A twelfth- or thirteenth-century date would be simply bizarre because there is not context for this kind of image. Einige Seufzer zu Lust und Last mit der Ikonologie’) went through the evidence for this mural witch (and another) at Schleswig and suggested 1450. However, in a very important essay in 2002 Wolfang Schild (‘Die zwei Schleswiger Hexlein. This view has sunk practically out of sight now. For many years there was actually a minority opinion that this witch was a forgery (or re-elaboration) by a nineteenth-century restorer: perhaps an expression of how little she seems high medieval. The problem is that the dating simply does not hold up. Note too the very suspect claim that this is Frigga in the neo-pagan image below. 1300 has been backdated to the ‘twelfth century’ and in neo-pagan literature, where much is often made of this early witch, expect even bolder claims to antiquity. 1300 and Germany (the cathedral of Schleswig in what used to be Denmark). However, the earliest image of a witch flying on a broomstick is usually said to date to c. When did the witch and broomstick emerge in western culture? Well, there are several fifteenth-century images in manuscripts: and if memory serves the first printed image dates to the late fifteenth century. Rather than going down this particular wormhole Beach is going to restrict himself to a much simpler question today. Was it just a female symbol (there is at least one judicial record of a man flying on a broomstick) was it an expression of comet (really!) was it an instrument to vaginally absorb hallucinogenic ointment that had been smeared onto the broom (another post another day). There have been long and very suspect debates about where the broomstick came from. But in the European tradition witches have been associated, above all, with broomsticks: though note that witches were also to be seen jetting about the sky on cats (! Cross-contamination with valkyries?), on flails, on distaffs and on logs. Witches fly in many different cultures: the British anthropologist Needham argued that it was a way of expressing their power, their ability to bring maleficum to all who get in their way or on their nerves.
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