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Witchwound

Folklore
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A magical injury caused by witchcraft, often invisible, causing slow decay, madness, or soul-sickness, resistant to healing.

Detailed Definition
Witchwounds in poetry represent trauma that cannot be seen, only felt. They appear in psychological and folk verse as the lingering pain of oppression—where the body heals, but the spirit bleeds in silence, and no doctor can name the cause.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Scottish ballads, the witchwound is the scar left by a curse: “She bears the witchwound, deep and wide”; in Yeats’ “A Vision,” the witchwound is the rift between worlds; in Keats’ “Lamia,” the witchwound is the wound of illusion that never heals; in Thomas Hardy’s “The Darkling Thrush,” the witchwound is the wound of winter on the land; in Emily Dickinson’s “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” the witchwound is the tear in the soul; in Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” the witchwound is the scar of the father’s voice.
Additional Notes
Witchwound is a magical injury caused by witchcraft, often invisible, causing slow decay, madness, or soul-sickness, resistant to healing. In folklore, it is a wound of the spirit, not the body. In poetry, it symbolizes trauma that cannot be seen, the lingering effect of violation, and the persistence of pain. Poets use it to explore invisible suffering, the weight of silence, and the slow unraveling of the self.
Also Known As
Witch’s Wound Hexed Wound
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