Witch bottle find

The "witch bottle" was discovered buried in old foundations in the Lincolnshire village of Navenby. Containing bent pins, human hair and perhaps urine, the bottles were supposed to protect a household against evil spells. Dated to about 1830, it is evidence the fear of dark forces persisted far longer than previously thought. Discovered by accident during building work, the artefact initially sat unrecognised in a cupboard.

In fact, the persistence of such ritual deposits has been appreciated for some time, as noted in Ralph Merrifield's 1987 The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic (recommended reading!). And the initial failure to recognize the significance of the find is also typical -- one of Merrifield's central points was that many deposits found when demolishing or excavating old structures had been ignored as odd bits rather than recognized as traces of unwritten and mostly pre-Christian apotropaic traditions.

Posted by David on January 28, 2004 10:21 AM