# Witch marks

*Protection marks; apotropaic marks; daisy wheels*

**Known today as.** Symbols scratched or burned near doors and fireplaces: compass-drawn daisy wheels, overlapping Vs for the Virgin, and burn marks.

Kind: Amulet

## What was it used for?

To guard the openings of a house or church against evil spirits and witches, and, Hoggard notes, against more than witchcraft.

## What does modern science say?

Now recorded by building historians and by surveys such as the English Medieval Graffiti Survey.

## What lore surrounds it?

At Knole in Kent, marks were cut in the beams and fireplace surrounds of a room prepared for James I in 1606, in the months after the Gunpowder Plot. In 2016 Historic England asked the public to help record such marks.

## What did the older authorities say?

**The Catholic Encyclopedia.** The Catholic Encyclopedia recalls the canon in the *De ecclesiasticis disciplinis* ascribed to Regino of Prüm (906), that it “is the duty of priests earnestly to instruct the people that these things are absolutely untrue and that such imaginings are planted in the minds of misbelieving folk, not by a Divine spirit, but by the spirit of evil,” and Burchard of Worms, who rejected “the nocturnal riding through the air, the changing of a person's disposition from love to hate, the control of thunder, rain, and sunshine, the transformation of a man into an animal,” treating “the very belief in their possibility … as a sin.” Gregory VII in 1080 forbade King Harold of Denmark to put witches to death “upon presumption of their having caused storms or failure of crops or pestilence.”

## Sources

- Hoggard, B. (2019). *Magical House Protection: The Archaeology of Counter-Witchcraft*. New York: Berghahn.
- *The Catholic Encyclopedia* (New York, 1907–1914), “Witchcraft.” newadvent.org/cathen/15674a.htm
- Hoggard, B. “Protection marks.” *Apotropaios*, apotropaios.co.uk/protection-marks.html.
- Hoggard, B. “Circles and daisy-wheels.” *Apotropaios*, apotropaios.co.uk/circles-and-daisy-wheels.html.
- Hoggard, B. “Deliberate burn marks.” *Apotropaios*, apotropaios.co.uk/deliberate-burn-marks.html.
- Hoggard, B. “Marian marks.” *Apotropaios*, apotropaios.co.uk/marian-marks.html.
- National Trust. “Witchmarks at Knole and the Gunpowder Plot.” nationaltrust.org.uk.
- Newser (2016). “UK wants help finding ‘witches’ marks.’” newser.com, 31 October 2016.

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

Historical description, not medical advice.