ABSTRACT
Throughout the twentieth century Margaret Murray’s controversial witch-cult theory was highly influential in the popular debate about the early modern witch-hunts. As part of this theory, Murray reimagined the Devil’s mark as a tattoo that had sealed the witch’s initiation into a secret fertility cult. Her interpretation of the Devil’s mark as a divinely inflicted initiatory tattoo radically shifted the witch’s body from the diabolic to the sacred sphere. As well as reconstructing the gradual development of Murray’s tattoo theory, this chapter traces the influences behind it. It is concluded that her chance encounters with tattooed Coptic people in early-twentieth-century Egypt lie at the heart of her tattoo thesis. The centuries-old Coptic practice of tattooing to convey the worshipper’s dedication to their faith, even in times of persecution, seems to have inspired Murray’s idea that the witch carried a tattoo as a visible sign of their affiliation to a coven.
