![]() All that can be said for certain, with this particular image in mind, is that the riders are mounted in positions that will be very familiar to those who have any knowledge of witch-related literature. This appears to be the earliest known depiction of women riding on broomsticks, but the mystical and magical connotations are less clear. Martin Le Franc’s “Le Champion des Dames,” via Wikimedia Commons ![]() The book depicts two women who don’t appear to need any such champion: The topmost figure rides upon what is clearly a broomstick, while the women below is mounted on a length of wood, though not one that can really be definitively seen as a broomstick. In 1451, Martin Le Franc published Le Champion des Dames. Witches, however, have seemingly been flying on the latter models for a very long time. Though we continue to use brooms to sweep our homes today, many of them are not of the traditional wooden design. How Far Back Does the Link to Witches and Brooms Go? A “besom,” over the years, has been defined as an unclean, unpleasant or rude woman or girl in Scotland, and all of these traits, along with broomsticks, remain associated with witches in popular culture today. The trusty broomstick has long been a tool in our arsenal when it comes to doing just that, and as History reports, the word broom (a plant that was often used for sweeping) was derived from the word besom. Needless to say, the development of human homes, houses, and habitats would have been rather closely followed by the development of ways to keep them clean. The connection between seemingly malevolent magic and brooms, however, seems to lead back to a certain ritual of paganism, along with various other activities witches supposedly indulged in. In the absence of a witchcraft charge, it’s safe to assume that Boleyn was never seen flying through the skies on a broomstick.
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