An Evening with Brian Hoggard – The Use of Bellarmines as Witch-bottles

I’ve never had much cause to visit the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds but on Wednesday 10^th April I attended a short lecture delivered by Brian Hoggard on the bellarmine bottles and their uses as witchbottles.

Brian Hoggard is an independent researcher working on the archaeology of counter-witchcraft, running the website Apotropaios and managing an extensive collection of hidden objects associated with counter witchcraft and the occasional curse. His talk fit with the Institutes current display associated with Renee So called Bellarmines and Bootlegs but also in time for the release of Brian’s new book Magical House Protection: The Archaeology of Counter-Witchcraft.

I’m sure Brian could have spend an hour on each aspect of his hidden objects collection, going into detail on the various objects and how they were used and discovered but we didn’t really have that kind of time. Instead he gave us a very quick introduction to the Bellarmine and their use in witchbottles.

Why the Bellarmine?

The Institute had a number of “non-witchbottle” examples of the Bellarmine stoneware and Brian’s presentation also included a number of pictures. They are very anthropomorphic, carrying the face of a lion bearded man on its neck above a rotund body which usually carries a symbol such as a daily wheel. The stoneware was imported from Germany but what made its way to England wasn’t what the creators considered to be the best quality. The best was saved for markets at home, but even the bottled that made their way to England were of a high quality which could be used over and over again.  The Germans perfected the process of stoneware as well as a glaze which was very reminiscent of skin or leather and the combination of form and appearance lent itself perfectly to inclusion in magical operations where a person needed to be represented.

As well as giving us the context of the time period in which the bellarmine witchbottles were most in use Brian outlines the two different ways that witchbottles were used by cunning folk and regular folk alike.

Offensive Witchcraft

Although not as recognisable to modern practitioners this first use of the witchbottle was as a form offensive counter witchcraft to punish a witch for bewitching a loved one. The stoneware bottle was filled with the urine of the afflicted person, which was believed to form a powerful connection between witch and victim because the essence of the witch was contained within the effluence, well-sealed and set to boil for anything up to 9 days and nights. Sounds dangerous? Well most of the written accounts the Brian gave involved the bottle exploding, and if the stoneware fragments weren’t enough there were the other ingredients to be fired around the room.

This form of Witchbottle appears to have been the earliest form of the counter witchcraft and seemed to have been something that could only have been performed by a practitioner of the cunning craft. On the other hand, and something that was more of an everyman spells, was the hidden spirit trap.

Spirit Traps

This will be far more recognisable to modern witches; the urine, the pins, the hair… a spiritual decoy which would draw any malicious witchcraft away from the individual represented by the bottle. This method appears in the record a little later, but seemed to spread further across the country with the spread of the Bellarmine bottle and was a practice which was picked up by different people, leading to interesting alterations in content such as clothing and felt shapes, or even complete variations such as a small bottle found in a parish boundary wall in Dorset which contained spring water and beef tallow, apparently representing a decoy to protect a cattle herd.

This kind of spirit bottle is often found placed inverted, bung down, which carries a couple of different connotations. Firstly, it may have been a practical consideration which ensured that the bung stayed wet and the condense preserved. Just as likely it represents the intent to cast the trapped spirit down into Hell.

Spirit Weapons

I’ve have a degree of familiarity with the archaeology of counter witchcraft for some time, in no small part through Brian’s work, so it was the finer points of Brian’s talk that caught my attention. For example, according to Brian the inclusion of bent pins, broken fork tines and other sharp-edged items that appear broken in Witchbottles wasn’t just a case of opportunistic inclusion but rather a very deliberate act, not unlike the ritual deposition of broken swords in watery contexts in the bronze age.

Like those bronze age swords the nails included in witchbottles had been bent as part of the preparation of the bottle, with the nails in an individual bottle having the same angle of bend indicating that they were all bent at the same time, if not around the same vice or post, which likely meant they were new at the point they went into the bottle. The ritual “death” of the object was a deliberate act, creating spiritual version of the sharp point which would successfully deal with the ethereal thread of the witches spirit/craft.

I don’t think I’ve ever fully made that connection before hearing it from Brian, despite being fully aware of the apparent purpose behind the deposition of bronze swords. Boy, don’t I feel stupid. It was also interesting to hear about Brian’s opinion on Marian and cross hatching marks as a spiritual representation of the human hand or a net ready to catch the evil spirits floating around a house.

I am really looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of Brian’s book, as the lecture was a perfect teaser for the information within. It might not be every witches cup of tea, by his own admission Brian is an academic writing an academic text, but I think it is going to be a very good insight into the practices of cunning and common folk alike.