Okay, check this out. Is that the coolest crockery bottle you’ve ever seen?

It’s a Witch Bottle!

Do you remember my Witches’ Bottles for Protection & Prosperity? I also did a list of 13 items to include in your witches’ bottles and now… well; yesterday- I came across an interesting article in The New Scientist, by Linda Geddes about this 17th century witches’ bottle that was found in Greenwich, London, in 2004.

According to the article the ceramic vessel was found buried about 5 feet deep by some archaeologists. The bottle was sealed and it sloshed and rattled when they shook it, and an X-ray taken later showed pins and nails stuck in the neck, which suggested that it had been buried upside down.

It seems that, “many have been dug up and their contents washed away down the sink,” but “This is the first one that has been opened scientifically”, says Alan Massey, a retired chemist.

The images show it to be half full of liquid, which later proved to be human urine. (See? Bwahahaha! I told you to pee in your bottles!!) It also contained bent nails and pins, a nail-pierced leather “heart”, fingernail clippings, navel fluff and hair. The presence of iron sulphide in the mixture also suggests that sulphur or brimstone had been added.

Now here’s where the so-called witchcraft experts and I part ways. They believe that these bottles were made by non-witches for protection against witches and to ward off spells, citing some 17th-century documents that described how the witches’ bottles were made and used. Owen Davies, a witchcraft expert at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, UK, explains that “The whole rationale for these bottles was sympathetic magic – so you put something intimate to the bewitched person in the bottle and then you put in bent pins and other unpleasant objects which are going to poison and cause great pain to the witch.” He goes on to say that none of the “recipes” include sulphur and brimstone, but seems to figure that they are appropriately witchy ingredients, so what the hell. Hahaha!

I suppose if you need protection from a witch it would be a good idea to pee in your witches’ bottle as I suggested in my earlier posts. After all, body fluids do give a spell that extra little kick that would ensure protection form a powerful situation or person, but where I think these so called experts are waaay off is in the assumption that the person making the bottle was a non-witch who was working to ward off a witch. I mean, am I the only one who finds it a bit incongruous that a person who would be putting together fingernails and belly button fluff with nasty sharp things and urine isn’t a witch? During the 16th and 17th century wouldn’t a person doing something like that have been decried as a witch?

Hey, we’re not talking some little bit of folk magick like forking the sign against the evil eye at someone; we’re talking some serious collection and preparation here. I’m curious to know if the urine and fingernails have matching genetic markers. Is the DNA from the same person?

Generally, one would use the fingernails and hair of the person one was casting a spell on or against, rather than one’s own hair, fingernails, belly button fluff and urine. Talk about overkill! Haha. Now if a witch wanted to do a particular person some harm, they might use that person’s fingernails, and the pierced leather heart seems to vaguely echo some sort of voodoo doll type spell, but really- do you think that a person who was scared of a witch could get ahold of the witches’ fingernail and hair trimmings?

I think that the person who buried this bottle was a witch and she was probably protecting herself. The pierced leather heart may even imply a love spell. That would also make sense the combining of one’s urine with another person’s fingernail clippings and such. What I don’t believe is that this bottle was made by a non-witch to protect against a witch.

There are a lot of interesting questions around this discovery. I really wish that the so-called experts conducted their analysis a bit more thoroughly instead of making such broad assumptions. Now I’m off on another of my future archeologist fantasies… wondering what they might make of my witches bottles and other… err… artifacts they might one day uncover here!

What are your thoughts on witches’ bottles? Thornie wants to know!

Peace, out!