The Symbols of Witchcraft

What identifies a witch? Hat, broom, cat. Obviously. Everything else is extra. But we all know the hat, broom, and cat. Let’s take a closer look at where these symbols come from and where they could go. 

Hat

Nearly every visual representation of witches dating back to the 14th century has them in pointed hats with wide brims. There are many theories about where this comes from. Some say it is tied to anti-religious practices and hats that Jews or Quakers used to wear. Some say it comes from Phrygian hats. Others claim it is the same as the alewives' hats. I am less interested in where the hat comes from than why it has stuck around for so long. 

All important jobs have their hats. Kings, police, chefs, and French snobs with their berets. It’s a badge of office in many ways. And witches are so important that they need to be identifiable. The head is also the most important part of the body. Obviously, it holds the brain, but it's also the first place people look at one another. Of the examples I’ve listed, only the witch’s hat and the crown of royalty have remained unchanged for hundreds of years. This says that these two roles are equally important. Both need to be identified immediately. They both represent power, though in different ways. If there is an emergency, you need to either get news to the king or the witch. 

After having lasted so long in our collective consciousness, will the witch hat change? It is rare that you see one in real life, outside of a Renaissance fair. And yet the symbol is still strong. How will it change in the future? Will we still be referring to medieval symbol 300 years from now? Will it be a holographic hat in the future? Will the idea of the witch have changed so much that the hat becomes a different shape altogether? We think of witches as a thing of the past, but they are still here in the present, so where will they go in the future? 

Broom

Okay, so I went on a bit of a wormhole here when it comes to brooms. Besom, a term for the rudimentary and old-style brooms, was a tool used for clearing away cobwebs and dust, or for general brushing uses. Like, say, applying psychotropic ointments to one’s vagina (or anus). Seriously, look into flying ointments. There are some recipesYou will not regret it. So from flying ointment and hallucinogens, we get literal flying on broomsticks between your legs. I am beginning to see the witch hunter’s POV, honestly. 

So, the image of flying broomsticks has stayed, even if the hallucinogenic vagisil hasn’t. Why? Well, because the idea of a woman’s vagina is terrifying and has been scrubbed out of nearly every popular folkloric or religious reference. Yet the brooms have remained. Aside from flying ointment, witches' brooms represent a combination of things. Firstly, that witches were focused on the domestic world. A broom is not a sword. It does not symbolise “men’s” power. It is for use around the home and the local community, which is the place where witches ruled. The sources where we see witches vying for dominion over countries or cities mostly come from male-written sources, such as the Grimm brothers, L. Frank Baum, Italo Calvino. These were often changed to witch and were originally just evil queens (we can get into the misogyny of the evil queen/witch/stepmother at a later date). 

Will brooms stick around as an image? Will they morph into a new technological advancement, or are they, like the hat, a relic from a past time that will stay in perpetuity? If we follow this line of thought down further, we must ask ourselves if there is a place for witches in sci-fi, a question to which I have no answer but find deeply interesting. 

Black Cat

The witch’s familiar became a huge part of the early modern witch hunts, which is where a lot of the scholarly info about familiars comes from. They could be nearly any animal (or even people) and were merely the physical manifestation of familiar spirits. These spirits would assist in magical practices. I could write an entire post just about black cats on their own, but they inevitably took the role as the main familiar in popular culture. It was not a far leap to make for our minds. Witches worshipped the devil and black cats (despite many cultures seeing them as good luck) are also tied to the devil, witchcraft, and Halloween. 

Cats, like witches, do whatever they want. They are not the people-pleasing, boot-licking, police-collaborating narcs that dogs have become. They are the only animal that has domesticated themselves. They INFECT US WITH CAT-LOVING BACTERIA. And they look cool while they do it. They are the animal version of cigarettes in that way. Can you think of anything cooler than a black cat smoking a cig? Me neither. 

I would like to invite you to imagine where the black cat goes from here. Will witches be involved? Will the idea of witches go on to garner a different iconic familiar? Perhaps a golden macaw parrot? Or, will the idea of the AI companion replace the familiar? They do basically the same thing. In a world where magic is replaced with technology, AI plays the same role as an otherworldly confidant and assistant. Unfortunately, AI will never be black cat smoking a cig levels of cool.

[originally posted to Patreon on 1/4/25]