Witches Flying Ointment
The psychotropic, mind-bending blends that may have caused witches to 'fly'
My firm favourite of the witching olfactory blends that I produce for my online apothecary (huh-hem, shameless plug/link to that here should you be so inclined) is Witches Flying Ointment, a mind-bending blend of spicy amber notes, with a wash of wood smoke, resinous herbals, and tangy neroli. The namesake, and indeed the intoxicating scent of this candle is inspired by the most wonderful nuggets of purported witchcraft history, that of witches flying ointment.
Now, the ingredients needed for a real-deal flying ointment would probably kill someone. As I like my customers (for the most part) alive, I don’t add belladonna and jimson weed to my candle aroma, as they are highly toxic, and whilst they are capable of inducing hallucinatory states, they can also prove fatal if too much is ingested.
References to ointments that cause the imbiber to ‘fly’, quite literally getting high, go as far back as Homer’s Iliad from around 800 BCE, when the Greek goddess Hera used an ambrosia ointment to fly to Olympus. Flying ointment, green ointment, magic salve, lycanthropic ointment, or my personal favourite term, from Germany, Hexensalbe (love) is reported to have been used during the early modern period, and was a topical salve or unguent rubbed liberally on the body (usually under the arms, where it was more easily absorbed) to send the ointment-wearer “on a journey.” As some of the ingredients recorded are either hallucinogenic or deliriant, it has been suggested as the origin of the popular image of witches riding on broomsticks (more on that later), and also to explain the idea of witches flying off to the Sabbat - witch hunters at the time weren’t 100% sure whether witches were actually mounting a broomstick and sailing off into the night, or whether these recollections were delusions, placed in their mind by the Devil.
There are several accounts from the 14th to the 17th Centuries which regale us with tales of brushes with flying ointment, or green ointment. The majority of these come from disgruntled menfolk who crossed paths with a woman having herself a grand time with such sacred ointment, either cocooned in a deathlike trance-state or spinning tales of flying on broomsticks, communing with the Devil and riding bareback on demonic beasts. It all sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?
Bartolommeo Spino, a Dominican clergyman from Pisa wrote his “Tractatus de strigibus sive maleficus” (Treatise on Witches or Evildoers) in 1525, and as your standard misogynist slab of fearmongering, it included a couple of accounts of men who had come into contact with someone under the influence of this mysterious salve.
One story concerned a physician friend of his who lived in Pavia in his younger years, while he was studying medicine. The friend arrived back home late one night, but didn’t have a key. Finding no one to let him in, he climbed up and over a balcony and rather than go to bed and get a good night’s sleep (or make a mental note to bring a key next time), he went to find the maid, angry that she hadn’t been waiting there on tenterhooks to open the door for him.
When he found her, she was passed out on the floor, and could not be roused for love nor money. Evidently not that perturbed by this, he left her on the floor and went to bed. The next morning, the maid was up and busy, seemingly as if nothing had happened. He questioned her, and she admitted that she had been on a journey. We would, of course, look at this account in a contemporary light and surmise that she might have just been completely exhausted (especially if she was expected to work all day and wait up by the door all night in case someone didn’t have a key), or that she was worried about getting in trouble for falling asleep, so pretended to be dead (haven’t we all been there?)
The second account in Spino’s treatise also leaves a lot to be imagined; and sounds somewhat like a man who might be looking for forgivable reasons to do away with his wife. The story goes that this man woke up one morning unable to find his wife. He searched their estate, and eventually found her: unconscious, naked, covered in mud, and - shock-horror - her genitalia exposed, lying in a pigsty. You would think his initial reaction would be one of shock or grave concern, but instead, he deduced that she was a witch, and he should probably kill her this instant. He hesitated, however, long enough for her to stir into consciousness, beg his forgiveness, and again, tell him she had been on a journey.
There is some conjecture and difference of opinion on the original recipe of flying ointment, with all manner of psychotropic and toxic ingredients suggested, however, the fat of children tends to make a common appearance. During the 15th Century, a group accused of witchcraft in Bern, Switzerland were put on trial for purportedly spiriting away children and draining their juices to make a flying ointment. Francis Bacon wrote that the recipe called for, “the fat of children, digged out of their graves, of the juices of smallage, of wolfebane, and cinquefoil, mingled with the meal of fine wheat: but I suppose that the soporiferous medicines are likest to do it, which are hen-bane, hemlock, mandrake, moonshade, tobacco, opium, saffron, poplar leaves.” Well, at least saffron and poplar leaves are more convenient to obtain and less likely to cause convulsions.
