Witches sail across the sky on brooms, sweep off their hearths, and keep hand a broom on their altars.
What is it about brooms and witches?
Brooms and magick are symbolically linked. A broom, also called a besom, is a tool for rituals, for thresholds, and for clearing energy. Some believe that the broom balances the masculine and feminine energies and that’s why it has become a tool in wedding ceremonies and other rites of passage.
While historians argue about when the broom itself was invented, it has been around quite some time, originally created with bunches of thin sticks to sweep aside dust or ash and was found in every home.
Why Witches Are Associated with Brooms
A broom is a tool associated with the home, and therefore historically linked to female domesticity. The earliest known image of a Witch on a broom appeared in 1451.
By the 17th century, stories of Witches on broomsticks were a part of the collective lore. Some customs say that women would place brooms outside of doors or up chimneys to signal that they were away from home. Perhaps this is how the legend of Witches entering and leaving their homes by chimney was first created.
Brooms and Witches Salve
Historians believe that broomsticks were a tool for flying, because of the broom’s connection to Witches Salve.
Witches Salve was made during Sabbat days with poisonous plants like Poison Hemlock, Monkshood, Datura, and Henbane (to name a few). The recipes of these salves are a point of contention, as much of the recorded history wasn’t written down or was destroyed.
Learn more about Poisonous Plants and Witches here.
Traditionally, Witches would simmer these herbs in goose fat to make the salve.
Legend has it the salve then would have to be taken through the membranes of the skin where the skin is the thinnest. Some think this is where the imagery of Witches on broomsticks comes from, as the witches would apply their salve to the broomstick before flying off into the night.
Sweeping Out Energy
An especially potent way to work with the energy of a broom is to practice a sweeping ritual.
This can be as simple as housecleaning!
While you sweep with your broom, imagine sweeping out any negative energy, energy that doesn’t belong in the home, or just stagnant energy from the week before. Keep the windows and doors open during this ritual so that the energy has somewhere to go.
Hanging a broom above a doorway can have a similar clearing and protective effect. Besides, it can be a wonderful and witchy way to decorate.
Jumping the Broom
Jumping the Broom is a folk and pagan wedding tradition. For times when a church isn’t readily available or even accepting, couples jump the broom together to signify a crossing of the threshold and beginning a new life together.
To Jump the Broom place a broom on the ground, grab hands with your partner, set your collective intention, and jump!
Jumping the Broom can also be done as a solo ritual to marry parts of yourself that have been abandoned, forgotten, or are looking to be celebrated. This is a way to cross the threshold as an individual and signify a new beginning.
Threshold Magick
Like the archetypal Witch, brooms are associated with the threshold and the door between this world and the next. Consider for a moment its relationship to the hearth.
Learn more about Hearth Witches here.
Connecting with a besom during Sabbat days can be an especially potent way to connect to threshold energy.
The broom is a way to protect, travel, ritualize, and balance and is, therefore, the perfect companion to any witch.
Witches can forage materials to hand-make besoms or ritual brooms can be found in a variety of spaces by talented makers. When crafting a broom, choosing herbs and trees that have symbolic meanings can be a way to imbue your broom with magick and intention.
Happy flying and blessed be.
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