Research source

Sometimes a witch, in company with others of the fraternity, is carried through the air on brooms or spits, to…

Date of account: Published 1857
Source: The Spirit Land
Reference: The Spirit Land · selected passage 42
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Sometimes a witch, in company with others of the fraternity, is carried through the air on brooms or spits, to distant meetings or Sabbaths of witches

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

Sometimes a witch, in company with others of the fraternity, is carried through the air on brooms or spits, to distant meetings or Sabbaths of witches. But for this they must anoint themselves with a certain magical ointment given them by the devil. Lord Bacon, in his philosophical works, gives a recipe for the manufacture of an ointment that enabled witches to fly in the air. It was composed of the fat of children, digged out of their graves, and of the juices of smaltage, cinquefoil, and wolfsbane, mixed with meal of fine wheat. After greasing themselves with this preparation, the witches flew up chimney, and repaired to the spot in some graveyard or dismal forest, where they were to hold their meetings with the evil one. At these meetings they have feasting and dancing, the devil himself sometimes condescending to play on the great fiddle, pipe, or harp.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

A modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.

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