This title goes focuses on wizards and witches in Spanish Golden Age literature, but begins by taking a look at Greek and Latin depictions of related characters, with the twin aim of determining the literary origins of the wizard and elucidating the slow development of witches as a presence, little discussed in the Spanish tradition. By analyzing fifty or so Golden Age texts, the author establishes a working classification of these magical female figures. Also, the text looks at witchcraft's rituals and the materials that made up their apothecaries—which themselves have gone on to form a kind of archetype in our culture.