In old cottages, you might find various things hanging up around the house, a horseshoe over the door, horse brasses on the hearth, or glass balls in the windows. These are not just decorations; they are wards for magical protection. Their purpose is to turn away negativity and evil.
We all want to protect our homes; we fit locks and security cameras to deter thieves and those who would intrude on the very place where we should feel safest, where we should be able to keep out what we don’t want. Within living memory, it was also common to protect the home with magical wards – charms and spells to keep it safe and lucky. As witches, it is part of our craft to take basic precautions against harmful spiritual energies. Failing to do so would be like not bothering to lock the front door.
The threshold of a house is liminal place, neither inside nor outside, but a boundary between the two, and therefore vulnerable, a way for the Otherworld to intrude. In British folklore, it was thought unlucky to tread on the threshold itself, and people were always careful to step over it; this is why brides, in a transitional stage of life, are carried across it. The Irish scattered primroses on the doorsteps to keep fairies from crossing it, and in England thresholds were made of protective holly wood for the same reason. In parts of Britain, defensive designs called step patterns were drawn on the doorstep in salt or chalk or reproduced in mosaic or tiles. These took the form of knotwork and ‘tangled thread’ patterns since spirits are said to follow straight paths when travelling and get caught up in trying to follow the twisting lines. You can protect your threshold by using white chalk or paint to inscribe protective runes, pentacles, knotwork or tangled patterns on the doorstep.
Historical ‘witch bottles’, dating back to the seventeenth century, have been found in cottages, colleges, inns, ecclesiastical premises and historical buildings either buried beneath the floor, under the threshold, near the hearth or up a chimney – entry and exit points of the building, and therefore more susceptible to ingress by dark, supernatural forces, witches, ghosts, fairies and demons. It was usual to get one of the cunning folk to create it. Witch bottles were used for protection from magical attack, or from disease. Each was found stoppered and filled with an assortment of items such as iron nails, lead shot, bundles of hair, thorns and small bones. These are all protective items, and iron in particular is inimical to evil witches and fairies. They were then filled with the final ingredient, the urine of the victim (the person who needed protection from magical attack), to bind the bottle to its creator, stoppered and buried. As well as protection from bewitchment, the witch bottle was used for protection against disease. A plastic witch bottle in the Museum of London found in the River Thames, seems to date from 1982, according to the latest coin found within it, along with slivers of metal, coins, a tiny bottle of oil of cloves, and a large number of human adult teeth. It appears to have been aimed at protection from toothache or tooth decay, since oil of cloves is a remedy for toothache.
Country and cunning folk would hang a broom above the front door to keep evil spirits out or cross brooms in front of the door to keep negative energy and malicious magical practitioners at bay.
Hagstones are naturally holed stones, usually found on the seashore or riverbanks, associated with the hag goddess herself, and long believed to have a protective influence. A naturally holed stone is a ring, a circle of power. They may still sometimes still be seen hanging in barns, stables and other farm buildings throughout the UK. Sometimes a small one is added to the property’s bunch of keys or hung over the keyholes.
Horseshoes draw on the power of iron to repel malicious magic and spirits. They are nailed above doors to protect the entrance to the home, hung points upwards as a sign of power.
Hammered ceremonially into woodwork, especially doorframes, iron nails are a means of warding off bad luck and harm from households. Like horseshoes, they have the protective power of iron. Nails are symbols of binding harmful forces, literally ‘nailing the problem’.
Witch balls are hollow spheres of glass or polished metal that are hung in the window for protection, to deflect evil spirits, bad luck, negative energies and magic sent against the homeowner. They had a widely spread historical use in England (and later America) and are still to be found today in houses and shops. I’ve seen examples that are (roughly spherical) glass bottles, glass fishing floats, and very expensive purpose-made glass orbs. In the past, the balls were filled with coloured threads, so that any spirit trying to enter would be forced to follow the thread and get lost, or sometimes they contained holy water or salt.
The hearth is a threshold too. A common folk ward was the so-called ‘witch mark’. Rather than being a defence against witches, they were for general protection, and found carved into the door posts or stones near liminal places such as doors and hearths. They have been found dating back to the medieval period, on barns, churches, and houses. One of the most common is the hexafoil, or ‘daisy wheel’, boxes, meshes and grids. These function as spirit traps. You might still see horse brasses hung on the hearth in old pubs and houses. They were originally defensive charms attached to horse harnesses, to protect the animals from enchantment, but since used as hearth wards. Traditional designs include lucky symbols such as the sun or moon, horseshoes, stars and wheels, or apotropaic (evil repelling) symbols like serpents, lions, and dogs. Witch posts were built into fireplaces in the north of England to prevent evil coming down the chimney to enter the hearth and home, and to keep away evil witches. It was said that a witch could not pass the rowan wood post and the cross carved upon it, or the crooked silver sixpence that was kept in a hole at the centre of the post. The sixpence itself had magical properties and if the butter would not turn, you prised it out and put it in the churn.
Glass has a magic all of its own and is widely found in traditional wards. Glass ‘walking sticks’, which obviously cannot be used as a walking aid, were also called charm wands, medicine rods, witch canes or witch’s sticks, were an old method of warding. They seem to have been manufactured specifically for magical use. Most of them were made by the Nailsea glassworks in Somerset, from 1788 – 1873. (Nailsea also manufactured witch balls.) They were hung on the wall, over entryways to prevent harm entering, or placed in a bedroom between the bed and the fireplace in order to absorb the spirits that caused disease, particularly the ague (rheumatism). They contained spiral patterns, or were filled with ‘hundreds and thousands’, so that spirits would be trapped within them. They had to be cleaned carefully each morning to remove any evil that had attached itself to them and to break one would certainly cause bad luck. They were hung on the wall and dusted daily to keep away sprites and bad luck. Each morning, the charm wand must be empowered by wiping it vigorously with a dry cloth, whilst chanting a spell of empowerment. This charges up the wand, causing it to attract harmful particles to its surface, preventing the owner breathing them in and suffering illness as a result. You’d be very lucky to find a Nailsea glass walking stick now, but I have found twisted glass rods in craft shops and even garden centres, complete with spiral patterns, that may be used as charm wand wards.
© Anna Franklin condensed extract from the forthcoming, The Path of the Hearth Witch, Llewellyn 2025
Hearth Witchery 