Pointy hat, broomstick don’t jibe historically

Dress as a witch for a Halloween party and you have a frighteningly high chance of meeting other witches. That’s because the National Retail Federation predicts the witch will be the most popular Halloween costume for the 11th year in a row — and that’s just among adults, with 4.3 million saying they plan to wear black and pick up a broomstick and a pointy hat.

But that image of a witch is one that most cultures, both ancient and contemporary, would not recognize. To the ancient Greeks, the witch Circe lived in a mansion and helped Odysseus get home (eventually). The Bible depicts the Witch of Endor as giving comfort to a distraught King Saul. How did our image of the Halloween witch evolve, and why? Let us explain:

A: Witches wear black only in our contemporary imagination. The first witches were healers, herbalists, midwives and wise women — village women who likely wore homemade dresses and robes that blended in with the outdoors they roamed for the goods of their trade. Our American idea of a witch in black likely comes from two sources:

The Massachusetts witch trials (1645 to 1693). More than 300 people — mostly women — were accused of being witches, and more than 30 were hanged or pressed to death with stones. Most of the victims (and their tormentors) were Puritans — members of a Christian sect that favored dark clothing, including tall, black hats.

The 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, with its Wicked Witch of the West — immortalized by actress Margaret Hamilton in full green makeup, flowing black dress, pointy hat and flying broomstick.

Q: Yeah, but the Wicked Witch of the West had flying monkeys! And all I get as a Halloween witch is a stupid cat! How did that happen?

A: Witches are often shown with “familiars” — animals thought to do their bidding. But the cat is only one of a long list of creatures thought to cavort with witches — goats, toads, dogs, snakes and even cattle were sometimes associated with witches.

A: Witches didn’t always ride broomsticks. In the 15th and 16th centuries, illustrations show them riding goats, stools, even cupboards. By the 17th century, witches are shown riding out of chimneys. Scholars speculate this evolved as women grew more linked with the hearth and less with the farm and the field.

A: Thank Christianity for that. In 785, the church banned belief in witches and ignored them for a couple centuries. But by the mid-1400s, Pope Innocent VIII, faced with challenges within the church, went after heretics — including witches. By 1515, 500 witches were burned in the city of Geneva. Two years later, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg cathedral and witch hunts began in earnest. From 1500 to 1660, between 50,000 and 80,000 suspected witches were killed in Europe, according to scholar Douglas Linder. The vast majority of those killed were women. By 1611, when William Shakespeare needed a dark force to kick off the action in Macbeth, all the elements of the contemporary witch were there in his “weird sisters” — the steaming cauldron, magic potions, creeping familiars and women who can conjure spirits and fly away.

A: Yes — though most prefer the original Old English word “wicca” to “witch.” Most are neopagans — people who revive pre-Christian religions and give them a contemporary twist — and there are many men in their ranks. Today’s Wiccans focus more on good or white magic, crafting “spells,” which are a kind of prayer or intention to the Goddess. And in a real twist, there is even a church and school of Wicca, the latter offering an “essential witchcraft course” for $190.