#venusglass

[poisonappleprintshop]

The Venus Glass. A drawing inspired by my recent travels to Salem and its inescapable history. ⚰️ #poisonappleprintshop #venusglass #abigailwilliams #sketchbook

[poisonappleprintshop]

Did you notice my Venus Glass drawing showed up on two altar cloths this past update? And there’s still one left! Check out all of the altar cloths still available in the ‘NEW’ section of my website (link in profile)! ⚰️ The Venus Glass is the name of an game which utilizes oomancy, or divination by eggs, to find out the profession of your future spouse. To play, you drop egg whites into a clear glass of water and divine the profession of your future spouse through the shapes created in the swirls. This innocent game played a key part in spurring the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s. Salem residents Abigail Williams and her cousin Betty Parris, both young girls, played the game with a disastrous outcome. One of the girls saw the shape of a coffin and took this to mean that she would die before she was to wed. The interpretation threw her into a state of hysteria of which the townsfolk linked to witchcraft and the paranoia of pointing fingers began. Although there are many other factors that caused the Salem Witch Trials, the Venus Glass game remains an ominous example of the misinterpretations that were magnified through the lens of man’s own fears of death and the unknown. ⚰️ #poisonappleprintshop #venusglass #oomancy #salemwitchtrials #sketchbook