Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

Although the association of cauldrons with witches dates back to at least the 6th century, this motif did not gain widespread acceptance until On Witches and Female Fortune Tellers was published in 1489. Ulrich Molitor's book is the earliest illustrated treatise on witchcraft. It contains the first printed depiction of witches with a cauldron. This page shows two elderly women placing a snake and a cockerel into a large flaming pot, in a bid to summon a hailstorm. The book was so widely reproduced, it helped to consolidate modern impressions of how witches were supposed to behave. Molitor addressed On Witches to Sigismund III, Archduke of Austria and Tyrol, who wished to refute witchcraft and demonic practices.

ULRICH MOLITOR, DE LANIIS ET PHITONICIS MULIERIBUS … TRACTATUS PULCHERRIMUS (COLOGNE, 1489)

British Library

“The woodcut illustration in this book was massively influential. The image of women gathered around a cauldron established a powerful visual iconography for witchcraft that has lasted for centuries. Not everybody can read words, but anyone can read a picture.”

Alexander Lock
Curator

‘I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses’

Professor Snape, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone