30 WOMAN AS WITCH 



inverted broom or the presence of a goat, the favourite 

 animal of the witch, and therefore presumably of her 

 mistress, the goddess of fertility ; the riding of youth 

 or maid on a broomstick to the pig-sty on New Year's 

 Eve, when the answer of the swine determines the 

 nature of the future bride or groom ; the burning of 

 brooms on Walpurgisnacht in Thiiringen to frighten 

 the witches ; the procession to the well at Saulgau, 

 which was headed by a man bearing a broom, followed 

 by one with a fork, and between them a third clothed 

 in a sheepskin, and carrying a tree with apples and 

 other eatables (termed the Adam's tree) ; the proces- 

 sion of men wearing women's clothes, with brooms and 

 fire-forks, on Fast-Nacht at Erlingen ; the brooms which 

 the witches will not step over in Nassau, or which 

 protect the cottage doors in the Pfalz against the 

 entrance of witches; the broom stuck in the dunghill 

 in Schlesien to protect the homestead, or in the flax 

 field to increase its fertility, or the brooms burnt on 

 Midsummer Night with a wild dance, in the same 

 district ; the besom which, laid on the bed, protects men 

 against the cobbolds in North Germany, where we find 

 again the same broomstick ride to the pig-sty, and the 

 same burning of brooms at dances in the woods ; the 

 old brooms which frighten away changelings ; and the 

 worn-out brooms which are burnt in the fires on Mid- 

 summer Eve in the Pfalz. All these evidences of 

 broom-worship show how universal was the respect for 

 the mother-goddess and her servants the witch-priestesses 

 throughout the length and breadth of Germany. 



Similar folklore as to the distaff, the cooking ladle, 



