Why do witches wear pointy hats?

Answer 1

First, let's make sure we mean the same thing by "witch." Traditionally, the word "witch" was used in England to mean a person, male or female, who tried to harm others with magic. Now some people use it to mean a person (sometimes specifically a woman) who uses rituals of some kind to try to get good magic to happen.

In the history of the Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and England there are many references to people who believed that they could do rituals to get magic to happen and the fact that they thought that while doing the rituals a person ought to wear certain clothes to help make the magic happen, including a pointed, cone shaped hat with a brim. Some people still believe this. Try looking up the phrase "Black Hat Society" in a search engine and see what information you get. One such society whose members believe in magic and use pointed hats is in Utah in the US.

Some who practice magic rituals say pointed hats are not used in magic, but that is just because they follow a different tradition than those who do use pointed hats.

The pointed, cone shaped hat is a symbol of wisdom and of the "cone of power": magic power that magicians believe they can raise in the air by their rituals. Shapes are often considered magical in many traditions, and the hat's shape is considered very magical in this kind of magic tradition.

In these countries I listed above, the explanation of why people who are witches or magicians are described or drawn or depicted in movies as having pointed, cone shaped hats with brims could not possibly be, as some say, that people with the usual pre-Christian beliefs of the country that lived in the countryside wore old-fashioned pointed hats and all did magic rituals. Prior to Christianity becoming popular in these countries and also at the time when a lot of people still had pre-Christian beliefs in these places, while others in the countries were Christian, people in these places did not wear pointed, cone shaped hats with brims as a fashion statement or a traditional costume in either the country or the city. These hats are only associated with magic rituals in these countries. Also, we know what the people there thought before these countries converted to Christianity, and although most people were polytheists, they didn't usually

practice magic. Brimless, pointed, cone shaped hats worn by women in medieval times were not associated with magic or witchcraft in these countries. People in these countries had their own writing systems before becoming Christians, so there is plenty of written history that backs all this up.

It should be noted that, in these ethnic groups listed above, the practice of magic for good purposes was always somewhat tolerated, even during times where there were witch hunts, because a minority in all these countries had traditionally always done such magic folk practices. The reason I know about this is that I have at least a little ancestry from people who came from each of all the above listed countries to the U.S.

I should clarify that the people in England I'm talking about that in some cases practiced such a custom are the true English who didn't control the government of England for centuries, because they were conquered by an ethnic group called the Normans. I don't know whether Normans who believed in magic rituals used pointed hats.

The belief in doing magic rituals while wearing this kind of pointed hat may exist in other European countries as well.