The idea for flying ointment was floated in the treatise to beat all treatises on witchcraft, the heavily misogynist and afeared-of-all-women-tome, Malleus Maleficarum, or Hammer of Witches, published in 1486 by Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer, who was at once terrified and fascinated by the idea of women. He was expelled from Innsbruck in 1484 after attempting to prosecute witches there and seemingly being obsessed by the sexual habits of the accused, and it has been suggested that he wrote the book out of “self-justification and revenge.” The book had repercussions around the globe for long after its publication, being referenced frequently during the witch craze of the Reformation, its ideas forming the fundamental understanding of what it meant to be a witch in early modern Europe. More often than not, being a woman was enough.
The Malleus Maleficarum mentions that flying ointment was made “at the devil’s instruction”, and that a key ingredient was “the limbs of children, particularly of those whom they have killed before baptism”. This treatise was pulled out, reprinted, and referred to again and again during witch trials over the coming centuries, and the ideas in it repeated and embellished upon, inspiring everyone from Matthew Hopkins to James I.
There are many accounts of brushes with flying ointment that go a little further south than the armpits. It has even been said that the popular image of witches flying on broomsticks could have been embroidered within the imagination of witch interrogators looking for raunch as they went about ‘discovering’ witches.
The history of witches salve, as with many recorded tidbits from the days of the witch hunting craze, are interwoven with sensational accounts of women’s sexuality. General fear and suspicion of female sexuality resulted in fantastic tales of sexual deviancy, such as communing with beasts; and reports of altogether ordinary concepts, such as female masturbation and desire, framed in the outrage of the religious men conducting the witch hunts. There is also an element of sexual repression, as some witchfinders and clergymen found themselves carried away, obsessing over salacious details and viciously interrogating their female captives about their sex lives, dreams, dark thoughts and sexual history.
There are many references to women greasing staffs, pipes, and sticks with flying ointment, and taking themselves off for a merry joy ride. In the 15th Century, Jordanes de Bergamo wrote that “they anoint a staff and ride on it to the appointed place or anoint themselves under the arms and in other hairy places.” You do get the impression that he wasn’t referring to the upper lip.
Ireland’s first recorded witch trial, that of Lady Alice Kyteler in 1324, contains the revelation that the accusers found “a pipe of oyntment, wherewith she greased a staffe, upon which she ambled and galloped through thick and thin, when and in what manner she listed.” Scintillating stuff, and possibly the first trial by dildo - although reading this sentence on its own, with no surrounding context, you wouldn’t necessarily jump to the conclusion that ambling around meant that she was pleasuring herself with her household appliances.
An important factor in these accounts is of course that no one deserves to be executed for masturbating, but stories like this helped cement the accused as guilty. The idea of a woman taking agency in her own pleasure, or even deriving pleasure from sex at all, was enough to condemn them in the eyes of the often zealously religious and endemically sexist men deciding upon their fate.
Contemporary accounts during the early modern period were noted in treatises and pamphlets which were likely to have been read by self-designated witchfinders peddling their trade, instilling ideas and paving the way to the leading questions they would focus on during their interrogation of suspected witches. Many confessions were extracted under some form of duress, from depriving the accused of sleep to stripping them naked and shaving their head, and almost all confessions were given to a man with some degree of power and authority, more than often not by someone who was afraid, confused, and faced with an impossible situation - tell their interrogators what they thought they wanted to hear, or deny all and be accused of lying. Either avenue appeared to often end in punishment.
Modern practitioners can buy their own flying ointments (there are many to be found on Etsy) and for the most part, these are in no way hallucinogenic but packed full of useful herbs like mugwort, yarrow, and sage that smell nice and can aid in sleep and relaxation. I pop yarrow into my Samhain candle in keeping with the traditions of witchcraft, and because the herbal aroma marries so well with the more indulgent base notes of the candle.
The Witches Flying Ointment candle is also not deliriant or hallucinogenic, but however you should choose to use it, may you enjoy happy travels ✨
