We
bet you don’t know the real reasons why witches wear the hats, or why they ride
on brooms and are always recognize as evil doers. They appear around the full
moon and bring with them evil powers, constantly stirring their cauldron. But,
this is all just a piece of our imagination. What we’re going to tell below is
something we bet you never knew about witches.
Halloween
and witches have had a long drawn history, all thanks to horror stories and
folklore from the past bequeathed to us. When we think of witches, we imagine
them as gory old women flying on broomsticks and stirring their cauldron. But,
if we delve a bit deeper into the history of witches, we learn they were not
always evil doers, but some of them were healers too. So, here’s dispelling
some of the myths around witches. Read on.
Witches originated in the
middle Ages
Although
there are various stereotypes about the origin of witches, Westerners and
Asians have their own concepts and beliefs around them. But the most authentic
idea about witches seems to have come from the middle ages.
People
in the middle ages would prepare a number of brews from plants such as
belladonna, jimsonweed and the like. These plants had a hallucinating effect on
the body and would cause sleepiness with dreams that involved flying and
roaring. This is where the concept of witches controlling life was
dispersed.
Europeans arresting
thousands of people on suspicion of witch craft
In
the medieval ages about 100 thousand to 200 thousand people were arrested for
suspicion of them being witches. This included men, women as well as children.
They were arrested on the grounds of having cause storms, theft, and everything
bad that was happening to humanity in those times. Unbelievably half of these
people were executed.
Witches don’t wear pointed
hats
The
image of a witch without a hat seems incomplete, but the reality is real
witches never wore hats. The exaggeration of witches wearing tall, conical
dunce’s came into picture because such hats were worn by the members of
Europe’s upper Class during the 15th century and the style would
later spread among the common folk, who were accused of witchcraft.
The most famous witch of
all times
Inspired
by the enormous text available on witches and the curiosity the concept has
always created, L. Frank Baum went ahead with creating the legendary witch of
all times through his works in the “Wizard of Oz.” “The wicked Witch of the
West” as she was known not just wore a tall hat, and rode on a broom, her skin
was colored green, but since that’s how the witch appeared in the Technicolor
series, that’s how he kept her alive in his fairytale too.
The story of the broom
The
story of the broom also belongs to same era as that of the hats. The commoners
would use brooms by pagans during the ancient craft fertility rights, and later
it became a symbol associated with the witches and their image of flying across
full moon also became popular with the witches.
Witches still exist in the
modern times
This
one’s probably the most shocking of all witch facts you didn’t know, but witches
are still in existence even in the modern age. Known as Wicca, modern witch
craft was founded in the 1950s in England. These witches worship the nature and
work with an oath to do no harm with their magic. Presently there are over 400
thousand Wiccans in the United States alone.
