Annamarie is a witch who features heavily in the early Hopeless Maine graphic novels, and who is the main character in New England Gothic. This piece is set around the same time as The Gathering.
Green was always the witch’s colour. It’s better than black for hiding in wild places. I’ve seen drawings of witches in books in their black dresses. People who shipwreck here tell me I don’t look like a witch. “But you don’t wear black?”
No, sweetpeas. Black is not the only colour.
In the daylight, black stands out. Go into the woods in the night and you need light if you are keen on not breaking your ankle or getting slapped about by branches. If you have a light, others can see you no matter how black the dress. You might as well not bother.
Granted, black mostly does not show the stains, but the gay green gown is all about the stains and this is a good story. Jemima Kettle told me this, as soon as she found out I liked wearing green.
You see, for a lot of people back in the old days, green was considered unlucky. That of course makes it a witch’s colour. Like thirteen is unlucky and a witch’s number. Black cats are unlucky, and crows, and all the rest because they belong with us. If you gave a girl a green gown, what that really meant you’d done is got grass stains on her dress, and what that meant was that you’d rolled her round in the grass a bit. Depending on how you feel about tumbling in the grass, a gay green gown is either a thing of shame, or a thing of pride. Witchcraft and shame do not go together.
Then there are the Puritans who get their kicks imagining the terrible things other people are doing and they have their own stories about witches and gay green gowns. The story goes that we get our green dresses by lying down with the Devil. You have to wonder what Puritans get up to on long winter nights. Nothing good, clearly.
Do I dance in the woods in my fabulous green dresses? Of course I do.
Have I made pacts for power? Well yes, obviously.
Are there stains on my skirt? Most assuredly.
But if you really want to know about horned Devils, I think that says more about you than it does about me.
(Art by Dr Abbey)