A witch bottle is a apotropaic magical item used as protection against witchcraft. They are described in historical sources from England and the United States. The earliest surviving mention is from seventeenth-century England.
A witch bottle is a apotropaic magical item used as protection against witchcraft. They are described in historical sources from England and the United States. The earliest surviving mention is from seventeenth-century England.
One of the earliest descriptions of a witch bottle in Suffolk, England, appears in 1681 in Joseph Glanvill’s Saducismus Triumphatus, or Evidence concerning Witches and Apparitions:
For an old Man that Travelled up and down the Country, and had some acquaintance at that house, calling in and asking the Man of the house how he did and his Wife; He told him that himself was well, but his Wife had been a long time in a languishing condition, and that she was haunted with a thing in the shape of a Bird that would flurr [sic] near to her face, and that she could not enjoy her natural rest well. The Old Man bid him and his Wife be of good courage. It was but a dead Spright, he said, and he would put him in a course to rid his Wife of this languishment and trouble, He therefore advised him to take a Bottle, and put his Wives Urine into it, together with Pins and Needles and Nails, and Cork them up and set the Bottle to the Fire well corkt, which when it had felt a while the heat of the Fire began to move and joggle a little, but he for sureness took the Fire shovel, and held it hard upon the Cork, And as he thought, he felt something one while on this side, another while on that, shove the Fire shovel off, which he still quickly put on Again, but at last at one shoving the Cork bounced out, and the Urine, Pins, Nails and Needles all flew up, and gave a report like a Pistol, and his Wife continued in the same trouble and languishment still.
Not long after, the Old Man came to the house again, and inquired of the Man of the house how his Wife did. Who answered, as ill as ever, if not worse. He askt him if he had followed his direction. Yes, says he, and told him the event as is above said. Ha, quoth he, it seems it was too nimble for you. But now I will put you in a way that will make the business sure. Take your Wive’s Urine as before, and Cork, it in a Bottle with Nails, Pins and Needles, and bury it in the Earth; and that will do the feat. The Man did accordingly. And his Wife began to mend sensibly and in a competent time was finely well recovered; But there came a Woman from a Town some miles off to their house, with a lamentable Out-cry, that they had killed her Husband. They askt her what she meant and thought her distracted, telling her they knew neither her nor her Husband. Yes, saith she, you have killed my Husband, he told me so on his Death-bed. But at last they understood by her, that her Husband was a Wizard, and had bewitched this Mans Wife and that this Counter-practice prescribed by the Old Man, which saved the Mans Wife from languishment, was the death of that Wizard that had bewitched her. [1]
Since at least the early modern period it has been a common custom to hide objects such as written charms, dried cats, horse skulls, concealed shoes, and witch bottles in the structure of a building. [2] [3] Folk magic contends that witch bottles protect against evil spirits and magical attack, and counteract spells cast by witches; they are countermagical devices, the purpose of which is to draw in and trap harmful intentions directed at their owners.
Some of the earliest documented witch bottles consist of salt glazed stoneware jugs known as Bartmann jugs, Bellarmines, or "Greybeards". Bellarmines were named after a particularly fearsome Catholic Inquisitor, Robert Bellarmine, who persecuted Protestants and was instrumental in the burning of Giordano Bruno. Greybeards and Bellarmines were made of brown or gray stoneware glazed with salt and embossed with a bearded face.
Later witch bottles were made from glass bottles, small glass vials, and a variety of other containers.
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A white witch or folk healer would prepare the witch's bottle. Historically, the witch's bottle contained the victim's (the person who believed they had a spell put on them, for example) urine, hair or nail clippings, or red thread from sprite traps. Later witch bottles were filled with rosemary, needles and pins, and red wine. Historically and currently, the bottle is then buried at the farthest corner of the property, beneath the house hearth, or placed in an inconspicuous spot in the house. It is believed that after being buried, the bottle captures evil which is impaled on the pins and needles, drowned by the wine, and sent away by the rosemary.
Sometimes sea water or earth are used instead. Other types of witch bottles may contain sand, stones, knotted threads, feathers, shells, herbs, flowers, salt, vinegar, oil, coins, or ashes. A similar magical device is the "lemon and pins" charm.
Another variation is within the disposal of the bottle. Some witch's bottles were thrown into a fire and when they exploded, the spell was broken or the witch supposedly killed.
The witch bottle was believed to be active as long as the bottle remained hidden and unbroken. People did go through a lot of trouble in hiding their witch bottles – those buried underneath fireplaces have been found only after the rest of the building has been torn down or otherwise disappeared. The origins of this tradition have been dated at least to the sixteenth century. In ancient times the bottles were made of stone and originally contained rusty nails, urine, thorns, hair, menstrual blood, and pieces of glass, wood, and bone.
This form of "bottled spell" dates back hundreds of years, and were prevalent in Elizabethan England – especially East Anglia, where superstitions and belief in witches were strong. The bottles were most often found buried under the fireplace, under the floor, and plastered inside walls. In 2016 a glass bottle found buried in the threshold of a man's house was featured in an episode of Antiques Roadshow filmed in Trelissick, Cornwall; glass specialist Andy McConnell tasted a small amount of the contents theorising it was possibly port or wine though he did note the rusty flavour and the presence of nails, a later episode in 2019 then revealed the contents had been analysed by Loughborough University that identified it actually contained "urine, a tiny bit of alcohol, and one human hair" alongside some brass pins dating from the late 1840s and an ostracod. It was theorised to be a witch bottle. [4] [5]
During the renovation of the De Zwarte Ruiter pub in Turnhout, Belgium, in 2020 a jug from the sixteenth century was discovered. It was used to ward off witchcraft. It is the first time such a "witch bottle" has been found in Europe outside England. [6]
To date, fewer than a dozen possible witch bottles have been identified in the United States. [7] Archaeologist Marshall Becker was the first to identify an American witch bottle in an archaeological context. [8] Known as the Essington witch bottle, the artifact was recovered during excavations on Great Tinicum Island in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. A mid-nineteenth to early twentieth-century slave or tenant site in Dorchester County, Maryland, yielded a buried witch bottle whose cork stopper was bristling with straight pins. [9] In 2016, a bottle filled with nails was excavated from the hearth of a Civil War site in Virginia and appears to be a witch bottle. [10]
Christian views on magic vary widely among Christian denominations and among individuals. Many Christians actively condemn magic as satanic, holding that it opens the way for demonic possession. Some Christians simply view it as entertainment. Conversely, some branches of esoteric Christianity actively engage in magical practices.
The Drummer of Tedworth is the case of an alleged poltergeist manifestation in the West Country of England, recorded by Joseph Glanvill in his book Saducismus Triumphatus (1681).
Joseph Glanvill was an English writer, philosopher, and clergyman. Not himself a scientist, he has been called "the most skillful apologist of the virtuosi", or in other words the leading propagandist for the approach of the English natural philosophers of the later 17th century. In 1661 he predicted "To converse at the distance of the Indes by means of sympathetic conveyances may be as natural to future times as to us is a literary correspondence."
Saducismus triumphatus is a book on witchcraft by Joseph Glanvill, published posthumously in England in 1681.
The Wonders of the Invisible World was a book written by Cotton Mather and published in 1693. It was subtitled, Observations As well Historical as Theological, upon the Nature, the Number, and the Operations of the Devils. The book defended Mather's role in the witchhunt conducted in Salem, Massachusetts. It espoused the belief that witchcraft was an evil magical power. Mather saw witches as tools of the devil in Satan's battle to "overturn this poor plantation, the Puritan colony", and prosecution of witches as a way to secure God's blessings for the colony.
Henry More was an English philosopher of the Cambridge Platonist school.
A witch doctor, or witchcraft doctor, is a kind of magical healer who treats ailments believed to be caused by witchcraft. The term is often misuderstood, and they could more accurately be called "anti-witch doctors". The term is now more commonly used to refer to healers, particularly in regions which use traditional healing rather than contemporary medicine.
