The Witch’s Broom
in Popular Culture
Witches and their brooms have been a part of popular culture for years. Who isn’t familiar with the image of Mickey Mouse in Disney’s animated Fantasia as the sorcerer’s apprentice, frantically trying to get his enchanted brooms to stop carrying bucket after bucket of water?
One of my first “witch” movies was the enchanting Bedknobs and Broomsticks, also by Disney, starring a young Angela Lansbury as Eglantine Price, who uses her newly acquired magickal abilities to save England from the Nazis.
My favorite scene is the one in which she unwraps a package from the mail-order witch college and pulls out her new broom, exclaiming with joy, “My first broom!” as she clasps it to her chest. (Naturally, there is a black cat looking on.) Who doesn’t remember the thrill of getting their first magickal tool? Later in the movie, our heroine flies overhead on her broom as she directs the magickal fight that will win the day. (Note: There are rumors that witches really did use magickal work to protect England’s shores during World War II, including Gerald Gardner’s coven. Are they true? I’m guessing they are.)
The movie is a little dated today—it came out in 1971 and was based on an even older set of books, The Magic Bed Knob; or, How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons (1943) and Bonfires and Broomsticks (1945) by English children’s author Mary Norton—but it’s still fun and well worth watching, especially if you have kids.
Of course, like many people, my very first movie witches were the ones in The Wizard of Oz. Based on the book by L. Frank Baum (written in 1900, believe it or not), the movie originally came out in 1939. It began running annually on television in 1956, and watching it became a yearly tradition for many—both adults and children. I’m not sure how old I was when I first saw it, but I know that it captivated me enough to watch every time it was on.
I loved the story of Dorothy and her friends, and Judy Garland’s singing was as lovely as the scenery in Oz, but most of all, I was fascinated by the witches. Glinda the Good Witch of the North, who traveled in a floating bubble and waved a wand—well, she was pretty cool. But really it was Margaret Hamilton’s portrayal of the dark and villainous Wicked Witch of the West that kept me watching year after year.
When the Wicked Witch swooped around on her broom, she was absolutely terrifying. Even just standing and holding it, you could tell it was a potent force to be reckoned with. That broom was a symbol of her power, and after Dorothy accidentally melted her, the captain of the flying monkeys gives the broomstick to Dorothy to demonstrate that triumph.
broom lore
When making a broom for regular housecleaning, carve on the handle
running from tip up to bristles
“I sweep in money and luck.”
Carve on the other side,
in the opposite direction,
“I sweep out evil and poverty.”
This will ensure that the broom does both.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not encouraging anyone to go out and become a wicked witch (snicker). Although this particular one has been redeemed a bit in the modern musical Wicked, based on Gregory Maguire’s book of the same name (the full title is Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West). In both the musical and the book, we are shown a much more sympathetic view of Elphaba, the so-called Wicked Witch, as well as her unlikely friendship with Glinda the Good.
In the book, Elphaba’s broom is a gift from another character and still holds power even after her death. In the musical, she enchants it partway through the show and uses it to try and convince Glinda to join her. Although the Wicked Witch’s story still doesn’t have a happy ending, it has proven to be a consistent favorite with the public and is still running on Broadway. Apparently everyone loves witches and their brooms as much as we do!
There are a few other older movies about witches that you may have heard of, including I Married a Witch, a 1942 romantic comedy classic with Veronica Lake. I love the bit at the end where the housekeeper comes in to complain that the now-married couple’s youngest child is flying around on a broom. The audience knows…if she’s flying on a broom, she must be a witch.
More recent movies featuring witches and their brooms include the amusing 1993 film Hocus Pocus, in which the Sanderson sisters (Winifred, played by Bette Midler; Sarah, played by Sarah Jessica Parker; and Mary, played by Kathy Najimy) not only ride around on a broom, but a mop and a vacuum as well.
There’s also Practical Magic, one of my favorites, which has a much more serious view of witches and demonstrates the risks of misusing magickal powers. It also has many funny moments, however, and is usually classified as a romantic comedy, despite its often dark tone. The 1998 film is based on a novel by Alice Hoffman and stars Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as sisters, and the fabulous Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest as the eccentric aunts who raised them. The Owens family carries the curse of a long-ago magickal ancestor, and in the end, only love—and nine witches working together with brooms—can triumph over history, death, and magick gone wrong.
Unquestionably the most popular and well-known modern witches in movies are from the mega-hit series Harry Potter, based on the altogether terrific books by J. K. Rowling. (If you’ve only seen the movies, I highly recommend the books as well, and vice versa.) Many of the witches in the book ride brooms, including Professor Minerva McGonagall (one of my personal favorites, especially as played by Maggie Smith), but they are probably best known for their use in the flying game of Quidditch.
