Historic Beginnings of Modern Witch Style
We all know the archetype and style of the witch woman today, but ever wondered where does it all stem from? Here are some facts behind the historic beginnings of witch style...
Earliest coned shaped hats were found in China. The remains of mummies found there were of sisters accused of practicing magic in Turfan between 4th and 2th century BCE.Ā
Witches of SubeshiĀ - click here to check out the story and the pics of the mummies. Not for the faint of heart.Ā
In the Middle Ages in Europe people associated pointed hats with Jewish religion and... Satan. In Hungary for instance during the Witch Hunts, Jewish people were accused of practicing devil worship and magic, and were made to wear the horned skullcap.Ā
In America, the Quakers were accused by Puritans of being devil worshipers even though the Quaker styled hats back then didnāt match the accusations.Ā
In medieval Europe, women who brewed beer were considered and accused of being witches, and they actually did wear pointed hats similar to those we see today in media.
A 16th century English prophetess called Mother Shipton wore a tall, conical hat and gave out some surprising predictions regarding the arrival of the internet. Her real name was Ursula and she had a large, crooked nose, hunched back and twisted legs. Her mother had to give her up to the local family because she was completely alone and raised the girl in a cave of all places for two years before securing her a better place.Ā
Since people mocked her early on because of her appearance, she went back to the forest and near the cave where she was raised and got interested in observing and studying nature. She made remedies from herbs and plants, and later on realized she could predict the future.Ā
She is believed to have foretold the Black Death, the Great Fire of London, the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the end of the world. And the internet.Ā
āAround the world, menās thoughts will fly. Quick as the twinkling of an eye.ā
In parts of East Europe before Christianity took off there, the pagan Slavs used to consider female principle of creation and death as rather important. Over time, to end the reign of old Gods and Goddesses, fear based stories and specifically made religious propaganda of women being seduced by the devil turned things around. Back then and even today, women were often called to nurse the elderly or the dying. It didnāt take much to point and accuse the women of being the ones inflicting death itself though.Ā
According to History.com,Ā the earliest depiction of a witch riding a broom dates to 1451 in the manuscript of a French poet by the name of Martin Le Franc. Two women with brooms are depicted as Waldensians who were a Christian sect that accepted women as priests and were thus in part branded as heretics by the Catholic church.Ā
A pagan fertility ritual among rural folk in Europe involved jumping over a stick or a broom and or dancing during full moon for the growth of their crops.
Another possible reason why witches were depicted flying with brooms were some historical findings which say that witches made herbal ointments and applied them to their intimate areas or skin to avoid getting an upset stomach and to get high from it.Ā
ā Priests frequently leveled accusations of sexual magic at European women. The penitential books refer often to love potions. [Rouche, 523] But sexual witchcraft went beyond those, or even the dreaded (and popular) impotence magic. Early medieval writers show that women were using herbal medicine and witchcraft to control their own fertility and childbearing. Bishops in France, Spain, Ireland, England and Germany enacted canons forbidding women to undertake means of controlling their own conception, herbal and ceremonial, as well as to end pregnancies or perform abortions.Ā
Ā Though the Church described them as sorceresses, the wisewomen, herbalists, midwives and elders belonged to a spiritual tradition rooted in the land. Mother Earth gave healing herbs that restored life to the body, balanced it, healed wounds or disease, promoted conception or prevented it. Women who desired children prayed to ancient goddesses and petitioned them at holy rocks and pools. These animist divinities were invoked in childbirth, to help the mother and strengthen the newborn, for knowledge about how to conceive and how to not conceive children. (Often they ended up transformed into Christian saints, allowing a seamless transition of their rites and symbols.) The pagans knew the cycles of life's renewal to be infinite, and appealed to the same deities in death.ā Suppressed Histories, by Max Dashu.
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