Witches – link to appearance
Hi
Can anyone tell me if there is a historic link between witches and green eyes and red hair?
Also – I think there were 3 witches in MacBeth however is this the "norm" for a coven (hope Im using right words here!)
Many thanks for responses.
Hi
Can anyone tell me if there is a historic link between witches and green eyes and red hair?
Also – I think there were 3 witches in MacBeth however is this the "norm" for a coven (hope Im using right words here!)
Many thanks for responses.
Re: Witches – link to appearance
Sorry I think I meant more a link between psychic powers and green eyes – but any info would help. Thanks
Re: Witches – link to appearance
I am not really sure where the red hair and green eye idea came from, maybe it is a celtic trait, but I am not sure there is any real connection with psychic abilities or witchcraft.
As for numbers in a coven, modern day pretty much witchcraft dates from the 1960’s with Alex Saunders and Gerald Gardener. Gardener I believe may have been inspired by the works of the Egyptologist Margaret Murray who also studied and wrote books on the witch trails and through the extracted testimonies (under torture of course) pieced together what a coven may have been like and how they practiced.
Re: Witches – link to appearance
Thanks Ian
Your answer clarifies my thoughts -no link. Hadn’t thought of Celtic trait. Cheers
The Breeze
Re: Witches – link to appearance
Well, I only speak of what I know of Scotland, but it was suposedly a trait among some seers to have red hair. I believe this have something mainly to do with genetics as the second sight was apparently supose to be passed down in families. However, there were and are plenty of others with the gift who have different colours of hair (probably the majority) but people always seem to pay attention to things which are more unusual among your average crowd. Especially at the time of witch scares, anything unusual would be viewed as suspicious.
As the colour green is linked to the fey, it was considered very unlucky to wear the colour so having green eyes was especially unlucky! Also, green eyes is also very unusual and it seems to be most common among those with red hair… so you can see the link.
Just a very bad combination and sadly a lot of people were prosecuted because of it.
Re: Witches – link to appearance
In times of persecution anything out of the ordinary or uncommon could be a enough to cause the accusations to fly, being left handed was for long thought to be a sinister trait, it is still referred this way in heraldry. hence green eyes.
Re: Witches – link to appearance
There has been a lot of bickering about whence the red hair so commonly associated with both the Scottish and Irish came. It would appear dark red color is a Celtic trait (mostly because it’s common among all European peoples of Celtic ancestry) while the much more noticeable carrot-red probably came from Danish settlers at a much later date.
Anyway back to the topic at hand. I’ve looked through a couple of old books dealing with such topics but none of them hints at the fact that people with green eyes and/or red hair have been historically considered seers or witches.
In Distortion We Trust
Re: Witches – link to appearance
Haven’t made any particular study of it, but having green eyes is uncommon; so is psychic power. Perhaps that’s how the two came to be associated. I am sure that there are plenty of black eyed witches around too.
Re: Witches – link to appearance
Hi there. Well alot of what I have read about what witches were supposed to look like was just made up by people in order to scare. I am a witch (hedgewitch with druidic leanings to be precise) and i don’t have warts or pointed chin or any other of the so-called ‘distinguishing’ features that witches were said to have:D. Although i do have very long hair which i try desperately to dye red on occassion and adore cats. I have never heard of any historic link to green eyes and red hair but that isn’t to say that there isn’t. I have read that the goddess ‘the morrigan’ was supposed to have dark red hair because she is a warrior goddess (i hope i got that right?) but thats the only thing i can think of at the moment.
Re: Witches – link to appearance
Hi
Can I let you know where the idea came from? And it was just a suggestion that sparked it off. A friend of mine commented that the last 3 women he had met and been involved with all had red hair and green eyes – and knowing how rare green eyes are, in the scope of things, it had got him thinking about connections. All these women also have some sort of psychic abilities. Now some might say that was just the type he was attracted to but he felt there was a much stronger connection than that, and these three women had found him – the idea of witches was one of the connections he wondered about..
I think, from what has been said, there is no known connection between red hair and green eyes and witches – thanks for everyone’s comments
Re: Witches – link to appearance
I too have longed to have red hair and have had to resort to dye. I have green eyes, hazel really, but I wouldn’t describe myself as a witch.
A coven is generally thirteen, not 3, but what I think was meant by the three witches in the "Scottish Play", refers to the threefold path, and the power of three in Celtic mythology.
The man in the bog, was found to have been garotted, stabbed and beheaded to have the threefold death, presumably to placate the goddess.
Cerberus was the three headed dog, and there is no real distiction between the witches. They are much more like personifications of the same entity.
The friend who was helpless in the power of the three girlfriends was just making excuses. He found the combination of red hair and green eyes very attractive, but when they turned out to be real people maybe he couldn’t really cope with that, so he let them dump him/ dumped them.
Re: Witches – link to appearance
Re Rwth of Cornovill’s comment
"The friend who was helpless in the power of the three girlfriends was just making excuses. He found the combination of red hair and green eyes very attractive, but when they turned out to be real people maybe he couldn’t really cope with that, so he let them dump him/ dumped them."
That statement doesn’t apply to my friend. Yes I agree that the combination of red hair and green eyes must have been attractive to him but the "real people" statement doesn’t apply. He is still friends with all three women and he still feels a strong draw for their company.
Thank you to everyone that has contributed to my posting. It was a long shot of a question however your answers have been interesting to read. I did not mean to suggest that all witches were the same – far from it. I hope I haven’t offended anyone.
The Breeze
Re: Witches – link to appearance
I don’t even now whether these old superstitions are purely based on the symbology of the colours of green and red, or whether it was simply a means of attacking the ‘unusual’.