Why are witches almost always portrayed with green skin, as opposed to other col

Question: Why are witches almost always portrayed with green skin, as opposed to other colors!?
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I think that's a rather old school take on witches!. Even the evil witch queen in Snow white was beautiful!. It was probably influenced by The Wizard of Oz like one poster said, but probably also by Grimm's fairy tales!. Evil witches and stepmothers were always ugly and jealous of the protagonist beauty!. Green skin makes a witch seem nasty and ugly!. Green is the color of sickness so it was probably just an easy choice to associate witches with the color green!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Actually, it is creative!.

The green skin, wart nosed, crippled old witch idea comes from theater and literature, most notably from europe (and certainly disney has cemeted it into our culture)!. It depicts the inner "illness" of magic by using a combination of things people would naturally be aware of and fear - disease and madness!.

Some illness leave the elderly crippled up (arthritis) and mad (dementia, mental illnesses like schizophrenia, etc)!. Signs of other illness include disfigurement (leporsy, gangrene) and discoloration (pale skin looked like a corpse, thus vampires are often shown with pale color!. Jaundice, though commonly thought of as being yellowing of the skin can look greenish in some ethnic groups, and some blood disorders and infections can appear greenish)!.

The cloaks, hats, brooms, and caldrons were actually common everyday items before the middle ages and only became associated with "odd folk" after that (most likely because the cllothes were handed down several generations among the poor and isolated, they were obviously not the current fashion trend!.) The pointedness of the hats has been exaggerated!.

wands (holding a twigg in the hand) and potions were hold overs from the days when witches were respected herbalists!. Plus, the most poor of people may have used sticks instead of spoons to stir with, and cups to dish out their stews from the caldron!.

Familiars (especially cats) were not common in all traditions!. It is understandable that isolated people would likely have pets for company, and cats became vilified because of the black plague (ironic that by vilifying the cats, europeans allowed rats and their fleas to spead more freely and kill over 1/3 of the people)!.!.

Our idea that witches are evil is due primarily to the rise/power/competition of other religions (especially the various churches) for control and faith of the people!. For a time, the only difference between two healers was the man had been trained by the church and relied primarily on "preparations and prayer", the woman was trained by her mother and relied primarily on "pagan chants and potions"!.(paganism being loosely applied as premonotheist religions) Both were employing similar treatments and showmanship (chants and prayers serving the same "invocation" of a cure as expected by the patient)!.

Other cultures do not necessarily consider witches evil unless some social or economic problem happens to a community and they try to associate blame to someone (such as the beginning of an epidemic and the witch was not able to cure the first victims, or drought when the witch could not make it rain)!.

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Because the witch in the Wizard of Oz had green skin, and the Wizard of Oz is an extremely influential movie/book!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

No creativity!. :)
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