The Witch’s Besom

By Lyon Mercaeant

Samhain is right around the corner and along with that of course, is also the secular Halloween. One of the most popular icons of the holiday is the old witchy hag, with her warty nose, trendy buckled boots (Hey – if you hold onto anything long enough it will come back into style again!), and what item is this green skinned diva never seen without? Her broom, or more accurately termed, her besom.

Regardless of the fictional portrayal of witches in the mainstream seasonal iconography, the besom is actually a tool used within the modern practice of witchcraft, and it is an item that is fun but also steeped in quite a bit of symbolic lore and tradition. I am going to explore some of this symbolism, as well as discuss its uses and ideas for their creation. I will also leave you with some resources for learning how to create your very own besoms.

The besom, while being a standard in housekeeping practices since ages long past, is actually quite more than just domestic armament. Magically speaking, it is a symbol of fertility and sexuality. Many sources cite the traditional construction of besoms as having a handle made of ash, a head made of birch twigs, with bindings made of willow. The ash according to Scott Cunningham is a wood associated with masculinity, fire and amorous love. The birch is a wood associated with femininity, protection and cleansing. The besom takes the two and becomes a symbol of their uniting as one. You can make the implied leaps in imagery required here I’m sure. This is one of the reasons why the besom is traditionally used for handfasting ceremonies, where the couple will join hands and jump the broom together, hoping to bestow blessings of fertility upon their new union. This is a tradition borrowed from what many sources cite as Celtic tradition, but that many Pagans have made their own today. John Michael Greer states that people in Appalachia of Scotch-Irish descent still practice this tradition today as well, having brought it over with them from home. Incidentally, your handfasting besom makes a wonderful keepsake. I kept mine hanging in the living room of my home, sort of a magically affirmation of the marriage, complete with the ribbons tied on with the best wishes and blessings of everyone who attended the ceremony.

Many stories can also be found of how people would take their besoms in days long past out into the fields at planting time and ride them around, “jumping” to show the crops how tall they should grow. This again, connects the besom to fertility rites, and it is also probably one of the places where the stories about witches riding around on brooms come from. While doing research for this article, I found one mention of brooms being used to apply the infamous “flying ointment” used by witches to take to the night skies. This flying ointment we know of course was used not to literally fly around on full moons, but rather applied to the skin to induce astral projection for spiritual travel. I haven’t ever heard of using the broom in this manner before, but I suppose that it would be plausible.

Witches today use their besoms in a variety of ways. In ritual, it can be used for directing energy; much like the wand is used. Most often you will find the broom being used to sweep negativity away from the ritual space while it’s being prepared, and/or to sweep positivity, or whatever you wish really, into the space. While there are traditional materials used to make besoms as I already mentioned, there is no reason a crafty witch couldn’t make a besom in any size they wanted out of whatever herbs and other materials they wanted to, tailored to specific magical purposes, such as sweeping in prosperity with a with a little temporary broom fashioned out of tulips for example. (I see no reason they couldn’t be added to an altar or dining room table after as decoration, a reminder of your spell work and as a further draw for prosperity either!)

A besom kept upright (it should always be stood upright as a sign of respect according to folklore) by the front door or a fireplace is said to protect everyone who lives within the home by preventing evil from entering. A variation of this would be to hang a besom over the front door to a home. Ann Moura states that besoms made out of real broom however will repel the fey when kept in a home in this manner, so if you are wishing to seek out and work with this energy, best not to use real broom. Many people insist that one’s ritual besom should never be used daily within the home, but as a self declared kitchen witch, I do not find this is necessarily the case. I believe my ritual implements should in fact be used for daily activities because it helps add the magical to the mundane and deepen my working relationship to the item. The home is my shrine space. However, whatever you feel works best in your mind is what is important. There’s also no reason to not have more than one besom for different uses either. To me however, using a consecrated broom to sweep negativity out of my home or sweep positivity into my home makes perfect sense. There is a wives tale though about how you should never sweep dirt out through the front door or else you’ll sweep your family’s prosperity out with it. I believe instead that one’s intent probably makes the difference here.

So now that we know about besoms, where do we find one, or how should we make one ourselves? Seeing as how ‘tis the season for all things witchy, you can walk into just about any store right now and find all different kinds of besoms for sale. Yes, you can find them in the Halloween aisle. Sometimes you can find great besoms there of all different styles and materials. In fact, this is how I found one that I use – it’s all black with a wood handle and a black straw head. You can take any of these besoms and personalize it to fit who you are. Paint them, decorate them with ribbons, glitter, stones, the possibilities are endless and only limited to your own creativity. You should strive to make your magical tools your own, and it can be a fun way to spend the afternoon as well. It’s also this time of year that many renaissance festivals occur, and these are great places to find brooms too. You could use your regular run of the mill household brooms instead, or many places sell those scented decorated brooms and those work great for ritual purposes.

Or if you’re a very industrious sort of witch, you could build your own from the bottom up instead of decorating and personalizing a purchased one. If this is the case, I leave you with some resources in order to learn to make one for yourself.
http://www.witchway.net/hallows/besom.html

http://www.briar-rose.org/Besom.asp (This site includes fantastic photos of the process.)
< href="http://paganwiccanabout.com/od/shoppingandsupplies/ss/Besom.htm">http://paganwiccanabout.com/od/shoppingandsupplies/ss/Besom.htm