Medieval women who brewed beer wore tall pointy hats and kept cats to protect grain, which heavily inspired the modern cultural depiction of evil witches.

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Medieval women who brewed beer wore tall pointy hats and kept cats to protect grain, which heavily inspired the modern cultural depiction of evil witches. Brewing ale was traditionally a female-dominated household chore in medieval Europe, and enterprising women known as alewives would sell their excess product at local markets. To stand out in a crowded marketplace, these female entrepreneurs wore tall, distinctive, pointed hats so customers could spot them from a distance. They commonly stood by cauldrons to boil the wort and kept feline companions strictly for pest control to prevent mice from destroying their precious barley supplies. When the commercial brewing industry began to male-dominate and industrialize, a vicious smear campaign was launched to force women out of the lucrative market by accusing them of witchcraft. The iconic imagery of the independent female brewer was deliberately twisted into a satanic stereotype of an old hag stirring a bubbling potion. So your favorite Halloween decoration is actually just the victim of a centuries-old aggressive corporate smear campaign