The cunning folk were professional or semi-professional practitioners of magic in Europe from the medieval period through the early 20th century. In Britain they were known by a variety of names in different regions of the country, including wise men and wise women, pellars, wizards, dyn hysbys, and sometimes white witches.
Apotropaic magic or protective magic is a type of magic intended to turn away harm or evil influences, as in deflecting misfortune or averting the evil eye. Apotropaic observances may also be practiced out of superstition or out of tradition, as in good luck charms, amulets, or gestures such as crossed fingers or knocking on wood. Many different objects and charms were used for protection throughout history.
European belief in witchcraft can be traced back to classical antiquity, when magic and religion were closely entwined. During the pagan era of ancient Rome, there were laws against harmful magic. After Christianization, the medieval Catholic Church began to see witchcraft (maleficium) as a blend of black magic and apostasy involving a pact with the Devil. During the early modern period, witch hunts became widespread in Europe, partly fueled by religious tensions, societal anxieties, and economic upheaval. European belief in witchcraft gradually dwindled during and after the Age of Enlightenment.
The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, formerly known as the Museum of Witchcraft, is a museum dedicated to European witchcraft and magic located in the village of Boscastle in Cornwall, south-west England. It houses exhibits devoted to folk magic, ceremonial magic, Freemasonry, and Wicca, with its collection of such objects having been described as the largest in the world.
Florence Newton was an alleged Irish witch, known as the "Witch of Youghal", who died during what St John Seymour said was one of the most important examples of Irish witch trials.
John Webster (1610–1682), also known as Johannes Hyphastes, was an English cleric, physician and chemist with occult interests, a proponent of astrology and a sceptic about witchcraft. He is known for controversial works.
A Bartmann jug, also called a Bellarmine jug, is a type of decorated salt-glazed stoneware that was manufactured in Europe throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, especially in the Cologne region, in what is today western Germany. The characteristic decorative detail is a bearded face mask appearing on the lower neck of the vessel. They were made as jugs, bottles, and pitchers in various sizes and for a multitude of uses, including storage of food or drink, decanting wine and transporting goods.
The Mora witch trial, which took place in Mora, Sweden, in 1669, is the most internationally famous Swedish witch trial. Reports of the trial spread throughout Europe, and a provocative German illustration of the execution is considered to have had some influence on the Salem witch trials. It was the first mass execution during the great Swedish witch hunt of 1668–1676.
The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic is an archaeological study of the material evidence for ritual and magical practices in Europe, containing a particular emphasis on London and South East England. It was written by the English archaeologist Ralph Merrifield, the former deputy director of the Museum of London, and first published by B.T. Batsford in 1987.
Concealed shoes hidden in the fabric of a building have been discovered in many European countries, as well as in other parts of the world, since at least the early modern period. Independent researcher Brian Hoggard has observed that the locations in which these shoes are typically found – in chimneys, under floors, above ceilings, around doors and windows, in the roof – suggest that some may have been concealed as magical charms to protect the occupants of the building against evil influences such as demons, ghosts and witches. Others may have been intended to bestow fertility on a female member of the household, or been an offering to a household deity.
In some European cultures it was customary to place the dried or desiccated body of a cat inside the walls of a newly built home to ward off evil spirits or as a good luck charm. It was believed that the cats had a sixth sense and that putting a cat in the wall was a blood sacrifice so the animal could use psychic abilities to find and ward off unwanted spirits. Although some accounts claim that the cats were walled in alive, examination of recovered specimens indicates post-mortem concealment in most cases.
James Murrell, also known as Cunning Murrell, was an English cunning man, or professional folk magician, who spent most of his life in the town of Hadleigh in the eastern English county of Essex. In this capacity, he reportedly employed magical means to aid in healing both humans and animals, exorcising malevolent spirits, countering witches, and restoring lost or stolen property to its owner.
Mary Butters was an Irish witch known as the Carnmoney witch.
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