The “flying” ointment
The practice behind the story was the use of plant-based ointments that could cause delirium and vivid hallucinations. Some European plants associated with these recipes—such as henbane, mandrake, and deadly nightshade—contain chemicals that disrupt the brain’s normal signaling. In sufficient doses, they can produce confusion, dreamlike visions, and a distorted sense of the body and its surroundings.
That could make a person feel transported or airborne without any actual flight. The sensation was not a predictable, harmless trip: these plants are poisonous, and their effects can be frightening and physically dangerous.
Where the broomstick enters
Accounts of witches using flying ointments helped give supernatural stories a bodily, memorable detail. One explanation proposes that a broom handle served as an applicator: ointment might have been rubbed onto a stick and applied to sensitive tissue, where some substances can be absorbed. That idea offers a possible link between the ointment and the image of a witch astride a broom.
But the evidence does not establish one precise ritual as the origin of the broomstick legend. Witchcraft records were often shaped by accusation, interrogation, and beliefs about the supernatural, so they are not straightforward descriptions of ordinary practice. The strongest connection is between ointments capable of producing altered sensations and stories of magical flight—not proof that a particular broomstick technique was universally used.
