Cauldrons and Witchcraft

Disclaimer

This is NOT a page about Wiccans or neo-pagans, and I do not advocate the belief that Wiccans are Satan-worshippers and/or baby-killers. I am well aware that they are not. This is a starting point for historical research into the great witch craze of 1100-1700 AD. And please, don't ask me for spells.

Cauldrons

The cauldron was a common tool of sorcerers and witches. Usually an iron pot, it was the receptacle in which philtres, ointments, and poisons were brewed. Sometimes the cauldrons were made of something other than iron. Lady Alice Kyteler, a 14^th-century Irish witch, "used the skull of a beheaded robber for mixing up her poisons and potions." In medieval folktales, literature, and art, every witch's house had a cauldron set over a blazing fire. Within the cauldron, you might find concoctions made of baby fat, snakes, bat's blood, and decapitated and flayed toads. The cauldron was also an important tool for alchemists in their never-ending searches for formulae to transmute lead into gold, and small gems into large gems.

Before going to a sabbat, witches prepared their flying ointments and other drugs in their cauldrons. Then, they often carried their cauldrons with them to the sabbat in order to boil small children for a feast. Witches could dump the contents of their cauldrons into the ocean to cause a storm at sea.

According to one tale with an ironic twist, a 14^th-century Scottish wizard was executed in a cauldron. William Lord Soulis, described as a pernicious wizard and perpetrator of "the most foul sorceries," was convicted for various evil crimes and boiled to death in a cauldron (Guiley 1989 53-55).

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Cauldrons and Witchcraft is copyright 1997-1998 to Shantell Powell.