Magic and the Supernatural - Lancaster University

Natalia Kaloh Vid
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very slight squint in one eye, who always decked herself with
mimosa every spring? I don't know. Obviously she was right
when she said she needed him, the master, instead of a Gothic
house, instead of a private garden, instead of money. She was
right--she loved him. 1
In the novel, Margarita is around thirty years old, good-looking, very well
situated and married. However, she is not happy. Not until she meets the
unanimous Master, a writer, who becomes her lover, her spiritual inspiration and
the sense of her life. Described as an ideal spiritual union, their love seems
heavenly, bound by eternity. After an unsuccessful attempt to publish his novel on
Pontius Pilate, Master mysteriously disappears. Devastated by grief, Margarita
receives an unusual offer from one of the Satan’s servants. If she makes a pact with
the Satan and becomes the host of his famous annual ball, Stan will liberate the
Master. 2 Margarita accepts.
Margarita’s witchery is both thematically and compositionally central in the
second part. Many of the details of her transformation are readily recognized as
direct borrowings from witches’ Sabbaths. On the other hand, as usually, Bulgakov
calls attention to his varying from the standard ‘protocol’ of witchcraft. What
makes Margarita a witch? The most important characteristic is that Margarita is
invited by the Satan himself to be the Queen of the Sabbath hold on Walpurgis
night, traditionally the most important meeting of witches, performed as a ritual
mockery of the Holy Mass, which according to various historic and folklore
sources included child-eating and ritual killing of animals, combined with sexual
abuse and satanic influences.
Margarita is transformed into witch with a help of a magical device, a cream
given to her by one of Woland’s servants that she applies on her face and body.
This cream is an important item in the process of transformation, a flying ointment
prepared from poisonous ingredients. It smells of swamp mud and of marsh and
forest, associating to the traditional locales of gathering of witches. In the process
of the transformation, Margarita becomes younger and even more beautiful,
The ointment rubbed in easily and produced an immediate
tingling effect. After several rubs Margarita looked into the
mirror and dropped the box right on to the watch-glass, which
shivered into a web of fine cracks. Margarita shut her eyes, then
looked again and burst into hoots of laughter. Her eyebrows that
she had so carefully plucked into a fine line had thickened into
two regular arcs above her eyes, which had taken on a deeper
green colour. The fine vertical furrow between her eyebrows
which had first appeared in October when the master disappeared
had vanished without trace. Gone too were the yellowish
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