Bottles concealed and revealed: examining the phenomena of stone and glass 'witch bottles' and their concealment in mid to late 17th-century England

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The use of glass bottles and German or English made stoneware bottles as 'witch bottles' and their placement / concealment in buildings, churchyards, ditches and riverbanks is an occurrence limited to the mid to late 17th century and (largely) particular to Greater London, Eastern England and certain South East counties of England. Whilst this represents the beginnings of 'witch bottles' and their concealment as a practice in the national context, it remains distinct from other forms of popular 'bottle' magic that emerge over the next two centuries across the British Isles. This unique phenomenon has been interpreted in two ways. The first is for building protection: here the bottle was placed in the chimney/hearth or under a threshold as a spirit trap. Second is their use as containers of an administered cure against witchcraft. Written accounts from this period by Joseph Blagrave (among others) that describe the practice suggest the victim would fill bottles with urine, other contents such as pins, nails and thorns and / or personal objects (e.g. hair clippings) and then burn the bottle until it exploded or had it buried. This act would inflict pain on the witch and reveal both their whereabouts and reverse the curse. Since 'witch bottles' were first reported in the 19th century, they have featured in a varied range of publications, are curated in numerous museum / folklore collections and archaeological archives, and discussed on websites concerned with paganism and folklore studies. Their numbers have grown from the few first mapped by archaeologist and museum curator Ralph Merrifield (1987) and have since been recovered from archaeological sites, building recording surveys and or/ historic building renovations. Although many stoneware and glass 'witch bottles' and their contents survive in the present, it is a partial resource that has never been critiqued and surveyed as a whole collection. With bottles often considered individually, interpretations are reliant on Merrifield (1987) and whilst the scientific analysis of liquid contents has since been emphasised by Massey (2000), engagement remains limited to a few independent (i.e. Hoggard 2004; Hoggard in Hutton (ed) 2015) and academic scholars (Davies, ibid). Discussion is largely disconnected from the building types the bottles are found in and their cultural context, such as how medicine was administered and understood during the early modern period, and the role popular magic played.This application aims to recalibrate our understanding of these bottles and their contents over 36 months through collaboration and accessible research achieved through partnership with Nigel Jeffries as Principal Investigator (PI) and other archaeologists at MOLA with Professor Owen Davies and Dr Ceri Houlbrook of the History Department at the University of Hertfordshire (UH) - academics concerned with the study of magic, witchcraft, object concealment, popular medicine and the material culture of magic as Co-Is. Beneficiaries of this research will include not just historians and archaeologists of the period, but engage and inform museum / folklore curators, while the subject of witchcraft has an appeal that resonates beyond academia.Further readingDavies, O, and Easton T, 2015 'Cunning-Folk and the Production of Magical Artefacts' in R. Hutton (ed) Physical Evidence for Ritual Acts, Sorcery, and Witchcraft in Christian Britain: A Feeling for Magic, Palgrave MacMillan, 209-32Hoggard, B 2004 'The archaeology of counter-witchcraft and popular magic', in O Davies and W de Blécourt (eds) Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and magic in Enlightenment Europe Manchester: Manchester University Press, 167-86Hoggard, B 2015 'Witch bottles: their Contents, Contexts and Uses' in R Hutton (ed) ibid, 91-105Massey, A and Edmonds, T 2000 'The Reigate Witch Bottle' Current Archaeology (69, Vol XV (1), pp. 34-6 Merrifield, R 1987 The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic, London