Merry meet everyone, With this month being a very special month for witches I thought I would dip back into history and research why besoms are such powerful tools for us witches today. That being said not all witches use theses amazing tools anymore because there not as common as they use to be. I for one am collecting materials to create my own one or even nudge my fellow witchy friend to help me make my own besom. Now when you look back into the history when besoms were around you could tell then had to create something to remove all the bad waste that was falling of their homes. Bare in mind their homes back in those days were created from wood, straw and old dirt. That is why the besom was created to clean out the old so their homes didn't smell as much as they did. One of the oldest besoms were created by any old material that could create the bristles. This could be old straw, herbs and twigs that were lying around and they would collect all theses together to create the main part of the broom. Many believe that the reason the bristles were circular was to represent the tree of life which many pagans back in those days believed was a important symbol. Many besoms were found hanging just in the door way of the home which was considered to ward off evil spirits, negative forces and to protect the home and whom ever lived inside. Now the traditional witches besom is normally made with a ash handle and bristles from birch twigs and thats because they were very common in those days. With modern day being harder to find these types of trees because we now have roads and buildings where back in those days trees covered the land. They also would tie the twigs of the besom together with a thin piece of willow wood and many would decorate their besoms with flowers of the season which I would consider would help cover the smell that was about in that time. What I found really interesting was many Celtic pagans connected the besom to faeries which I would of through was because of the relation to the wood used to create the besoms. Many believed the forests had sprites that protected the lands. Many believed that you would have to ask permission to collect wood aspects for the besom before making it because the sprites would cause havoc otherwise. There are other stories that a witch would ask for help from the sprites to lead her to the perfect tree to create her besom from and this was because it would then be considered enchanted with nature once created. I found that the besom is connected to both masculine and feminine energies, that being said the handle being phallic would be the masculine and the bristles being feminine. This means that the besom is in perfect balance itself which is not normally the case for witchcraft items. One of the things that you normally use the besom for is for hand-fasting rituals which if you didn't know what that is, its a witchy way of getting married. I personally love the idea of a hand-fasting with my partner when the time comes alongside the normal marriage ceremony just to please my witchy side. When I was younger my mother had her besom and when we would use the spirit board in the garden she would walk around with the besom casing the circle of protection, we would then have the besom over the doorway of the circle to keep out unwanted energies when we wanting to communicate with the other side. I have this strong memory of this because it was the first time I actually saw my mother use her besom. Anyway while theses besoms were used to clear out unwanted muck in old homes and clearing the area of ritual work, it is also important to remember that this was an important tool for witches during the burning times of Europe. That was because during this time period witches would use a broom to hide one of their most important tools which was their wand. They would hide it in the middle of the broom in plain sight so no one would think anything different. There is also a tradition that besoms have been used to harbour a particular spirit temporarily but I am unsure how true this one can be. There is so much history for us witches to remember that sometimes all you have to do is jump into the rabbit hole of history. I hope you enjoyed today's post and that you continue to look into our history this month. As always you can keep updated on all things witchy related on my instagram @paganvibesonly and if you need a chat or have a question message me and ill get back to you as soon as I can. I hope to see you all in the next post and as always keep safe everyone. Blessed be x PaganVibesOnly x Comments are closed.
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