Comment by jelliclesfarm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jelliclesfarm | Hacker News Reader

I can’t speak for wizards but I have a work in progress storybook about witches who adopt a strange feral boy.

He has a strange power as the colour of his hair changes with his moods..from blue to red when he is sad or angry etc.

So they keep him in their ‘Witches Hat Tower’..(which is actually a legit architectural design for tower a pointy top and no parapet) and I had to do a ton of research for that.

Tower tops are good launch off pad for broomstick flights. Perfect for stargazing and the crystal mirror gazing.

The witches hat tower is supposed to symbolize the witch’s pointy hat as the tower itself is the physical body of the witch.

Turns out pointy witches hat have been around since 2-4th century BCE. Mummified remains of witches in China have been found with pointy hats.

Here is my theory..you see, witches(and wizards) have to beckon lightning. When lightning strikes them, they’d end up as charred sticks if not for their pointy witches hats.

The hats have a lightning conductor at the tip. Sometimes you will find it broken..you know that this witch has attracted lightning but hasn’t had time to repair the conductor at the tip. Witches be busy.

Of course..I know everyone will think that it’s also useful while flying the broomstick. But this has nothing to do with the broomstick flying. As it was a children’s book, I didn’t think it was age appropriate to explain the dynamics and purpose of flying high on broomsticks. That’s another short story. For adults.

Of course, not all witches live in towers. As Terry Pratchett informed us..Nanny Ogg lived in a townhouse. Even Granny Weatherwax(Esme Weatherwax) lived in a cottage in the woods. Pointy hats are only for witches who can summon lightning.

The classic image of a witch wearing a pointy hat comes from 16th century England.

Beer was the staple drink as it kept better than water and had nutritional value. Brewing beer was women's work in every household. Some expanded to sell beer at markets, and the pointy hat became a marker for a woman who sold beer.

When men started breweries, it was about the time of witch hunts, and they started to accuse women brewers of witchcraft as a way of removing the competition — and that is how the pointy hat became associated with the image of a witch. Also, the beer was brewed in cauldrons, and cats were used to keep mice away from the grain that the beer was made of.

It’s ‘classic’ because it was recorded and the recent. Pointy hat witches mummies were found in China and dated 2-4 BCE.

https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/ancient-mummies-of-...

[..] The Witches of Subeshi

The most intriguing mummies in ECA may be the “witches” of Subeshi, who wear very tall, pointed black hats that resemble the iconic headgear of their sisters in medieval Europe. Subeshi, dated to between the 4th and 2nd centuries BCE, is located in a high gorge just to the east of the important city of Turfan.

Historian and author Adrienne Mayor has recently suggested that the single heavy glove worn by one of the female mummies may indicate that she hunted with a raptor such as a golden eagle. A number of impressive male mummies have also been excavated at Subeshi, including a man who wears a felt helmet and another man whose chest has been stitched up with horse hair in what must be one of the oldest (4th century BCE) examples of surgery in the world.[..]

That reads like they were called "witches" by modern archaeologists, due to their pointy hats resembling that of the Western trope. Were they actually considered witches of any sort by their contemporaries?

This article makes a pretty convincing argument that this connection, while a fun story, isn’t supported by the historical record: https://braciatrix.com/2017/10/27/nope-medieval-alewives-are...

The tomato plant and its alkaloids were also experimented with, hence the witches potions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato#Plant_toxicity

The Salem Witch trials is because the tomato was considered the devils fruit, but it was the plant alkaloids which caused the real trouble (hallucinogens) and libido raising, hence riding the broomstick. Even in the 1930's Bella Donna was used to dilate the pupils to make a woman more attractive but it could also hide Argyll Robertson Pupil (a sign of neurosyphilis) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atropa_belladonna#Toxicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyll_Robertson_pupil

salem witch trials happened right after an outbreak of rye ergot. Ergot is a fungus blight..can make one trip due to it's hallucinogenic effect. the accusers were tripping heavily.

you are mixing up entirely different kinds of plants.

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/witches-curse-clues-evidenc...

