TY - JOUR
T1 - ‘For All of Your Protection Needs’: Tracing the witch-bottle from the Early Modern Period to TikTok
AU - Houlbrook, Ceri
AU - Phillips, Julia
N1 - © 2023 TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1353/mrw.2023.a906600
PY - 2023/3/30
Y1 - 2023/3/30
N2 - In the Early Modern Period, witch-bottles were a magical-medical remedy for bewitchment, prescribed by cunning-folk. Filled with pins, nails, and the victim’s urine, the bottles were then heated or buried, counteracting the suspected curse. Today, witch-bottles have taken on new meanings and new physical specifications. It is no longer seventeenth-century cunning-folk instructing on how to make them, but contemporary Wiccans on social media. This paper traces the shift in the purpose and perceptions of the witch-bottle over time, its adaptation key to our understanding of the custom itself and of how people today engage with the practices of the past.
AB - In the Early Modern Period, witch-bottles were a magical-medical remedy for bewitchment, prescribed by cunning-folk. Filled with pins, nails, and the victim’s urine, the bottles were then heated or buried, counteracting the suspected curse. Today, witch-bottles have taken on new meanings and new physical specifications. It is no longer seventeenth-century cunning-folk instructing on how to make them, but contemporary Wiccans on social media. This paper traces the shift in the purpose and perceptions of the witch-bottle over time, its adaptation key to our understanding of the custom itself and of how people today engage with the practices of the past.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85173903211&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1353/mrw.2023.a906600
DO - 10.1353/mrw.2023.a906600
M3 - Article
SN - 1940-5111
VL - 18
SP - 1
EP - 31
JO - About Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft
JF - About Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft
IS - 1
ER -