The witch on her broomstick is one of the most familiar images in Western folklore. Yet the link is far newer than witchcraft itself. For centuries, European stories spoke of magic and night spirits with no broomstick in sight. The classic image only appears at the end of the Middle Ages, above all in the 15th century, when the authorities began hunting groups of witches, pacts with the devil and night flights.
Medieval theologians debated the question: do people really travel at night with a demon's help, or is it all illusion? In the early 13th century, the theologian Roland of Cremona recorded tales of night journeys and magical ointments. It was an early link between witchcraft, altered consciousness and imagined flight, long before any broomstick.
- 2Flying to the sabbath
- 3Guillaume Edelin's forced confession
- 4A symbol, not a vehicle
- 5From belief to folklore
