Why Do Some Homes Have ‘Witch Windows’?

Let’s look at the scene first: you’re sitting in a two-story house with an ordinary sloped roof, which gives you a triangular side wall, also known as a gable end, and you’re looking at either a stacked window set on that side wall where there is one window on the first floor and another window directly above it. Everything is fine.

Then at some point you decide that space is most definitely an issue. An extra room, or a sunroom, or a little den—literally whatever people tell you that they cannot live without. And, because doing anything with your roof is painfully complicated (believe me, we know), you decide to plan a one-story addition off that gable side of the house. The big problem, however, is that the addition covers part of the wall, which also (unfortunately) includes those windows.

Now, you are in an awkward situation. You can add new windows on the wall of the new addition, which is easy enough, but what about upstairs? That upstairs window is now in architectural purgatory—a situation where there is room to keep the window where it was, but not room to move it very far. What do we do? We tilt it. Literally.

Meet the “Witch Window”.

Wait, why is it a Witch Window?

Yes, that is the reason it exists, actually. It wasn’t for the dramatic aesthetic reason or weird superstition in the beginning. It was literally just the only way to keep a second-floor window after the extra room addition covered the lower part of the gable side. Necessity, meet weird geometry.

But then we get to the name. Witch Window. It’s a bit dramatic, right? Apparently, local folklore in places like Vermont and New Hampshire suggests witches can’t fly through diagonal openings. Nobody really knows why—maybe it’s something about broomstick physics? The point is, a sloped window should ward off any witches flying through your neighborhood.

Of course, that’s folklore. Nobody was actually fighting witches in the sky with house design. But the story stuck, probably because it was weird and charming and people love a good myth—especially when it’s something spooky. Now, whenever you come across one of these crooked little windows sitting under the eaves of an old New England farmhouse, you’re looking at what is referred to as a Witch Window.