Witches & Brooms: A History (Sarah)

The first known depiction of witches riding on brooms is found in the margins of the old manuscript of the poem “Le Champion des Dames,” written in 1451 by Martin le Franc. There are captions above the witch’s head which says “vaudoises,” which means that they were apart of a breakaway Christian group that was titled as heretical by the Holy Roman Church. However, the first person to admit to flying on a broom was a man named Guillaume Edelin. He was charged with a variety of extreme crimes, including making a deal with the devil and flitting on a broomstick. These confessions were tortured out of him, and even when he repented, he was still imprisoned for life.

Brooms were also associated with femininity as women got closer and closer into the domestic sphere. Women would prop their broom on their porch or leave it in the fireplace, which told others that they were not home. This also led to the stories of how witches exit their house by the chimney. Women would also make a brew that often included nightshade (Atropa belladonna), devil’s snare, (Datura stramonium), black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger), and mandrake (Mandragora officinarum). When blended together, it would create a psychoactive ointment that allowed the users to hallucinate. Witches would lather their broom in the ointment and add it to their sweat, because eating the drug caused too much trouble for internal organs.