Witch broom (mythology)
The witches broom is in popular belief, the preferred mode of transportation of the witches , the ride on it through the air.
During the time of the witch hunts, people accused of witchcraft were accused of having flown on animals, but also on oven forks, sticks or brooms to their meetings with the devil. They would have left the house through the door, a window or the chimney . Martin Anton Delrio describes the exit of the witches in his witch's tract Disquisitionum magicarum libri sex in 1599 as follows:
“ So the witches, as soon as they have rubbed their ointments on themselves, to go to the Sabbath on sticks, forks or logs , either by leaning one foot on them and also riding on brooms or reeds , or by taking the appropriate animals, male billy goats or dogs, to be carried ... "
So Delrio assumes that the witches rubbed their bodies with a so-called witch's ointment in order to be able to fly. Another idea can be found in Grimmelshausen's novel The adventurous Simplicissimus from 1669. Simplicius observes that the witches rubbed brooms or other objects with an ointment in order to visit the Sabbath:
" ... because they had first got dressed and instead of the light there was a sulphurous blue flame on the bench, where they smeared sticks, brooms, forks, chairs and benches and flew them one after the other out the window. "
See also
literature
- Wolfgang Behringer (Hrsg.): Witches and witch trials in Germany. 4th revised and updated edition. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-423-30781-1 ( dtv 30781).
