Witches with a Cauldron

The idea of witches standing around a smoking cauldron has been around for centuries. However, their association with cauldrons did not actually appear in print until 1489. On Witches and Female Fortune Tellers (on the next page), written by Ulrich Molitor, contains the earliest printed image of witches with a cauldron. Two elderly women can be seen placing a snake and a cockerel into a large flaming pot, in order to create a hailstorm. On Witches was so widely reproduced that it helped to shape people's ideas about how witches were supposed to behave.

In some tales cauldrons don’t just hold magic potions; they can themselves be magical!

In J.K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard, ‘The Wizard and the Hopping Pot’ tells the tale of a selfish wizard who refuses to use his magic to help Muggles with their ailments. But his cauldron is magic – it grows a foot and hops about by the wizard's side, clanking and banging and knocking around. Eventually the wizard has had enough, and as soon as he agrees to help the Muggles the cauldron quietly settles back down.

At every house of sickness and sorrow, the wizard did his best, and gradually the cooking pot beside him stopped groaning and retching, and became quiet, shiny and clean.

THE TALES OF BEEDLE THE BARD

Ulrich Molitor, De laniis et phitonicis mulieribus...

tractatus pulcherrimus (Cologne, 1489) BRITISH LIBRARY