Why do witches fly on brooms?

Answer 1

Vacuum cleaners were not around at the time.

I'll leave the serious pondering to the rest : )

Answer 2

The serious answer is the one which everyone is joking about. It's not important who witches were, it's important who witches were supposed to be. Even today there is an income gap between most older men and women. Most of the women accused of being witches -- whether they were or not -- were older women who had outlived their husbands or had never married and so did not have a "respectable" source of income (You mean women work?).

Brooms and besoms have been a helpful tool for many thousands of years and one way or another have been available to people of all or most income levels. How many items does a poor woman have that can carry her around if it can move around? Brooms were available, and besoms were very available until recently.

While I don't have my references in front of me, unfortunately, there is a wikipedia article on Flying Ointment, which is often said to be used in conjunction with brooms. Most of the references I've seen to the use of both have been in German or Eastern European legend (as in the Master and Margarita, an excellent novel about witchcraft and the devil in the early Stalinist era which makes heavy use of folklore).

You are invited to read the Wikipedia links AND FOLLOW UP ON THEIR SOURCES. While the article on Besom Brooms has a note that it doesn't cite any references or sources, this is a technical matter. Look at the bottom and you will see a few.

Answer 3

I've got to be a bit careful not to breach the community guidelines as my explanation might be considered a bit crude

The Flying part almost certainly comes from the fabled flying ointment, which seems to have been a topically applied (ie applied to the skin) psychoactive herbal concoction.

Now the witches are described as riding the brooms. Even today "riding" can have "crude" connotations, which also seems to ties in with "teaching the crops to grow up high", and the phallic symbolism associated with the handle.

Female witches could apply the ointment by riding the broom, which would enable the components of the ointment to enter the blood stream faster/more completely. This also provides an explanation why there's no mention whatsoever of males ever using flying ointment!

Occasionally today's (female) illicit drug users will employ a similar method to get their hit. Great care has to taken with this technique as it's very very easy to absorb a lethal dose.

The besom/brush head can certainly have somewhat of a look of pubic hair. There's also evidence that charms, made by tying individual twigs together using thread, could have been hidden in the besom head.

Answer 4

So they can sweep the cobwebs off the sky.

No witch could grab a broom, or distaff, or common gardening tool, and take off with it. The magical energy to fly came from an ointment, smeared thickly on their bodies and then they were spirited away in the twitch of an eye.

The witches broomstick was the implement for applying the 'magic' salve. A blend of mandrake, henbane and deadly nightshade would have been boiled with fat (whether from babies or not is unknown) to make a salve capable of producing deep sleep with euphoric dreams and hallucinations. The salve would have been applied to the mucous membranes, quite likely to have been the walls of the vagina, using the aforesaid broomstick. It's no wonder that the witches were said to dance with the devil!

Answer 5

they say that witches fly on brooms for a couple of reasons. the first is that witches use to make gruit which is a beer made without using hops, they would put their broom outside the house to show potential customers that they had extra for sale. the second reason is that they would make ointments that they would administer into the vagina and would use the broom handle to do this.

Answer 6

Brooms first were supposed to extensions of witches' arms, and they worked as a magic wands to point at things which were supposed to be bewitched. Withes also used brooms to stir up ugly things in their cauldrons, and whatever TV is showing they weren't flying with a broomstick on the front but on the back, with this part of broom with which you sweep the floor in front of them.

Answer 7

Brooms have long been connected with witchcraft, almost universally portrayed as medieval-style round brooms and associated with female witches. Prior records of witches flying on sticks or similar objects, usually that had been first greased with a magical flying ointment.
The broom served another purpose during periods of persecution. Witches and other magic practitioners would disguise their wands as broom sticks to avoid suspicion. It is also a tradition that brooms have been used by some as receptacles to harbor temporarily a particular spirit.
Today the broom is included in lists of ritual tools in many pagan guide books, where it is often referred to as a besom. A broom is sometimes laid at the opening of some covens' rossets. Representing the Element of Air, brooms are utilized in the purification of areas. They are used to sweep ritual circles clean of negative energy. This practice can be used in addition to or in place of incense to purify a ritual space. It is often employed by those allergic to incense, and during rituals practiced in smoke free areas. It is also a technique associated with "kitchen witches" who use what's on hand to work spells.

Answer 8

True witches are followers of a pagan religion called Wicca or Wican. I think the broomstick idea may have come from the pagan marriage ceremony when the couple seal their vows by jumping over a broomstick. I am be wrong but it is the only association I can think of between real witches and broomsticks

Answer 9

the flying refered to is usually attributed to the whole out of boby experience and in some cases levitation and the broom is a powerful and common magical item used for the "cleansing" of the home. But due to many misinterpritations its been taken to mean that the witches actually fly on brooms..............

Answer 10

The short answer is so that they can gather together quickly at halloween etc.

There is a reasonable explanation for the broom association here.

Answer 11

Crop fertility in the old days,Sexual symbolism.They would ride them over fields where the crops were to grow leaping up and down not actualy flying of course.