Augh, and COMPLETELY forgot to talk about this, but the stereotypical witch outfit? It comes from traditional English brewsters/alewives, aka, female beer-brewers.
Who used brooms mounted above the door as a way to signal their trade to passerby:
And who made their trade making strange concoctions in cauldrons:
And who happened to wear hats just like this:
Brewsters/alewives used to have a monopoly on beer-making. They handed down brewing secrets from mother to daughter and basically controlled the alcohol market. And men weren’t terribly keen on that - they wanted in on this immensely lucrative, influential field. There were some male brewsters, but the trade was overwhelmingly female, to the point that even male brewsters were still called brewsters - a female noun.
So what do men do when they want to push women out of a trade? They demonise them.
Suddenly the broom isn’t just a business sign, it’s a tool for going to meet the devil. The cauldron isn’t just a tool, it’s a place to create evil. The hat isn’t just a trade uniform, it’s a mark of malevolent intent and arcane knowledge.
Coincidentally, many women who became brewsters/alewives became independently wealthy and quite powerful locally. They didn’t need to marry and could provide for their entire households with their trade. They could grow old without marrying, or they could stay unmarried after their first husband dies rather than remarrying. They could also pull strings and influence things in their favour, making local politics ‘mysteriously’ go their way.
And so the stereotype of the ugly spinster brewster-witch is born.
And, as I’ve said above, ugly women look a certain way: harsh, marred features, dark, tangled hair, and above all, old.
Note old Mother Louse up there. She was a well-respected brewster in her town, with plenty of influence, but here she is already being portrayed with stereotypical witch features: a big, hooked nose, and a pointy chin, hollow eyes, sharp cheekbones (not a good thing in premordern times - beauties had rounder faces, as sharp cheekbones were a sign of hunger or oldness). Mother Louse isn’t being portrayed as Jewish, but as an elderly, ugly spinster, who engages in the lucrative, powerful - but suspect - business of brewing.
Know who else this happened to? Midwives. Another female trade, passed down from woman to woman, dealing in business secrets from which men were barred - and this in regard to the most mysterious power of all: the power to bring life into the world. And midwives do pretty well for themselves, too: plenty of families are willing to pay a bundle to make sure their babies are delivered safe and sound in a world with high infant mortality. Just like male physicians, midwives knew how to create tinctures and mix herbs, but now, once again, rudimentary chemistry and herb-lore become demonised when women are the ones doing it. Now, if your baby is born sick, deformed, or dead, it’s clearly the spinster midwife’s doing, full of spite because she has no children of her own.
Anyway, there’s your witch history for the day. The hooked nose and black hair are already something of a stretch, but the claim that the typical witch hat is somehow linked to anti-semitism and not brewsters is totally ahistorical.
