Sweeping Out Bad Luck with a Besom Broom

Sweeping bad luck out of the house is a working in which ordinary cleaning becomes a deliberate act of renewal. The householder sweeps every room from the back of the home towards the front door and out over the threshold, imagining misfortune, stale feeling and ill will leaving with the dust. The besom, the bundle broom of birch twigs, is the classic tool of the witch in European lore and a ritual object in modern Wicca, but any broom kept for the purpose will serve.

How to do it§

1. Do the ordinary cleaning first. Tidy, dust and clear clutter. Folk practice everywhere assumes that a spiritual cleansing follows a physical one.
2. Open the house. Open windows for a few minutes and, if you wish, light a white candle in a safe place in the main room, stating your purpose: "What is spent and unlucky goes out; what is fresh and good comes in." (an original wording).
3. Begin at the back. Start in the room furthest from the front door, at the top floor if there is more than one. Sweep from the far corners towards the doorway of each room, with short, firm strokes directed away from you.
4. Move towards the front. Room by room, sweep everything along the hallways towards the front door. As you go, name aloud or silently what you want gone: worry, arguments, illness, bad luck.
5. Sweep it out. Open the front door and sweep the gathered dust over the threshold and off the step, then into the dustpan. Put it in an outside bin at once rather than keeping it in the house.
6. Seal and refresh. Sprinkle a pinch of salt on the step or just inside the door, and wipe the threshold with water to which a few drops of lemon juice or a sprig of rosemary have been added. Close the door.
7. Close the working. Return the broom to its place, bristles up — a common folk habit for keeping luck — wash your hands, and put out the candle.

Origins and history§

Brooms gather a remarkable density of belief. In Britain and across Europe, folk sayings warned against sweeping on New Year's Day or after dark, lest good fortune be swept away; against stepping over a broom; and, in an English rhyme, against sweeping with a broom made in May. Similar rules appear in China, where sweeping on the first days of the New Year is avoided for the same reason. A broom laid across the doorway was believed in some regions to keep a witch from entering.

The image of the witch riding a broom took shape in the fifteenth century. Among the earliest depictions are two small marginal figures of women on a broom and a stick in a manuscript of Martin Le Franc's poem Le Champion des Dames (copied in 1451), and confessions extracted in the witch trials of the following centuries made "riding" to the sabbat on a staff or besom a familiar motif. Modern Wicca, from the 1950s, adopted the besom as a ritual tool used to purify the circle by sweeping the air above the ground rather than the floor itself, and the "broom jump" is part of many Pagan handfastings.

In African American tradition the broom carries its own weight. Newbell Niles Puckett's Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro (1926) and Harry Middleton Hyatt's later interviews record many beliefs about brooms, including that sweeping over a person's feet brings bad luck and that one should not carry a broom from an old house to a new one. Jumping the broom at weddings, practised by enslaved people who were denied legal marriage, was revived as a celebration of African American heritage after the 1970s. See folk magic and hoodoo and rootwork.

Variations§

Some sprinkle salt or a herb powder on the floor before sweeping, then sweep it up with the dust. Others sweep a ritual space in a circle, sunwise, before a rite. In hoodoo, floors are often washed after sweeping (see Floor Wash for a New Home). Many households sweep out the old year on 31 December so that the house is clean but untouched on New Year's Day.

Safety and good sense§

If you have asthma or dust allergies, open windows and consider a damp cloth or vacuum cleaner for the physical clean, keeping the broom for the final symbolic sweep. Keep candles in stable holders away from the broom's bristles, curtains and children, and never leave them burning in an empty room. Salt can harm pets, plants and some floors. A cleansing ritual can be a meaningful fresh start, but it is no substitute for medical care, counselling, or practical help with problems in the home.

Sources and further reading§

• Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro — Newbell Niles Puckett, 1926
• Hoodoo—Conjuration—Witchcraft—Rootwork — Harry Middleton Hyatt, 1970
• The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain — Ronald Hutton, 1996
• An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present — Doreen Valiente, 1973
• The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present — Ronald Hutton, 2017