Witch hat
A witch hat (), in popular culture, is the style of hat characterized by a conical crown and a wide brim (like akubras and gats).
The origins of the witch hat as displayed today is disputed. A common theory is that it is an exaggeration of the edgeless hats associated with the Welsh and later the Puritans, or an exaggeration of the conical hats believed to stimulate the brain of the wearer. These "thinking caps" are the precursors to the modern dunce cap. Church despised pointy hats given that the points were often related to those of the devil's horns. The witch hat is a more brimmed version of the cone-shaped hats commonly worn by male-gendered wizards and magicians, as the hat was more brimmed for it to be female-appropriate. As of the Victorian era, fairy tales began depicting black-colored conical hats and crones as symbols of wickedness in their illustrations. Another possibility is that in Luna, a town of the Etruscan civilization, there were coins on one side depicting a goddess commonly associated with witches, named Diana, wearing a brimless, cone-shaped hat.
Culture of Póvoa de Varzim
The witches' fate ("fado das bruxas") was that, by night, they left their homes and followed the Devil through the streets. By going through the streets, the witches caused damages to the inhabitants belongings, lifting boat oars, opening farmer's casks, and causing other kinds of torments. The magical and protected use of the Sanselimão sigla, a pentagram, is associated with the witches. The use of the sigla poveira had several purposes, such as protection by saving a witch from her fate. To save her, a steel Sanselimão should be held in hand, another sanselimão should be drawn in the ground in the street where one would, during the night, wait for the Devil to go through the street with the witches behind him. The witch, one's wife, stretched her hand to be pulled by her husband to the area inside the sanselimão drawn in the ground. The other witches would torment the man, swearing and whistling.