A besom is a broom made from a bundle of twigs tied around a wooden handle, the round, rustic broom of cottage hearths and fairy tales. In witchcraft, the besom is a ritual tool: it sweeps a space clean of unwanted energy rather than dust, and it stands for the home, protection, and the witch herself. It is also the broom witches have been said to ride for more than five hundred years.
What Is a Besom?
A besom is the traditional broom: twigs gathered around the end of a stout pole and bound tight, so the brush is round instead of flat. The classic English besom has a hazel handle and a head of birch twigs, bound with split willow. Heather and the shrub called broom, a yellow-flowered plant of western Europe, were common bristles too, and a besom made of broom was called a broom besom. That is where the word broom comes from. Over the 1500s and 1600s, broom replaced besom as the everyday word, and the flat broom most people own today came later, invented by the Shakers in the 19th century.
Besom vs. Broom
A besom is a round broom of twigs or natural fibers bound around a handle; a broom is any sweeping tool, including the flat, stitched kind. Every besom is a broom, but not every broom is a besom. In witchcraft, besom usually names a broom kept for ritual, and many practitioners never use it to sweep dirt.
What Does Besom Mean?
Besom comes from the Old English besma, a bundle of twigs, which could be used for sweeping or for beating. In Scotland, besom is also a word for a woman, usually a cheeky or troublesome one: according to the Association for Scottish Literary Studies, it is a term of contempt, or affectionate in the phrase "wee besom" for a mischievous girl. In the King James Bible, the Book of Isaiah (14:23) warns that God will sweep Babylon "with the besom of destruction."
Why Do Witches Ride Brooms?
Witches have been said to ride brooms since the 1400s. The first person in Europe to confess to it was a man: in 1453, Guillaume Edelin, prior of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, confessed that he had flown to a witches' sabbath on a broom, and he spent the rest of his life in prison. The idea of a flying ointment appears in records at about the same time, in 1456.
Some researchers think the image came from those ointments. Surviving recipes use plants of the nightshade family, such as deadly nightshade, henbane, and mandrake, whose alkaloids cause visions and can pass through the skin, and the ointment may have been applied with a staff. The flight, in this view, was a vision. These plants are deadly poisonous, and no one should try to make a flying ointment.
The broom was also simply the witch's own tool. It stood by every hearth, it belonged to the household, and it was easy to imagine carrying a woman up the chimney and away. By the 20th century the picture was fixed: the Wicked Witch of the West skywrote from a broom in The Wizard of Oz in 1939, and brooms carried the witches of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Hocus Pocus, and Harry Potter.
What Is a Besom Used for in Witchcraft?
In witchcraft a besom is used to sweep away unwanted energy, to protect the home, and to mark a threshold. These are its most common uses:
- Sweeping a ritual space. Before casting a circle or starting a spell, many practitioners sweep the space with a besom, moving it just above the floor to clear the energy rather than the dust.
- Cleansing a home. A besom sweeps heavy energy out of a house after an argument, an illness, a move, or a long winter, or before a new year or a new season.
- Protection. A besom hung over or beside the front door, bristles up, is kept as a guard for the house.
- Weddings and handfastings. Couples jump a broom to begin their married life; the custom has its own history, told below. Many pagan couples also jump a besom at the end of a handfasting.
- The sabbats. Besoms come out for Samhain, when the old year is swept away, and for Beltane, when fertility and new beginnings are celebrated. Our guide to Samhain correspondences covers the season.
- The altar. A small altar besom, often dressed with crystals, charms, and ribbons, keeps the altar swept and marks it as a working space.
The besom sits among the witch's tools in Wicca, alongside the athame, wand, chalice, and pentacle, and many Wiccans see its handle and bristles as the union of the God and the Goddess.
How to Use a Besom to Cleanse a Space
To cleanse a space with a besom, tidy it first, open the front door, and sweep the air just above the floor from the far corners of the room toward the door, then out over the threshold. Plan on fifteen minutes for a room and half an hour for a house.
- Clean it first. Tidy the room and sweep up real dirt with an ordinary broom. A besom clears energy, and energy clears more easily from a clean space.
- Open the door. Open the front door, or a window if you are working in a single room, so there is somewhere for what you sweep to go.
