On November 26, Fox News ran a story about explorer Jace Tannell, who has found several mysterious “witch bottles” on the Gulf of Mexico shore in his native Texas over the past few years. These amulets have been made for over 400 years, and they don’t seem to be losing popularity.
An American man has collected a whole collection of “witch bottles”
The last discovery Tannell made on November 15. The bottle was covered with clams, and inside was something like hair. It is not known what it really is, as the enthusiastic researcher does not open these bottles.
“They don’t scare me, but I’m not going to open them either.
In the sense that there must be some spells and so on inside. Why risk it?” Said James
The American simply stores the finds in the backyard. True, his wife is not very happy about this “occult catch”. She says she’d rather her spouse lugged seashells from the beach.
The age of the eight bottles found by Tannell recently has not been determined, but it is unlikely that they are more than a few decades old. However, the tradition of making these mysterious amulets has been known since at least the mid-16th century.
Witches’ bottles were used to fight the spells of witches.
About 1670 in England was published a ballad “Miraculous Cure for a Spell, or Strange News from Blubor and Holburne”. It told of a bewitched girl from the suburbs of London: she felt “bodily torment and mental confusion. Her friends suggested that the unfortunate girl go to a certain Chemist, known for his skill.
The Chemist ordered to take the urine of the bewitched woman and put it into a bottle “together with other ingredients”. This container was to be sealed and buried in a pile of dung on a hill. This, he said, would “invalidate the spell.” Soon a swollen witch appeared on the hill and demanded the bottle. On being refused, she left and soon gave up her spirit. After that, the girl quickly recovered.
“Lord, save us from these devil’s servants,
Protect our closest friends and girlfriends,
Keep away the damned witches and the fiends of hell,
For whom the triumph of evil is a great joy.” – Ballad “A Miraculous Cure for a Spell, or Strange News from Blubor and Holburne”.
It is believed to be the first time the “witch’s bottle” is mentioned in this ballad, though it is not explicitly called so. What is interesting is that the witch here was defeated by a chemist, not another witch or priest. Moreover, such stories were often described as quite scientific for their time as a way to cure ailments.
The famous English philosopher and writer Joseph Glenville described a similar story in his 1681 book The Triumph of the Sadducees. There, a curse was placed on a married woman: she began to see a winged creature and quickly became weak. An old man advised the victim’s husband to pour her urine into a bottle with needles and nails and hang it by the fire. It didn’t work. Then the old man said to make another bottle and bury it in the ground. After that the woman recovered.
Soon a stranger showed up at the family home. She said that the couple had killed her husband. It turned out that the man was a witch doctor, and when the ritual with the second bottle was carried out, he quickly weakened and gave his soul to the devil, having previously reported against whom he was witchcraft .
The story is quite fabulous, but Glenville collected for the book documentary accounts of participants and eyewitnesses of such events. At least it was not invented by him.
In addition, it is known that originally “witches’ bottles” (sometimes they were also called “spell bottles”) were a serious thing and quite expensive. For example, in the reign of Elizabeth I at the end of the XVI century, they were made of ceramics. There are records of such bottles with the image of a bearded face on one side. However, over the years, citizens concerned about protection from witchcraft have increasingly used ordinary glass bottles, which are now most often found.
