Welcome, Reader: This post was updated on Halloween 2009 to remedy linkrot and add an interesting tidbit on the famous Macbeth passage. As it is likely you ended up here via a search engine, click here to go to the updated post.

Have you ever wondered, perhaps on 31 October, why witches are depicted as riding brooms?

The answer is alluded to by Karmen Franklin at Chaotic Utopia in her post as to why witches need to know their plant biology.

The excerpts I'm about to give you come from a superb and accessible pharmacology text entitled, "Murder, Magic, and Medicine," by John Mann, host of the BBC Radio 4 series by the same name.

Hallucinogenic compounds called tropane alkaloids are made by a number of plants including Atropa belladonna (deadly nightshade), Hyoscyamus niger (henbane), Mandragora officinarum (mandrake), and Datura stramonium (jimsonweed). During the Middle Ages, parts of these plants were used to make "brews," "oyntments," or "witches' salves" for witchcraft, sorcery, and other nefarious activities.

Somewhere along the line, the observation was made that the hallucinogenic compounds, hyoscine in particular, could be absorbed through sweat glands (especially in the armpit) or mucus membranes of the rectum or vagina. These routes of administration also bypassed rapid metabolism by the liver (and severe intestinal discomfort) had these extracts been taken orally.

Just how did the alleged witches apply said ointments? The earliest clue comes from a 1324 investigation of Lady Alice Kyteler:

"In rifleing the closet of the ladie, they found a pipe of oyntment, wherewith she greased a staffe, upon which she ambled and galloped through thick and thin." And from the fifteenth-century records of Jordanes de Bergamo: 'But the vulgar believe, and the witches confess, that on certain days or nights they anoint a staff and ride on it to the appointed place or anoint themselves under the arms and in other hairy places.' It also explains why so many of the pictures of the time depict partially clothed (or naked) witches astride their broomsticks."

So as not to directly offend those with delicate sensitivities toward the naked human form, here is a link to such a picture.

But what about the issue of flying on said broomsticks?

The tropane alkaloid hallucinogens tended to cause sleep, but with dreams that involved flying, 'wild rides,' and 'frenzied dancing.' A 1966 description of tropane alkaloid intoxication was offered by the Gustav Schenk:

"My teeth were clenched, and a dizzied rage took possession of me...but I also know that I was permeated by a peculiar sense of well-being connected with the crazy sensation that my feet were growing lighter, expanding and breaking loose from my own body. Each part of my body seemed to be going off on its own, and I was seized with the fear that I was falling apart. At the same time I experienced an intoxicating sensation of flying...I soared where my hallucinations - the clouds, the lowering sky, herds of beasts, falling leaves...billowing streamers of steam and rivers of molten metal - were swirling along."

I never cease to be amazed or impressed by how much of our folk history is influenced by of natural products used in cultural or medical rituals.

To learn more about the colorful convergence of drugs and history, you owe yourself the indulgence of John Mann's book.