Em Jay (aka Tipsy Blowlightly)

The popular image of witches flying on broomsticks emerged in late medieval and early modern Europe (mainly the 15th century onwards), crystallizing during the rise of demonological writings and witch hunts rather than from ancient sources. The oldest known visual depiction appears in a 1451 illuminated manuscript of the French poem Le Champion des Dames (“The Defender of Ladies”) by Martin Le Franc. Marginal illustrations show two modestly dressed women (labeled as Waldensians, a heretical group often accused of witchcraft) soaring; one on a broom, the other on a stick. Around the same time, under-torture confessions (search Guillaume Edelin in 1453) began describing broom or staff flight. Earlier records mention related fancies: in the 1324 trial of Irishwoman Alice Kyteler, investigators reported finding an ointment “wherewith she greased a staff, upon which she ambled and galloped through thick and thin.” Contemporary accounts frequently mention “flying ointments” or salves made from plants rich in tropane alkaloids (henbane, deadly nightshade/belladonna, mandrake, and sometimes datura). These could induce vivid hallucinations, including sensations of flying, lightness, or wild rides. Because oral ingestion was highly toxic, the ointment was applied to thin skin or mucous membranes; the armpits, genital areas. A staff or broom handle served as a practical applicator. Leading to descriptions of witches anointing and then “riding” the stick. 15th-century writers such as Jordanes de Bergamo recorded the belief that witches “anoint a staff and ride on it to the appointed place or anoint themselves under the arms and in other hairy places.” Brooms were everyday tools of women’s household work. Depicting ordinary women astride them made the threat of witchcraft seem closer and more insidious. Some interpretations also note phallic symbolism or links to fertility customs in which people rode poles, pitchforks, or brooms while leaping in fields to encourage crop growth; these may have been later associated with nocturnal witch flights. From the early 1400s, theological and inquisition texts increasingly described witches traveling by night, often in groups to diabolical gatherings called sabbats. Flight on sticks, forks, animals, or brooms supported the idea of large, secret assemblies. Woodcuts by artists such as Hans Baldung Grien and later Pieter Bruegel popularized the broom specifically, often showing witches exiting chimneys. Skepticism persisted among some writers, who treated the flights as hallucinatory or demonic deception rather than literal travel. The broomstick image was not universal or ancient in this form. If you compare Slavic folklore’s Baba Yaga, who often travels in a mortar. But it became part of European art, literature, and popular culture through the witch-trial era and later folklore, becoming the iconic Halloween image of the present day. #GreyAddy #SchrödingersWitch