- Set your intention. Hold the besom in both hands and say aloud what you are sweeping away, such as "I sweep out tension and old grief; I welcome peace."
- Sweep the air. Starting at the corner farthest from the door, sweep with short strokes just above the floor, working along the walls and into the corners, where heavy energy is said to gather. Many practitioners sweep counterclockwise, the direction for banishing.
- Sweep it out. Work your way to the open door and make three firm strokes out over the threshold. Close the door.
- Seal the space. Light a white candle or some incense, or sprinkle a line of black salt at the threshold. Hang the besom by the door, bristles up.
For a deeper clearing, pair the besom with our white light decluttering ritual, a smudge stick, or our guide to creating sacred space.
Jumping the Broom
Jumping the broom is a wedding custom in which the newly married couple jumps over a broom together to mark the start of their home. It is most closely tied to Black American and Black Canadian weddings, where it carries the memory of enslaved ancestors.
Jumping the Broom in Black American History
In the American South in the 1840s and 1850s, enslaved people were usually not allowed to marry legally, because marriage was a civil contract and a contract required free people. Enslaved communities made their own ceremony instead. A couple jumped the broom before witnesses as a public declaration that they were as married as the law allowed them to be, and former slaves such as George Eason of Georgia described the custom in their narratives. After emancipation, when Black Americans could marry legally, the custom faded. It came back after Alex Haley featured it in Roots in 1976 and the television miniseries in 1977, and it became part of a wider reclaiming of Black heritage. For many families today, the broom at a wedding honors the ancestors who made a marriage when the law would not.
Where the Custom Came From
The deeper origin of jumping the broom is still debated.
- Britain. In 18th-century England, a "broomstick marriage" was slang for a sham or irregular marriage, and the Marriage Act of 1836 was mocked as the "Broomstick Marriage Act." The legal historian Rebecca Probert found no evidence that couples actually jumped a broom to make those informal unions. Romani couples in Wales, though, eloped and jumped a branch of flowering broom or a besom, and Welsh and English Romani kept the custom into the 1900s.
- West Africa. Some writers have linked the custom to a Ghanaian practice of waving brooms over the heads of newlyweds, but there is no direct evidence of a connection.
- Exchange. The historian Tyler D. Parry, in Jumping the Broom: The Surprising Multicultural Origins of a Black Wedding Ritual, argues that enslaved African Americans and poor rural white Southerners, many of British descent, shared more customs than is often acknowledged, and that the American custom grew from that exchange.
Jumping the broom belongs above all to the Black families who kept it alive and gave it its meaning. If it is not part of your own heritage, learn its history before you borrow it, and honor where it comes from.
Broom Folklore Around the World
The broom is one of the most superstition-laden objects in the house, and families around the world keep their own rules about it. These are recorded in the USC Digital Folklore Archives and in histories of the besom.
- A new broom for a new home. A Jewish family from Baltimore brings a new broom and salt into a new house: the salt so there are no tears in the home, and the new broom so the dirt of the old house does not come along.
- Never sweep someone's feet. Families from Haiti and Albania say that a person whose feet are swept will never marry. The Albanian cure is to spit on the broom, and a grandmother in Savannah, Georgia made her grandson do the same after he swept her foot.
- Sweeping out the old year. Many Chinese families sweep the house before the New Year and push the dirt out the front door, sweeping out bad luck and evil along with the dust.
- The Russian venik. In Russia, the besom, or venik, was said to hide the domovoy, the spirit of the house. It was kept as a protective amulet and used for fortune-telling, and old brooms were burned at Maslenitsa, the festival at the end of winter.
- The brewer's besom. English brewers stirred fermenting beer with a birch besom and never washed it, so the yeast lived on in the twigs, and a besom hung outside became a sign that ale was sold inside.
- The fire broom. In Scotland and Bulgaria, besoms are still stacked at the edges of some forests, ready to beat out a fire.
What Is a Witches' Broom on a Tree?
A witches' broom on a tree is a dense, twiggy cluster of shoots growing from a single point, like a broom or a bird's nest in the branches. It is a growth deformity, often caused by a fungus or by a phytoplasma, a tiny bacteria-like organism, and it takes its name from its broom-like shape.
How to Make a Besom
To make a besom, bundle dry twigs around the end of a straight handle, bind them tightly in two places, and trim the ends even. A full-size besom takes an afternoon.
