Witch Bottles & Witch Balls
What can you do if you think you have been bewitched?
Many of The House’s dear readers are witches themselves, so this topic is a little awkward to broach. But we do not shy away from difficult topics on the Bonheur Blog. However… before we dive in, The House recommends gaining a thorough understanding of white witchery, black witchery and witch doctoring.
The House enthusiastically recommends podcast Appalachian Witches & The Exploding Rose. Philippe from Our Numinous Nature recently interviewed folklorist Tyler Chadwell-English regarding all-things Appalachian witchlore, including the various sub-genres of witches: the water witch, shapeshifter, bloodstopper, and granny woman.
For example, did you know that, according to Appalachian witchlore, putting a broom on your front door protects your home from malevolent witches because they must count every bristle before entering?
This post covers three things you can do if you believe you have been bewitched:
Make a Witch Bottle
Protect your Home with a Witch Ball
Get a Bottle Tree
The door of Phillippe’s cabin. Notice the witch broom and horseshoe above the door (prongs up).
Witch Bottles
Make a Witch Bottle
Witch bottles enable someone who has been bewitched to reverse the spell that has been cast upon them. The bottle is typically filled with:
the victim’s personal effects (such as fingernail clippings, sometimes teeth);
liquid (usually urine, wine or some combination thereof); and
sharp objects (like nails, pins, fish hooks or thorns).
The bottle is then sealed up and placed in a chimney or near a hearth where it can attract the witch. The idea is that the witch is drawn to the personal effects of the afflicted and then captured and held in the bottle by the sharp objects, which are often bent in some fashion.
Sometimes, that’s all that was done. But as Ralph Merrifield explains in a Folklore article (right), sometimes the bottle was then heated in a fire until it exploded, thus killing the witch and relieving the victim. If the cork merely pops off the bottle, the witch will escape and the afflicted continues to suffer.
As you might suspect, this is not a new practice; it’s an old form of folk medicine. For example, urine may have been used in the bottle if the victim was suffering from urinary ailments. A tooth may have been placed in the bottle if the person were afflicted with a toothache.
“Merrifield, Ralph. “Witch Bottles and Magical Jugs.” Folklore, vol. 66, no. 1, 1955, pp. 195–207. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1257932. Accessed 19 Oct. 2020.
The practice of bottling sharp objects and bodily fluids to relieve a variety of physical maladies is thought to have started in East Anglia. The University of Hertfordshire is currently conducting a three-year study to “recalibrate understandings of the phenomenon of mid-late 17th century ‘witch bottles’.”
The discovery of intact witch bottles is more common than you might expect. For example, in January 2020, a Civil War era bottle found on a highway median was thought to be a witch bottle and contractors demolishing the chimney of a former inn and pub in Watford, England in 2019 discovered a 19th-century vessel full of fish hooks, human teeth, shards of glass and an unidentified liquid believed to be a witch bottle.
X-rays showing contents of witch bottle
Here is a later example of a witch bottle from the collection of the Horniman Museum and Gardens. While the bottle was originally used for cod liver oil, it now contains urine. (Presumably, they tested it??) The bottle is tightly corked with pins stuck in it. It was found in the back kitchen chimney of a house and shop in Padstow, Cornwall, tenanted by Mr. Biddick, in 1934. The notes explain that, once the urine is in the bottle, the witch is unable to pass water, and eventually dies. The victim then recovers.
Witch Balls
Protect Your Home with a Witch Ball
A witch ball is a hollow sphere of coloured glass traditionally used as a fishing float. Floating glass buoys became connected with witches during the witch hunts in England. In the late 17th century, suspected witches were tried by being tied up and thrown into water. If the water rejected them from a second baptism and they floated, then the suspects were confirmed as witches, under the rule of trial by water, and they were then hanged by the neck until dead. In a like manner these heavy glass fishing floats, all tied up in a net, could not be made to sink. The water rejected them and they bobbed merrily upon its surface. Historically, witch balls were hung in cottage windows in 17th and 18th century England to ward off evil spirits, witches, evil spells, ill fortune and bad spirits. Just as hanging a witch was believed to remove evil influences from a village, hanging a tried and tested witch ball that had been floating in water, around a home, was believed to protect the home from similar ills.
An online merchant by the name of Bon Juju Witch Balls has done a nice job explaining the folklore of the Witch Ball:
“For well over three centuries hollow glass spheres have been hung in windows to ward off witch's spells, evil spirits and ill fortune. Hanging these decorative glass balls in the window or on the porch is thought to tantalize mischievous spirits which may be threatening a home's tranquility. The wayward spirit is mesmerized by the ball's reflective beauty. When the spirit touches the sphere it is absorbed and trapped in the web-like strands of the glass inside the ball.”
Bon Juju offers an alternative origin for the witch ball: “Witch Balls were originally glass balls used to protect various pieces of glass as they shipped around the world. A glass ball was blown and used as a means to protect the edges of a vase of cup as it was transported. Along the way, collectors began using these leftover pieces of glass as art and the history of the Witch Ball was developed.”
Witch Ball from the Collection of the Smithsonian
“Spirit of Medusa” from Bon Juju Witch Balls
Witch Ball from the Collection of the Smithsonian
Get a Bottle Tree
Bottle trees are a popular tradition of the American South, but this practice has its origins in Africa. This tradition draws upon the idea that evil spirits are attracted to colorful glass and can be trapped once lured inside a bottle. Remember the tale of the genie in the lamp? Same idea.
Cobalt blue is the preferred color for bottles on a bottle tree. Sometimes the bottles are placed on the limbs of a dead tree, but there are also special metal rods designed and constructed specifically for this purpose.
So the idea is that you place a collection of colorful glass bottles near your home; wayward spirits will be lured into and trapped inside the bottles and exterminated by the morning light.
For a thorough, well-researched explanation of everything one could want to know about bottle trees, The House recommends Felder Rushing’s History of Bottle Trees.
Examples of Bottle Trees