In fact, Quidditch brooms have become so popular, you can actually find numerous sources for them online, should you decide you need one of your very own. They don’t, alas, come with any guarantee that you’ll be able to fly.
broom lore
never sweep the outside of the house (or your front stoop) unless the inside has been swept first
The Harry Potter movies are supposedly for kids, as are the books, but I know just as many adults who love them too. This is often the case with so-called kids’ movies with witches in them, such as the recent animated movie Brave, which came out in 2012 from Pixar (the witch is a relatively minor part, but she’s pivotal to the story—and she’s a hoot!—and there is a broom that cleans on its own, despite the witch’s insistence that you “can’t magick wood”).
For something a little bit different, you might want to check out Kiki’s Delivery Service, a charming 1989 Japanese animated film, later dubbed into English and released in America in 1998. Kiki is a thirteen-year-old witch-in-training, living in a village where her mother is the resident herbalist. In the story, it is traditional for witches to live for a year alone when they reach thirteen years of age, so Kiki takes off for the big city with her best friend, a black cat named Jiji.
Kiki goes to live in the port city of Koriko and opens a delivery service because she only has one witch’s talent—the ability to fly on a broom. (And she’s not all that good at it to begin with.) Kiki struggles with self-doubt, loses her ability to fly, and then regains it when a friend is in danger and needs her help. By the end of the movie, it is clear that being able to fly on her broom has not only given Kiki a means to support herself, it has also brought her friends and self-confidence. This movie is a must for the young witch in your life. (And us older ones will enjoy it as well.)
Of course, movies aren’t the only places in popular culture where we can find witches and their magickal brooms. If you ask people who their favorite fictional witch is, many of them will respond immediately with Samantha from the television show Bewitched (and the later movie of the same name, starring Nicole Kidman as a witch for the second time).
Bewitched is one of the most popular situation comedies in television history, and Samantha (played by Elizabeth Montgomery)—with her trademark nose-twitch and eccentric relatives—made the often-clichéd show fun to watch. Brooms didn’t play a huge part in the show, although many of the witches are seen riding them from time to time, and the opening credits feature Samantha riding gracefully sidesaddle on one. There is a statue of her in Salem, Massachusetts, that shows her riding a very ordinary-looking cleaning broom.
The animated television show Casper the Friendly Ghost also featured a sweet young witch named Wendy (and a number of typical “bad” witches with haglike features and bad attitudes) who flew around on a broom. The character originated in a series of comic books, starting as a character in the Casper comics in 1954 and then getting her own series, Wendy the Good Little Witch, in 1960.
On television recently, a new witch for the older set appeared in a series of Good Witch movies on the Hallmark Channel. Cassie Nightingale (charmingly played by Catherine Bell) is a mysterious woman who comes to a small town and opens a shop filled with odd and esoteric items. And although she was initially coy about whether or not she was a witch, the audience knew she was one right away…not least because of the witchy-looking broom she owned.
broom lore
if a young woman accidentally steps over a broom handle, she will become a mother before she becomes a wife
Of course, witches in popular culture are probably best represented in book form. You can see that many of the movies listed previously started out as books (although some of them strayed further from their beginnings than others). Besides the ones already mentioned, there are the Terry Pratchett Discworld witches, many of whom fly about on brooms—Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg in particular. According to these characters, dwarven-made brooms are the best. Alas, most of us will never know for sure.
Witches and their brooms have permeated popular culture in many forms for many years. Sometimes they are portrayed as the archetypal crone witches with beaky noses, green faces, large warts, and bad intentions. But more often than not, you can also find the witch as heroine (or hero—sorry, Harry), riding to the rescue on her trusty broom.
real witches,
real brooms:
Blake Octavian Blair
i love using brooms in my magickal practice, and they do seem to possess extra charm, being one of the quintessential symbols of the witch. My husband and I do have a few ceremonial brooms in our home; however, we also consider our “non-ceremonial” kitchen broom for household cleaning to be an object of magick all its own. It is used not only for the act of literal cleaning (which has magickal benefits in itself) but also to ritually sweep up “floor sweeps,” herbal powders and blends sprinkled upon the floor for specific magickal purposes. I also have a dedicated small straw broom for dusting off spilled ashes and herbs from my altars.
My husband and I jumped a ceremonial broom at our handfasting, a tradition with both expansive symbolism and a beautiful, long history in Paganism and in other cultures. Having used that broom in such an energetically charged and personal ritual, we wanted to find the perfect way to display the broom in our home and simultaneously reap the benefits of its powerful magickal charge, so we hung it inside our bedroom, above the door, as a protection ward to our sacred sanctuary. We felt it to be a most appropriate location, and we benefit from its blessing and protective properties daily.
Blake Octavian Blair
author • www.blakeoctavianblair.com