It is not hard to make yourself a homemade broom. The handle is made with the straightest possible stick — in the past one of those coppiced saplings we spoke of earlier in this book. The broom is of birch twigs. Today they are tied on with wire, which pulls tighter than the traditional binding of willow withies. To make a traditional besom, one drills a hole through the end that will hold the broom and drives a wooden peg through it so that it protrudes about an inch on each side. Then the twigs are arranged around the handle and bound with flexible willow withies, above and below the peg so as to keep the bundle from slipping off.

The besom was the traditional witch’s implement, but long before that the people went out in the unploughed fields in spring and danced to make the grain tall. They straddled besoms, shovels, rakes, and any other implement as a “steed”, and the height that they and their steed could leap would be the grain’s height for the year. Later, when such capering fertility rites had fallen violently out of favour, these antics were associated with witches, the Devil, and the use of hallucinogenic flying ointment. Witches were shown first flying with the broom-ends down to “sweep their tracks out of the sky”, then with the broom-end up a century later, perhaps bearing a candle to light the way, then again with the broom-end fashionably lowered.

Brooms are still used as a symbol of fertility and many Pagan brides and bridegrooms jump over them at weddings to encourage abundance. They are also hung beside doorways in kitchens to invoke the domestic house spirits and make the kitchen a warm and comfortable place. While she is more of a Germanic goddess than a Scandinavian one, I associate the besom with Mother Holda and this prayer invokes her:

Steed of ancient fertile field,

Mother of ancient fertile home,

Holda’s hunting horse that sweeps

All clean as we together waltz,

Bless our home with every stroke.