Broomstick (noun)

· Used by witches in pagan rituals as a tool of purification

Were once thought to be flown on by witches, possibly due to a ‘magical ointment’

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When the broom itself was first invented  Is not clear, but the act of sweeping goes back to ancient times, when people likely used bunches of thin sticks, reeds and other natural fibers to sweep aside dust or ash from a fire or hearth.  This household task even shows up in the New Testament, which dates to the first and second centuries A.D.

     The word broom comes from the actual plant, or shrub, that was used to make many early sweeping devices. It gradually replaced the Old English word besom, though both terms appear to have been used until at least the 18th century. From the beginning, brooms and besoms were associated primarily with women, and this ubiquitous household object became a powerful symbol of female domesticity.

     Despite this, the first witch to confess to riding a broom or besom was a man: Guillaume Edelin. Edelin was a priest from Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris. He was arrested in 1453 and tried for witchcraft after publicly criticizing the church’s warnings about witches. His confession came under torture, and he eventually repented, but was still imprisoned for life.

     By the time of Edelin’s “confession,” the idea of witches riding around on broomsticks was already well established. The earliest known image of witches on brooms dates to 1451, when two illustrations appeared in the French poet Martin Le Franc’s manuscript Le Champion des Dames (The Defender of Ladies). In the two drawings, one woman soars through the air on a broom; the other flies aboard a plain white stick. Both wear head scarves that identify them as Waldensians, members of a Christian sect founded in the 12th century who were branded as heretics

     The association between witches and brooms may have root in a pagan fertility ritual, in which rural farmers would leap and dance riding poles, pitchforks or brooms in the light of the full moon to encourage the growth of their corn. The “broomstick dance,” she writes, became confused with common accounts of witches flying through the night on their way to orgies and other illicit meetings.

     Broomsticks were also thought to be the perfect vehicles for the special ointments and salves that witches brewed up to give themselves the ability to fly, among other depraved activities. In 1324, when the wealthy Irish widow Lady Alice Kyteler was tried for sorcery and heresy,investigators reported that, in searching Kyteler’s house, they found “a pipe of ointment, wherewith she greased a staffe, upon which she ambled and galloped through thicke and thin." .