154 Witches’ Brooms. 
Witch-finding reached its climax in 1645, when a man named 
Hopkins assumed the title of Witch-finder General, and in the 
Eastern Counties superintended the examination of witches by 
means of the most horrible tortures. When any unaccountable or 
unexpected event happened, ‘if anyone had a sheep sick of the 
giddies, or a hog of the mumps, or a horse of the staggers, or a 
knavish boy of the school, or an idle girl of her wheel, or a young 
drab of the sullens, and she hath a little help of the epilepsy or 
cramp,” then an appeal was made to the witch-finder, who looked 
round the neighbourhood for some one of the type of features which 
pointed to a witch. In Africa at present there are places where no 
old woman’s life is safe for twenty-four hours at a time; and in 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England age was as 
little respected. If the old woman on whom suspicion fell could 
not show her broom when asked, this afforded a clue. Again, if 
on the trees in the neighbourhood a witch’s broom was found 
growing it was clear that the witch was not far off who grew it for 
use in the black art. 
A farmer’s wife who was not very prosperous was told that if 
she would do as her neighbours’ wives did she would thrive too. 
These women were witches deeply learned in the Devil’s wicked 
ways. Having imposed on her a vow of secrecy they told her 
when she went to bed to take the besom with her, leave it in her 
place when her husband was asleep, and come with them. Having 
slipped away she found her neighbours waiting with brooms and 
sieves, and the three, mounted on their brooms, sped over hill and 
glen. When they reached the mountain they found its top in 
flames. They heard sweet music, and a savoury smell arose from 
1 As to the reason why a broom was considered an appropriate vehicle for a witch, 
I can only throw out this suggestion :—The word scoba (from scopa) was used 
for a broom, and witches were called scobaces because they rode on brooms. 
The same word scoba was used for milfoil, mille foliola. This was not the 
plant we now call milfoil, but the horsetail, eguisetwm, which was sold in Rome 
for brooms. Whether the fanciful artists of the time drew a witch witha 
horsetail behind her, and converted this into a broom, I must leave those pos- 
sessed of the necessary scholarship and leisure to determine; but certain 
references to brooms in mythology would point to an earlier origin than this. 
