Seventeenth-century homeowners in Europe and America routinely protected their houses from evil spells by burying witch bottles under their hearths or floorboards.

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Seventeenth-century homeowners in Europe and America routinely protected their houses from evil spells by burying witch bottles under their hearths or floorboards. These mystical defense mechanisms were tightly sealed glass jugs packed with iron nails, rusty pins, thorns, and copious amounts of the homeowner's own urine. The bizarre logic was that any malicious magic cast by a local witch would be drawn to the bodily fluids in the bottle, where the sharp objects would impale the curse and break the spell. Imagine being a powerful sorceress with the ability to bend reality to your dark will, only to have your hex completely neutralized by a mason jar full of rusty hardware and stale pee hidden inside someone's basement walls