Beginner Foundations · Touch of Magick Book of Shadows
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An old bottle can hold evidence without holding a threat. Witch bottles invite us to ask how people responded to uncertainty—and how we can study their choices without repeating them. Here, the history stays with the historical objects; our optional exercise uses only a pencil and paper.
What is a witch bottle?
“Witch bottle,” or botella de bruja, is a name used for particular vessels interpreted as counter-witchcraft objects. MOLA’s Bottles concealed and revealed project examines seventeenth-century glass and stoneware examples associated with ritual protection or a supposed remedy for bewitchment. It investigates the relationship between popular magic and early modern medicine, rather than treating every bottle as the same kind of charm. [1]
This is a focused introduction to that English historical evidence, not a universal history of spiritual containers. A contemporary intention jar is not automatically an archaeological witch bottle. Nor does an unusual old vessel prove that anyone was practicing witchcraft.
Start with an actual object
London Museum’s object 60.121 is a Frechen stoneware bottle catalogued to 1550–1699. It has a mottled glaze and a lion medallion. Its recorded contents included earth, hair, and a cloth heart pierced with bent pins; the museum interprets those contents as evidence of counter-witchcraft use. These details describe a surviving artifact, not a recipe to copy. [2]
Nigel Jeffries’s MOLA guide explains that many examples used brown, rounded Bartmann vessels with bearded face decoration. Such pottery also belonged to ordinary trade and daily life: shape alone is not enough. Contents and discovery location matter, and some proposed glass examples remain uncertain. [3] Our illustration is a general study of vessel forms, not a reconstruction of object 60.121.
Belief, evidence, and care
The MOLA project, led by Jeffries with historians Owen Davies and Ceri Houlbrook, places these objects within their particular social and historical settings. [1] Evidence that people believed in a protective practice is not evidence that a curse existed or that the practice cured anything. We do not use bottles to identify an enemy, explain illness, or accuse another person.
| Historical purpose | Counter-witchcraft protection or a supposed remedy, as investigated by MOLA; interpretations depend on evidence. |
|---|---|
| Object-specific imagery | The lion medallion belongs to museum object 60.121; we assign it no automatic planetary meaning. |
| Our paper outline | A reminder to define what belongs within your own responsibility. |
| Our optional color | Purple for a considered boundary, or ordinary pencil gray. This is a shop suggestion, not a recovered historical rule. |
An original shop practice: a boundary on paper
This is a new reflective exercise, not a historical witch-bottle ritual. You need a notebook and pencil; no vessel or purchased supply is required.
- Draw a simple bottle outline. Leave its inside empty enough for three short sentences.
- Write one boundary within your control: “I will pause before accepting another commitment.” Avoid naming someone as a source of harmful energy.
- Add one practical action: “I will check my calendar before replying.”
- Outside the outline, write a consent reminder: “Other people may make their own choices.” A boundary guides your actions; it does not compel theirs.
- Date the page and revisit it after a few days. Note what you actually did, what proved difficult, and whether the boundary needs kinder or clearer wording.
The drawing promises no protection or outcome. It simply gives a chosen limit a visible place in your journal.
Material and discovery precautions
Do not recreate historical mixtures or use bodily substances, sharp objects, heat, wax, ingestion, or skin application. Nothing needs burying or hiding in a building. If you discover a suspected historic bottle, leave it undisturbed where safe, photograph its location, and seek a qualified local archaeologist or museum’s advice. MOLA specifically advises against cleaning or unstoppering finds. [3]
Journal prompt: Which limit can I practice through my own choices, without deciding what another person must feel or do?
Sources & further reading
- MOLA: “Witch bottles” concealed and revealedResearch project led by Nigel Jeffries with Owen Davies and Ceri Houlbrook; archaeological and historical context.
- London Museum: Jug, Bartmann jug, witch bottle—object 60.121Primary material evidence documented in the museum’s collection catalogue.
- Nigel Jeffries: What should you do if you find a 17th-century “witch bottle”?MOLA, April 16, 2019; identification limits and responsible handling of discoveries.