Witch Bottles 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.

Witch Bottles

As a Ward

In Elizabethan England, especially in East Anglia, people maintained witch bottles: charms used to counteract witches' spells. These charms were small bellarmine flasks into a witch's urine, nail or hair clippings were placed. When the flask was buried, the witch's spell was cancelled and the witch was purported to be put in agony. The bottles were sometimes thrown into a fire. When the exploded, the spell was broken or the witch was killed.

Witch bottles were sometimes hung in chimneys to prevent witches from flying through them (Guiley 1989 367).

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Witch Bottles and Witchcraft is copyright 1997-1998 to Shantell Powell.