Broomsticks were long associated wth Witches because they figured in pagan rituals, marriages and births and the Mysteries of Woman. In Rome the broom was symbol of Hecate's priestess-mid-wife, who swept the threshold of a house after each birth to remove evil spirits that might harm the child. As Hecate was also the Triple Goddess presiding over marriage, her broomstick signifies sexual union. Old Wedding customs included jumping the broomstick, possibly to represent impregnation. Gypsy weddings always included the same ritual, though gypsies now state they don't know what it means. Oddly enough, the same broom-jumping ritual marked churchless weddings of black slaves in the nineteenth-century America. Medieval peasant weddings in Europe also churchless, as a rule, coming under the jurisdiction of common law rather than cannon law, and using the rites of the old religion rather than the new. The broom was so closly identified wth non-ecclesiastical marriage by Renaissance times, when the church began to take over the nuptial rites, unions "by the broom" were declared illegitimate. English rustics still say "if a girl strides over a broom-handle, she will be a mother before she is a wife". A girl who gives birth to a bastard child is said to have "Jumped the besom". As a horse for witches to ride, the broomstick apparently signified Tantric-type sexual unions which were primary attractions of the female-orientated witch cults. Planta genet broomstick plant, was sacred to witches. This may explain why the ruling family of Anjou in the 12th centrury was named Platagenet. Henry II, first Plantagent King of England inherited his throne by matrilineal succesion through his mother Matilda, or Maud-names commonly associated with witchcraft- the countess of Anjou. Genet also meant a horse or steed, the "royal horse" of paganism. The meaning is preserved the word jennet, a small horse or female donkey, and in the names frequently taken by witches: Jenet, Jane, Jeannette, Jean or Joan. Such names suggested a witch-child born of a sacred marriage with a phallic god represented by the broom. A Janet or Jenny was a Daughter of the Horse, and old gods Volos, Volsi, Waelsi, or Odin were called "Horse's Penis". Riding the broomstick seems to have denoted the kind of sexual position viewd as a perversion by the church, woman above, man below acting as her "horse". This sexual implication is confirmed by the old witch-rhyme, "Ride a cock -horse to Banbury Cross (crossroads) to see a fine lady on a white horse". The fine lady was Godiva, "the goddess". Her white cock-horse signified her consort. Children rode the cock-horse as a broomstick with a horse's head copied from Sufi mystics who entered Spain in the early Middle Ages. Besides their organisation in groups of thirteen, like covens and their worship of the Rabba or "Lord", later transformed into the witches' god Robin, Sufi sages rode horse-headed canes called Zamalzain. "gala limping horse". The dervish's stick-horse stood the Pegasus-like fairy steed that carried him to heaven and back. Such cutoms became prevalent among the Basques, who were frequently accused en masse of witchcraft. At times a witch's broomstick seems to have been nothing more than a dildo, anointed with the famous "flying ointment" and used for genital stimulation. French witches "flew" this way. With an ointment which the Devil had delivered to them they anointed a wooden rod which was but small, and their palms and their whole hands likewise; and so, putting the small rod between their legs, straight away flew there where they wished to be .... and the Devil guided them. Certainly churchmen were prone to describe any kind of masturbation as giuded by the devil,woman's masturbation most particulary so, for nothing was more abhorrent to the patriachal mind then the thought that a woman could experience sexual pleasure without men. Witche's ointments often incorporated such drugs as aconite, readily absorbable in an oil-based liniment through the skin or mucus membrane, producing symptoms like giddiness, confusion, lethergy, tingling sensations followed by numbness and quite possibly the illuson of flying. Because of their ancient association with Pagan midwives and their Christian counterparts the withces, broomstick took on an accretion of similar superstitions. |
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