- Handle. A straight branch about four to five feet long for a working besom, or 12 to 18 inches for an altar besom. Hazel and ash are traditional.
- Bristles. Dry birch twigs are traditional; heather, broom, straw, and broomcorn work too. For an altar besom, many practitioners add dried herbs such as lavender or rosemary.
- Binding. Strong garden twine, wire, or thin strips of willow.
- Gather an armful of twigs 18 to 24 inches long, and let fresh twigs dry for a week or two so they do not shrink and loosen.
- Lay the twigs around the last 8 inches of the handle, thickest ends toward the top, until the handle is hidden.
- Bind the bundle tightly about 2 inches from the top, wrapping many times and knotting hard. Bind it again 4 to 6 inches lower.
- Trim the bottom of the bristles even, and tap the besom on the ground to settle loose twigs.
- Dress it if you like, with ribbons in your colors, a charm, a crystal, or a carved symbol on the handle.
How to Care for a Besom
Hang a besom bristles up, or stand it on its handle, so the bristles do not bend out of shape. Keep a ritual besom separate from your cleaning broom, and cleanse it now and then by passing it through incense smoke. Keep it dry: damp twigs and fibers go moldy and brittle.
Where to Find a Besom
Our witch brooms and besoms collection holds ritual and altar besoms from 6 to 21 inches, sized for sweeping a circle, an altar, or a doorway rather than a floor. The dragon besom is the largest at 21 inches, with black and red bristles, a dragon charm, and garnet and black onyx beads. For the altar, the small altar witch broom is 11 inches of coco palm fiber on a copper-wrapped handle, the Celtic triple goddess broom is 9 1/2 inches with a triple moon charm, and the triple moon crystal broom is topped with an amethyst point. For a doorway guard, the evil eye and Hand of Fatima broom and the Wicca broom with pentacle are made to hang. Our guide to witch symbols explains the charms.
For the rest of your tools, see our guides to the witch's cauldron and the athame.
Besom FAQ
What is a besom?
A besom is a traditional broom made of twigs or natural fibers bound around a wooden handle, with a round brush instead of a flat one. In witchcraft it is a ritual tool for sweeping away unwanted energy.
What is a besom used for in witchcraft?
A besom is used to sweep a ritual space before casting a circle, to cleanse a home of heavy energy, to guard a doorway, and to jump over at weddings and handfastings. Small altar besoms keep the altar swept.
What is the difference between a broom and a besom?
A besom is a round broom of twigs or fibers bound around a handle; a broom is any sweeping tool, including the flat kind. In witchcraft, besom usually names a broom kept only for ritual.
Why do witches ride brooms?
The idea dates to 1453, when a French prior confessed to flying to a witches' sabbath on a broom. Some researchers link it to hallucinogenic flying ointments, and the broom was also the household tool that stood by every hearth.
What does jumping the broom mean?
Jumping the broom is a wedding custom in which a couple jumps over a broom to begin their married life. Enslaved African Americans, who could not marry legally, used it to declare their marriages, and it is honored at many Black weddings today.
Where did jumping the broom come from?
It was practiced by enslaved people in the American South in the 1840s and 1850s and revived after Roots in 1976. Its deeper origin is debated: Welsh Romani couples jumped a broom, and a West African link has been suggested but not proven.
What does besom mean in the Bible?
In the King James Version, Isaiah 14:23 says God will sweep Babylon "with the besom of destruction," a broom that sweeps a place clean away.
What does besom mean in Scotland?
In Scots, besom is a term for a woman, usually a cheeky or troublesome one. It can be an insult, or affectionate, as in "wee besom" for a mischievous girl.
Why do you hang a broom over the door?
A broom hung over or beside the front door, bristles up, is kept as a guard for the home, to sweep away harm before it comes inside.
Is it bad luck to sweep someone's feet?
In Haitian, Albanian, and Southern American folklore, a person whose feet are swept will never marry. The traditional cure is to spit on the broom.
Should you get a new broom when you move?
Many families say yes. Bringing a new broom into a new home keeps the dirt and bad luck of the old house from coming with you, and some bring salt as well.
How do you make a besom?
Bundle dry twigs such as birch or heather around the end of a straight handle, bind them tightly in two places with twine or wire, and trim the ends even.
