"The Witch" is a three-stanza Narrative Poem written by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge. It was made commercially available in her first poetry collection Fancy's Following in 1896, being incorporated as poem #XLV. Among Coleridge's many poems, "The Witch" garners attention for its thematic similarity to Christabel by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, her great-granduncle, although by using the pen name Anodos she consciously avoided association during her lifetime.
The first two stanzas are spoken from the perspective of the witch. She expounds to the homeowner that she's been wandering for long, but that she's still a little maiden who needs help escaping the winter cold. The homeowner, hearing the witch's pleas from inside their warm house, lets her in. The witch's presence ensures that that day is the last day a fire occupies the hearth.
The oldest known manuscript of "The Witch" was sent along with a letter to Coleridge's friend Lucy Violet Hodgkin on March 21, 1893. In the letter, Coleridge asks what Hodgkin thinks of the poem but doesn't elucidate on its context. An earlier letter from 1892 to Hodgkin does, however, shed a light on Coleridge's view of the function of the threshold as separating two worlds. Namely, she learned about a medieval belief that drawing a pentagon on the threshold can either keep the Devil out or lock him in. In the 1893 manuscript, there is a line in the third stanza about the witch not present in the published version: "She leaves the house no more".
Hodgkin was connected to the poet Robert Bridges by means of his marriage to her cousin and she got him to convince Coleridge to publish her poetry. Coleridge prepared Fancy's Following for the public with Bridges's feedback on her poems. In regards to "The Witch", most of it came down to aesthetic phrasing and exact meaning, but the aforementioned "She leaves the house no more" was replaced by "Since I hurried across the floor".
"The Witch" can be read in two ways: as an allegory and as a horror story. As an allegory, it is worth noting that the motif of an ethereal home invasion occurs in a few other of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge's poems, namely "Master and Guest", "Wilderspin", and "Unwelcome". It's been theorized that this motif speaks of Coleridge's own feelings about "invading" literature, especially with her great-granduncle's name to live up to. In that sense, "The Witch" may be read as being about any bad thing — a sentiment, a relation, a philosophy — that ruins what once was good. As a horror story, it cannot not be compared to Christabel with its wandering ethereal woman seeking entrance to a home by playing on the sympathies of one living there. Said woman curiously needs to be helped over the threshold and fire responds to her presence. And although no identity is given to the homeowner in "The Witch", Coleridge had romantic relations with women, so the lesbian context carries over too.
"The Witch" provides examples of the following tropes:
- Arc Words: The first two stanzas are spoken from the perspective of the witch and end on "Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!". The third stanza is spoken from the perspective of the homeowner and ends on "To lift her over the threshold, and let her in at the door."
- Fantastic Diet Requirement: The witch contrasts the home she's begging to be let into to the fruitful earth she's already wandered. "Fruitful" is a suspicious word to use when "hospitable" or "courteous" are right there to express a desire for nothing more than shelter.
- Flying Dutchman: The witch says that she has "wandered over the fruitful earth," but "never came here before." Along with the possibility that she's undead, this suggests that she's a supernatural, eternal wanderer.
- Lady of Black Magic: The visitor's identity is given only through the title: a witch, although whether that means she truly is one or if the word generically is used to present her as an evil woman, supernatural or not, is unclear. She presents herself as frail and in need of protection courtesy of her womanhood, while also suggesting a respectable worldliness.
- Must Be Invited: The witch twice asked to be lifted over the threshold by the homeowner and appears to not be able to get inside otherwise. This echoes the need for Christabel to carry Geraldine over the threshold in Christabel.
- Snow Means Death: The witch arrives at the home in the winter, with a carpet of snow outside and a sharp wind blowing. In so many words, she argues that she'll perish if she won't be let it. But by saving her, it is possible that the homeowner brought upon their own end.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: Whether or not the line "She leaves the house no more" is present in the poem, it's clear that the witch didn't and perhaps never left after graciously being given shelter from the cold and that this is not to the homeowner's wish.
- The Undead: The witch is likely some manner of undead, as she notes that "the worst of death is past" in reference to herself.
- A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: There are several hints that the witch cannot be trusted. Despite her insistence that she's a maiden still and neither tall nor strong, she also lets slip that she's wandered the earth, implicitly alone and by foot, which is an unusual accomplishment for any frail person. She also says that "the worst of death is past" and suggests a particular interest in the home as a new experience of some kind. However, upon being let in, the fire in the hearth dies out and, for whatever it signifies, is never lit again.
