Shiny Baubles British Folklore Part 4 #HazardousToYourSanity
Many years ago I inherited a Witch Ball,
which broke during a house move and I was devastated. I’m even more upset
having just checked on eBay (other online auction sites are available) and the
price of a genuine antique Witch Ball is more than I’m prepared to pay.
A Witch Ball is a glass ball that has a
reflective sheen, like a very plain Christmas bauble, and they were hung in a
window or over a hearth to reflect bad luck and the evil eye. Back in the 18th
and 19th centuries in the UK, belief in magic or witchcraft was fading
into a superstition. People being people, however, could not shake the feeling that
there was something supernatural going on. The educated priests, ministers and magistrates
wouldn’t interfere with any perceived ill-wishing and so those who felt under
attack had to take what actions they could to protect themselves.
Witch Balls were ideal. They were pretty,
could probably be picked up for a reasonable cost at fairs and I suppose had
plausible deniability if the minister visited. It must have been nice to have
something so bright in the window or over the fireplace. It must have also been
a reassurance if you felt under siege from dark forces. Some were filled with
salt or holy water and I wouldn’t be surprised if other folk remedies were also
in there, like rowan twigs or red thread. You could take the reassurance that
you were doing all you could.
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If you couldn’t get hold of a Witch Ball,
you could always use a glass float from a fishing net. This was apparently very
common in fishing communities and having a blue or green glass float in the
window served the same purpose. It was reflective, decorative and deniable. I
think that I have a blue glass float somewhere in the junk, but I’m not sure
about hanging that in a window. I live in Leeds, which is about as far from the
coast as you can get in the UK and I think people would think that I was
getting odder. The same is true of a Witch Ball, as it would look like a Christmas
bauble display and the neighbours may wonder why the decorations were still
up.
Apparently Witch Balls were
usually blue or green. I saw this in the Wikipedia article as I was fact
checking for this article. It may be that there is a superstitious reason for
it, but I suspect that in the nineteenth century it was easy and cheaper to get
hold of blue or green glass to use for the mercury glass of the ball. I still
think that they would look pretty.
I don’t currently feel under siege from darkness and I’m not entirely sure that I believe in Witch Balls. The time I put small acrylic mirror tiles around the garden was entirely to do with keeping away the neighbour’s cat (which didn’t work). But I sometimes feel that it’s nice to follow a superstition for the fun of it. I suppose the shiny, reflective, deniable equivalent now would be a shiny suncatcher hung in the window.
As a writer who uses supernatural themes, there are plenty of uses for Witch Balls and the associated Witch Bottles. I used the destruction of a Witch Bottle to allow the escape of a supernatural menace in More Tales from the White Hart and I had a lot of fun with it. That innocuous piece of decoration could be keeping something unexpected out – or perhaps a similar Witch Ball hanging in a cupboard could be keeping something in. Your character could have more consequences for changing up the decorations than stirring up the dust.
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