The Secret Symbolism of a Witch's Wardrobe

Everyone knows what's needed to make a witch costume at Halloween. You need a pointed a hat, a broom, a cloak, a cauldron and perhaps a wart or some green makeup if you want to create a scary witch. But how did these things come to be associated with witches? Do these things have deeper meaning? The answers lie in witch history and literature.

Witch Hats
Some of the earliest images of witches feature them wearing brimless, cone-shaped hats, similar to the hats we associate with wizards today. In pagan societies, these hats were reserved for shamen, who were spiritual leaders or healers who used natural herbs to cure disease. Witches were valuable members of pagan communities, because they knew a great deal about the Earth and how to use its resources.

During the Victorian era, illustrations in children's books added a brim to the witch's hat. These hats were often used to identify evil characters and the hat quickly became a symbol of a wicked witch.

Witch Brooms
In medieval Europe, everyone owned a broom to keep their home clean. Brooms weren't associated with witchraft until 1453, when a Frenchman, Guillaume Edelin, confessed under torture that he had made a pact with the Devil that allowed him to fly around on his broom. During a wave of witch hysteria, investigators would torture alleged witches and try to get them to confess to flying on brooms. Some did, no doubt to escape the torture, adding the broom to the witch legend.

Wiccans, who are modern witches, use brooms in some ceremonies to represent the air element. A Wiccan broom, known as a besom, is a rounded broom made with twigs rather than straw. Sweeping with the besom removes negative energy from a room.

Witch Cauldrons
The cauldron is a symbol of fertility in many non-Christian faiths, including European pagan religions and some African religions. It's also a practical object that can be used to create potions.

The association of cauldrons with witches stems largely from William Shakespeare's Macbeth, which opens with a trio of witches creating a mysterious potion in a cauldron. Although much of Shakespeare's view of witches was intended only for dramatic effect, it became the popular image of witches during the Elizabethan era.

Warts and Green Skin
From the beginning, literature portrayed witches as shriveled, ancient hags filled with superstition and anger at the world. Some writers describe witches as near-skeletal, with leathery skin pulled tight over their bones. Warts were a common affliction in the Middle Ages, but many people still saw them as evidence of disease or unclean living. As with witch hats, Victorian-era illustrators would use warts to represent evil people.

It's interesting to note that the Malleus Maleficarum, a handbook for the detection and prosecution of witches published in 1487, explains that witches aren't all elderly, haglike or covered with warts. Beautiful young women are among the most dangerous witches in this book, because they can lure men to their doom.

The idea of witches with green skin doesn't take hold until the 20th century. The first green-skinned witch appears in the film version of The Wizard of Oz, even though the original book never describes The Wicked Witch of the West with green skin. This was most likely a decision made by the filmmakers to show off the potential of brand-new color film.

The color green has been associated with witches since the time of the Ancient Celts. In Celtic tradition, green is the color of the fairies, with whom witches shared a strong association. Witches were depicted wearing green as a symbol of their otherworldly nature.