been used in many plays, novels, and stories for centuries on Earth; it has essentially been woven into the Human racial subconscious. And this was where the alien explorer Korob, living on Pyris VII, found it when he telepathically scanned a USS Enterprise landing party in 2267. Witches were among the eerie manifestations of his power; he created an illusion of three witches either to dissuade Captain Kirk or to test his character.

During Kirk and the landing party's encounter with the three witches, the spectral hags warned Kirk to go back, reminded him of the curse laid on his ship, and used doggerel to advise him that the consequence of remaining was death:

Wind shall rise.
And fog descend!
So leave here, all…
Or meet your end!

Following this, the shades faded from view (their cackling the last to go); soon after, gusts of wind battered the party and the fog thickened. Spock speculated later that the imagery, including the witches, was possibly calculated to frighten visitors, and might be the result of an attempt to probe Human minds that missed, reaching only the fears normally bottled up in the subconscious.

This scene was probably inspired by the three evil witches in Shakespeare's play Macbeth.

Korob and his colleague Sylvia, presented themselves as a wizard and witch, complete with ancient, fog-bound castles, magical implements and accouterments, and displays of power intended to suggest magic. Korob later told Kirk that all of it was created as a test of loyalty, bravery and character. (TOS: "Catspaw")

In actuality, tales of witches were fostered by the Megans. While on Earth, they were subjected to the Salem witch trials. (TAS: "The Magicks of Megas-Tu")

The Kahn-ut-tu were the local witch people of Neural, one of whom was Nona, who used her witchcraft to control others. (TOS: "A Private Little War")

After Admiral Norah Satie's failed attempt to expose a non-existent conspiracy within the crew of the USS Enterprise-D, Captain Jean-Luc Picard compared the situation to the, "torture of heretics and the burning of witches." (TNG: "The Drumhead")

In the mirror universe, Captain Sylvia Tilly was nicknamed "The Witch of Wurna Minor". (DIS: "Despite Yourself")

Also in the mirror universe, in 2371, Jadzia Dax called Jennifer Sisko a witch. (DS9: "Through the Looking Glass")

Additionally, the script of "True Q" had some insight in the thoughts of Amanda Rogers after strange things had been happening to her, with her musing that they used to burn witches.

In a deleted scene from the Star Trek: The Next Generation first season episode "The Big Goodbye", Beverly Crusher describes Senator Joseph McCarthy as "the man who hunted communist witches". [1]

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