For Halloween,why are witches portrayed as green creatures?

Question

Isn't this racist & sexist?I think so.In this day & age,there are such people(I'm not one!),but,they're not green,ugly female creatures who ride on broomsticks.They're regular,ordinary looking people.
I'm talking about how they're portrayed on paper Halloween decorations & Halloween cards.

Answer 1

because the traditional witch costume comes from shakespeare's Macbeth, where they were sometimes portrayed as green and hagged.

"boil boil toil and trouble, fires burn and cauldrons bubble" is Shakespeare. It is thought that these witches were from the Wyrd Sisters, a cultic group, I think called Norns that believed their powers were from the leaves of tree of the world - making them green.

Answer 2

Because some people are uninformed and hide behind the monotheistic facade that Witches are Devils worshippers or evil doers, or just plain crazy. All Hallows should be re-invented for the modern world and modern Witches.

Why is everyone blaming the Wizard of Oz? Do people not have their own minds? It is fictional, whereas the 'Burning Times' were not.

Here, here faerie girl!

BB
)0(

Answer 3

Witches are traditionally portrayed as having green pores and skin and warts on their noses and such issues with the aid of fact they necessary to be frightening. while Christianity regarded, attempting to weigh down the early pagan-like religions, the Christians theory witches have been the devil and so tried to maintain their fellow Christians fearful of going close to the witches. that is definitely no longer real, real witches appear like all of us else with a heightened appreciate for the Earth. Blessed Be, *Tiger-lily Rain*

Answer 4

Many accused Witches being led to their death had spent time imprisoned. They were beaten and tortured. I am sure when being led to the gallows or the stake they were bruised, battered, and may have been misshapen due to broken bones.
This could be part of the reason they are portrayed scary and ugly.

Blessings )O(

Thank you faerie_girl..I have been hunting for that the past few days. Hugz

Answer 5

Witches worship Nature. They work with Mother Earth, the 4 Elements, Herbs, etc. That why they are called Green Witches.

Answer 6

i know this is long, but please take the time to read it!!

Halloween Witch

Each year they parade her about, the traditional Halloween Witch.
Misshapen green face, stringy scraps of hair, a toothless mouth beneath her deformed nose. Gnarled knobby fingers twisted into a claw protracting from a bent and twisted torso that lurches about on wobbly legs. Most think this abject image to be the creation of a prejudiced mind or merely a Halloween caricature. I disagree, I believe this to be how Witches were really seen.

Consider that most Witches were women, were abducted in the night, and smuggled into dungeons or prisons under the secrecy of darkness to be presented by light of day as a confessed Witch. Few if any saw a frightened normal looking woman being dragged into a secret room filled with instruments of torture, to be questioned until she confessed to anything suggested to her and to give names or what ever would stop the questions.

Crowds saw the aberration denounced to the world as a self-proclaimed Witch. As the Witch was paraded through town en route to be burned, hanged, drowned, stoned or disposed of in various other forms of Christian love all created to free and save her soul from her depraved body, the jeering crowds viewed the results of hours of torture. The face bruised and broken by countless blows bore a hue of sickly green. The once warm and loving smile gone replaced by a grimace of broken teeth and torn gums that leers beneath a battered disfigured nose. The dishevelled hair conceals bleeding gaps of torn scalp from whence cruel hands had torn away the lovely tresses. Broken twisted hands clutched the wagon for support, fractured fingers with nails torn away locked like groping claws to steady her broken body. All semblance of humanity gone this was truly a demon, a bride of Satan, a Witch.

I revere this Halloween Crone and hold her sacred above all. I honour her courage and listen to her warnings of the dark side of man. Each year I shed tears of respect when the mundane exhibit their symbol of Christian love.

Author: ~Unknown

thanks for reading this!
blessed be! )O(

Answer 7

Racist? How can this be racist? You do realise that witches are fictional characters, don't you? I presume the green represents disease and puss. How many green women do you see, especially riding around on broomsticks? And anyway, there's nothing more scarey than regular, ordinary people. Aren't they the ones that make the best mass murderers?

Answer 8

I'm pretty sure it stems from the memory most of us have from the wizard of oz. It had a profound impact on everyone who saw it, and it is still played on national T.V every year around Halloween.

Answer 9

Wizard of OZ

Answer 10

Probably because of "The Wizard of Oz"