# Witch ball

**Known today as.** A hollow ball of glass, often silvered or colored, hung in the window.

Kind: Amulet

## What was it used for?

To ward off witches and evil spirits, whose eye the bright glass was said to attract and confuse.

## What does modern science say?

Between the World Wars they became fashionable decorations and wedding gifts.

## What lore surrounds it?

The Victoria and Albert Museum has a blue glass one made at Bristol in the second half of the eighteenth century, said to have hung in a window against witches and evil spirits; in 1938 the *Taunton Courier* advised hanging the witch ball at Christmas and leaving it up afterwards.

## What did the older authorities say?

**The Catholic Encyclopedia.** The Catholic Encyclopedia records St. Agobard of Lyons writing “Against the foolish belief of the common sort concerning hail and thunder,” and Burchard's Corrector, which held that to believe in witches' “control of thunder, rain, and sunshine” was itself “a sin for which the confessor must require his penitent to do a serious assigned penance.” Yet after the middle of the thirteenth century the Inquisition “began to concern itself with charges of witchcraft,” and in the Valais in 1428-1434 “200 witches were put to death.”

## Sources

- *The Catholic Encyclopedia* (New York, 1907–1914), “Witchcraft.” newadvent.org/cathen/15674a.htm
- Museum of Witchcraft and Magic (2017). Watch-bottles, witch-balls, witch-watchers, wizard-balls and ‘bounched glasses’: a history of the witch ball. Museum blog, 22 May 2017.
- Victoria and Albert Museum. ‘Witch’ ball, Bristol, second half of the 18th century. Collections record O341185.

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*Witch ball.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/witch-ball

Historical description, not medical advice.