A besom is a broom that is made of twigs bound around a staff. Such brooms have long been associated with witches in folklore, such as the following lore referenced by Robert Graves:
The 'witch's besom' in the english countryside is still made of ash stake, birch twigs, and osier[wicker] binding: of birch twigs because at the expulsion of evil spirits some remain entangled in the besom; of ash stake as a protection against drowning (witches are made harmless if detached from their besoms and thrown into running water); of osier binding in honor of Hecate.[1]
The besom has a clear fertility symbolism, in being made from a long staff inserted into a bushy bundle of twigs. In this manner it is comparable to the lingam-yoni found in some Hindu practices. The stang used in "traditional initiatory witchcraft" is also comparable in this regard.
In its mundane purpose of cleaning, a besom can also represent exorcism or banishing.
There have long been suggestions that the story of witches riding through the sky on various riding-sticks (including besoms, but also other sticks) has been a reference to the use of such sticks to pass hallucinogenic salves into the thin skin of the genitals. Another explanation suggests that jumping while straddling such a stick or broom was a fertility practice to encourage crops to grow.
Several different cultures have wedding practices in which the marrying couple jumps over a broom. The practice has been found in African-American, Roma, English, and Irish Traveller cultures, with differing explanations of the practice's purpose within each of them. This practice has been recently adopted into some witch marriage ceremonies.
Notes[]
- ↑ Graves, Robert. The White Goddess Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN 0374504938. p. 173