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diabolical because they led people to have carnal thoughts when they
realize the phallic symbolism of the hat.
(b) The brim was in vogue in the 17th century, but we
recognize it as the hat of a "princess in distress" when we add the
obligatory scarf and change the color from black (married or widowed)
to a lighter color.
(c) The Church required Heretics to wear the conical hat,
while they were on public display for ridicle and abuse, as a symbol
of the horns of the devil he was supposed to worship.
(2) The magic Cape-
(a) More appropriately the domain of the magician, locked
away in his tower with his books, the magic cape, with mystical moons,
stars, and other astrological symbols sewn or painted on it is
supposedly worn by the witch.
(b) This was supposed to make her invisible, and sometimes
to give her power to fly.
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(c) A more likely explanation is that, back then capes were
used much as we use coats for warmth today, and the markings were
probably added later just to enhance the effect of strangeness.
(3) The Witches Girdle-
(a) A girdle is simply a belt, used to hold the wallet used
at the time. Neither men not women used pockets very much so they both
wore girdles or belts which held their pouch-like purses.
(b) The girdle was said to consist of 12 or 13 puffballs,
or other decorations, strung together with the magical pouch hanging
in their midst.
(c) We now know that 12 is a number representing the 12
signs of the zodiac, and that there are 13 moons in a solar year, so
the symbolism is not surprising. Keeping in mind that pickpockets used
to be called cutpurses, is it any wonder that an old woman would want
to carry her purse hanging in front or near the front of her girdle?
(d) The pouch is supposed to be made of skin and to
contain the witchs charms, amulets and herbs. More likely these were
old coins or religious medals and herbs made into medicines or
cosmetics.
(4) The Gloves
(a) When gloves are mentioned, they are said to be made of
catskin, with the fur turned inside.
(b) These were supposed to give her the swiftness and
quiet of a cat in the night.
(c) More than likely they kept her arthritic hands warm.
(d) You can still buy gloves with the fur inside in the
colder parts of the US.
(5) The Shoes-
(a) Properly called the poulaine, it was the long-toed
(phallic) shoe that was very popular in the 15th century.
(b) They were the original 'high heels' or 'platform
shoes', but with toes so long that sometimes they had to be tied by a
string leading from the toe to just below the wearers knee.
(c) It has been said that playing the game of 'footsie'
with the person opposite of you was thought up by someone wearing
these shoes. The sexual connotations of the pointed toes is obvious.
B. Physical Appearance
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1. Accused witches were as often young and sexually attractive as
they were old and ugly.
a. Whether exceedingly beautiful or horribly ugly, she menaces
men in a patriarchal society.
(1) The Church taught men to fear women.
(a) Ecclesiastical writings called woman the 'confusion of
man', 'an insatiable beast', 'a continuous anxiety and a daily ruin.'
(2) The infamous Malleus Malleficarum said that witchcraft
arose from female carnality.
(a) And 'all wickedness is but little to the wickedness of
a woman.'
b. Few attempts to understand the real causes of the persecution
of women have been made but here are a few high-lights found by a male
researcher.
(1) Men feel a sense of inferiority in relation to the female
archtype of power, which he draws from his infantile experience of
total dependence on his mother.
(a) Adult men try to blame women for anything or everything
that goes wrong in their lives, as a child might blame his mother for
her failure to anticipate his every need.
(2) Few female actions arouse so much male bitterness as what
the child typically fears his mother might do: simply walk out, and
refuse to return to him.
(a) Medieval religion did not allow men to think of the
simple solution of studying how to please their women so they would
want to stay close and would enjoy being wives.
(b) Instead, they were taught to think of their women as
personal slaves.
(3) The motive of sexual jealousy must be considered a
contributing factor in the persecution of women.
(a) Men in an intensely patriarchal society are, in
general, very poor lovers, because they are not taught to pay
attention to their partners needs or feelings.
(b) Not seeing the connection between their own
insensitivity and the dissatisfaction of their women, they assumed
that the women preferred demon lovers with huge penises, which only
fed their own feelings of inadequacy.
(4) Men's hidden sexual inferiority complexes then fostered
misogyne (miso-hate, gyne-women), which was propped up by tales of
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women preferring to take demon lovers and other, less supernatural but
perhaps more intimidating lovers as rivals to their husbands.
(a) Members of the male hierarchy seldom trusted one
another, in view of the fact that almost any woman could be the sexual
prey of any man of a higher rank.
(5) Christianity gave men the best of all reasons for hating
women when it laid down its doctrine of Eve's responsibility for men
having to die.
(a) Ever since the early telling of this doctrine, every
man who feared the approach of death was taught to blame women for it.
(b) The limitless ferocity of the clergy toward witches
probably stemmed from the fact that they served the Church that
claimed to have conquered death, yet they continued to see death all
around them, especially in the terrible century of the plague.
(6) Women's sexual magnetism is still experienced by males as
a disquieting sort of magic, still poorly under- stood, inflicting a
sense of helplessness.
(a) This has probably been so ever since men began to fear
women's uncanny ability to force embarrassing responses from male
genitals, even across a distance, by words or gestures alone.
(b) Often it was their sexual attractiveness that led
women to be denounced in times when such things as erections and wet
dreams were reputed to be caused by bewitchments.
(7) Since the pagan ruler of death was usually the Crone in
the guise of an old woman, and elder priestesses had occupied the
honored positions in pagan temples, old women became the most frequent
victims of witch persecutions.
(a) Women after menopause no longer served the purposes of
the patrilineal family system, which viewed women as breeding machines
and even made 'barrenness' a legal reason for a man to abandon his
wife.
(b) The same Church helped codify laws that deprived elder
women of the wealth and property they used to control under the rules
of mother-right.
(c) Consequently, the old woman was an ideal scapegoat:
most times too expendable to be missed, too weak to fight back (though
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