It might have been this trial (https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/americas-alleged-trial-ag...) which someone had confused with the earlier trial, which is what I was reading on a blog.

The Salem Witch trials were very recent; witches and fun drugs go much further back, as documented in Renaissance medical literature on "flying ointment" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_ointment for a pretty decent overview, albeit for some reason excluding medical texts and concentrating on esoteric and legal texts). It's a lipid-based ointment with some sort of drug, applied to the temples, causing either hallucinations or at least a "rushing" feeling and high accompanied by catatonia, as if the soul were flying around having left the body. It seems to have been used by women who were bored and wanted to feel like they were flying.

I think the Bible could be considered a document detailing hallucinations like the burning bush.

Something I have noticed when reading reports of people on their death beds and accounts of people using hallucinogens is there are "patterns" or characteristics to the different types of hallucinogens consumed, like DMT machine elves is different to lsd visuals.

The brain on the death bed will release chemicals and those chemicals will cause different hallucinations, so I wonder if things like cadaverine might elicit some sort of hallucinations.

The most interesting thing is that the burning bush is a real extant species. A cousin of the oranges that is a sort of phoenix plant able to ignite without burning. So the "hallucination" is the real part in that legend. Fans of Harry Potter will probably recognize its other name Dittany

I want one since several years but I don't have space for it. Maybe I should order the pink cultivar this season. Low maintenance, big fun

Aren't plants awesome?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH7u4xFmpP0

> Turns out pointy witches hat have been around since 2-4th century BCE. Mummified remains of witches in China have been found with pointy hats.

I feel like the line between fantasy and reality has blurred for a lot of people lately.

https://www.historicmysteries.com/the-tarim-mummies-of-xinji...

[..] Other Tarim mummies have also been found wearing decidedly western clothing. One of the oddest bits of clothing found any of these mummies are the flat-brimmed pointy “witch hats” that were discovered on the “Witches of Subeshi.”[..]

https://mummipedia.fandom.com/wiki/Witches_of_Subeshi

[..] Three female mummies of Subeshi were found wearing tall, pointed black hats of felted wool that resemble the stereotypical headgear of traditional witches, and dated to between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC They were located in a high gorge just to the east of the city of Turfan.

It has been suggested that one of the three, wearing a heavy glove, may indicate that she hunted with a raptor.

The headgear worn by the Iron-age mummies were fashioned from black felt, the steep spire tapering to a peak nearly 60cm (2ft) high.[..]

https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/ancient-mummies-of-...

[..] The most intriguing mummies in ECA may be the “witches” of Subeshi, who wear very tall, pointed black hats that resemble the iconic headgear of their sisters in medieval Europe. Subeshi, dated to between the 4th and 2nd centuries BCE, is located in a high gorge just to the east of the important city of Turfan.

Historian and author Adrienne Mayor has recently suggested that the single heavy glove worn by one of the female mummies may indicate that she hunted with a raptor such as a golden eagle. A number of impressive male mummies have also been excavated at Subeshi, including a man who wears a felt helmet and another man whose chest has been stitched up with horse hair in what must be one of the oldest (4th century BCE) examples of surgery in the world.[..]

These seem to be mummies wearing pointy hats that were therefore called witches as shorthand for identification, not mummies of supposed witches who happened to mysteriously share millinery choices with 16th century European imagery.

well.. define 'witch'.

were 'witches' so called because they wore witch hats? or were witch hats so called because they were worn by 'witches'?

So they are witches because they were buried with pointy hats?

If we find someone buried in a cape should we assume they could fly?

Hats in general seem to have a history of being associated with some kind of magical power. Egyptian royalty wore hats, the Pope wears a hat, and I suppose the crown of a king is also a kind of a hat.

About the pointy hats of wizards - in addition to conducting lightening and inspiration, I imagine it can serve as an antenna also, as a tranceiver that receives and transmits aethereal vibrations.

Why they often live in towers.. I think they like to breathe the atmosphere high above the mundane. It's where wizened philosophers, academics and scholars pursue their thinking and magical meditations, closer to the stars.

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