Broom

The Witch’s Broom: Flight, Folklore and Ritual

According to folklore, the broom is one of the witch’s principal means of supernatural travel. By riding a broomstick, a witch was believed to cross enormous distances at tremendous speed, reach secret gatherings and move between the ordinary world and the realm of magic.

The image of the witch flying through the night upon a broom has become one of the most recognisable symbols of witchcraft. Yet the association did not arise from a single tradition. It developed gradually from pagan fertility customs, European witch-trial testimony, demonological writings, popular superstition and later artistic portrayals.

Pagan Fertility Rites and Hobby-Horse Customs

One possible origin of the flying broom lies in ancient fertility rites.

Brooms, poles and pitchforks were ridden like hobby-horses during dances and ceremonies performed in fields. Participants may have leapt into the air while straddling these objects, symbolically encouraging crops to grow tall and the land to remain fertile.

Over time, these customs may have contributed to stories of witches riding through the air on household and agricultural tools.

In some traditions, witches were said to ride brooms because they were afraid of horses. Other explanations connect the broom with an old custom in which a broom was placed outside a house to indicate that the woman of the household was away.

Because the broom was closely associated with domestic work and women’s labour, it became a natural object through which fears and fantasies about female independence, secrecy and magical power could be expressed.

Flying Witches in Continental Europe

Belief in witches travelling by broom was especially widespread in continental Europe during the period of the witch persecutions.

English witchcraft laws never specifically prohibited flying, and brooms were mentioned only once in recorded English witch trials. This suggests that the flying broom played a far more prominent role in continental demonology and folklore than it did in English legal accusations.

Nevertheless, the image eventually became familiar throughout Europe and later spread across the Atlantic.

Flying Ointments

Accused witches sometimes testified that they were able to fly after applying a magical ointment to their bodies, chairs or brooms.

These so-called flying ointments were said to contain hallucinogenic, poisonous or otherwise dangerous ingredients. Once the ointment had been applied, the witch supposedly entered an altered state and experienced the sensation of travelling through the air.

Witches were also believed to possess the ability to travel invisibly if they wished.

Not every demonologist accepted the idea that the physical body could fly. Jean Bodin, the sixteenth-century French demonologist, argued that only the witch’s spirit could leave the body and travel through the air.

This distinction reflected a wider debate about whether accounts of magical flight described literal journeys, spiritual experiences, hallucinations or deceptive illusions created by the Devil.

From Forks and Shovels to Broomsticks

The broom was not always regarded as the witch’s primary supernatural mount or as the “steed of the Devil”.

Early sixteenth-century German woodcuts depict witches riding forks, sticks, shovels and demons in animal form. By the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, however, artists increasingly portrayed witches riding either brooms or demonic animals.

The position of the bundle of twigs also changed over time.

In earlier images, the twig end pointed downwards. This allowed the witch to sweep away her tracks from the sky. That version of the image remained popular into the twentieth century.

By the late seventeenth century, however, witches were sometimes shown riding with the twig end pointing upwards. A candle could be placed among the twigs to illuminate the witch’s path through the darkness.

The Devil’s Gift to the Witch

According to one folkloric belief, the Devil presented every newly initiated witch with a broom and a supply of flying ointment.

Other traditions claimed that he gave these objects only to weak or inexperienced witches who were unable to fly without assistance.

Before mounting the broom, the witch first had to anoint either the broomstick or her own body. If she began her journey inside a house, she was believed to rise through the chimney, although very few accused witches brought to trial actually confessed to doing so.

Sorcerers as well as witches were said to fly upon brooms. Men, however, were more frequently portrayed riding pitchforks.

Flying to the Witches’ Sabbat

Witches were believed to ride their brooms to Sabbats, secret nocturnal gatherings at which they met other witches, demons and the Devil.

They might carry demons or familiars with them, often in the forms of animals. Witches were also said to fly out over the sea in order to raise storms.

Novice witches were believed to be less skilled in flight and sometimes fell from their brooms. On important witch-festival nights such as Walpurgisnacht, townspeople reportedly placed hooks and scythes outside in the hope of injuring or killing witches who fell from the sky.

Church bells were also believed to possess the power to ground broomsticks. Their sacred sound could disrupt magical flight and knock witches from their supernatural mounts.

Flying Witches in Salem

The flying broom also appeared in the Salem witch hysteria in colonial Massachusetts.

Mary Lacy, one of the accused, confessed that she and another accused witch, Martha Carrier, rode upon sticks when they attended witches’ meetings in Salem Village, now known as Danvers.

Lacy claimed that witches flew to these meetings from other colonies and territories, including Maine and Connecticut. According to her testimony, they gathered in the pasture behind the house of the Reverend Samuel Parris.

The Broom in the Marriage Bed

Folklore also claimed that witches deceived their husbands by placing a broom in bed as a substitute for themselves.

The broom supposedly took on the appearance of the absent wife, allowing her to leave unnoticed and attend the Sabbat.

Isobel Gowdie, the famous seventeenth-century Scottish witch, claimed that her husband never recognised the difference. This statement may reveal as much about their marriage as it does about her alleged involvement in witchcraft.

The Broom in Wicca and Modern Paganism

In Wicca and contemporary Paganism, the broom remains an important ritual object.

It may be placed near the altar alongside other magical tools. A coven’s High Priestess or Maiden may use it to sweep ritual space symbolically before the creation of a magic circle.

This sweeping is not normally intended to remove physical dirt. Instead, it clears away unwanted influences, stagnant energy and the remains of what is old or spiritually worn.

The broom therefore represents purification, preparation and transition.

Jumping the Broom

The broom also appears in wedding and handfasting traditions.

During a handfasting ceremony, the couple may jump over a broom as a symbol of entering a new phase of life together. This resembles an old Welsh custom in which newlyweds entered their new home by stepping over a broom.

The act represents crossing a threshold, leaving one condition behind and entering another.

Broom Superstitions Around the World

Not every broom tradition is connected directly with witches.

According to one folkloric belief, it is unlucky to take an old broom with you when moving to a new home. The broom may carry the troubles, dirt or spiritual residue of the previous house into the new one.

In India, brooms were tied to ships’ sails in the belief that they could sweep storms from the sky.

In Chinese folklore, the Broom Goddess is a deity of fine weather. She sweeps the heavens clean, removing clouds and bringing clear skies.

These traditions demonstrate that the broom may symbolise far more than domestic labour. It can represent fertility, purification, weather magic, spiritual travel, protection and the removal of unwanted forces.

The Enduring Symbol of the Flying Witch

The witch’s broom developed from a complex mixture of ritual custom, household symbolism, demonological speculation and artistic imagination.

It could serve as a vehicle to the Sabbat, a tool for raising storms, a gift from the Devil, a disguise placed in the marriage bed or a sacred implement used to purify ritual space.

Even today, the broom remains one of the most enduring symbols of witchcraft. It stands at the boundary between home and wilderness, the ordinary and the magical, the ground beneath our feet and the mysterious skies above.

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