The Brewery

10/20/2026

17 Days of Witchlore | Day 6
Love Magic, Obsession & Binding Spells 🖤

Did you know that people have been using magic to influence love, attraction, and relationships for thousands of years? And we’re not just talking about your typical love spell.

Across different cultures and magical traditions, there are all kinds of workings intended to attract a lover, keep someone faithful, separate two people, or make someone completely obsessed with another person.

In ancient Greece and Rome, people used binding spells, curse tablets, and figurines to influence someone’s romantic feelings or actions. Some spells even called upon spirits of the dead to torment a person with longing until they gave in to the practitioner’s desires.

In European folk magic, we find love charms, knot magic, enchanted foods, and personal belongings used in attempts to influence affection or secure a relationship.

In some African American Hoodoo traditions, practices such as sweetening work, reconciliation spells, and domination work have been used for different purposes involving love and relationships.

And in Italian folk magic, we find traditions involving love charms, sympathetic magic, and legamenti d’amore, workings intended to magically bind two people together.

What’s interesting is how many different cultures developed their own ways of working with attraction, desire, fidelity, and control, sometimes using surprisingly similar methods.

Of course, not all love magic is about forcing someone’s feelings. There’s a big difference between attracting love, strengthening an existing relationship, and attempting to dominate another person’s will.

But the history of love magic shows us that people have been turning to spellwork for their complicated love lives for a very, very long time.

Day 6 of 17 Days of Witchlore!

10/19/2026

17 Days of Witchlore | Day 5
Ancient Curse Tablets: When Magic Was Written in Lead 🖤
Did you know that ancient Greeks and Romans actually wrote curses on sheets of lead?
Known as defixiones, these tablets were used in binding magic to influence everything from love affairs and legal disputes to athletic competitions and personal rivalries.
Practitioners would inscribe names, requests, and sometimes elaborate invocations onto thin sheets of lead. Some tablets were folded, rolled, or pierced with nails before being deposited in graves, wells, or other places associated with supernatural powers.
And these weren’t always curses meant to cause physical harm.
Some were intended to silence an opponent in court, prevent a romantic rival from succeeding, or bind another person’s actions to the practitioner’s will.
Many invoked underworld deities or spirits of the dead, calling upon them to carry out the requested magic.
And here’s the fascinating part: thousands of these tablets have survived, giving us a rare glimpse into the personal desires, fears, and conflicts of people living centuries ago.
Day 5 of 17 Days of Witchlore explores the darker side of ancient magical practice.
Read the extended history on Patreon! 🖤

10/18/2026

17 Days of Witchlore | Day 4
The Ancient History of the Evil Eye 🧿

Did you know that belief in the Evil Eye dates back thousands of years?

Found throughout the ancient Mediterranean, Middle East, and beyond, the Evil Eye was believed to cause misfortune, illness, and hardship through envy, jealousy, or even excessive admiration.

But here’s something interesting: the Evil Eye isn’t the blue charm we recognize today. That charm, commonly called a nazar, is actually meant to protect against the harmful gaze.

In Italian and Sicilian folk traditions, the Evil Eye is known as malocchio, and protective practices involving prayers, gestures, amulets, and even olive oil have been passed down through generations.

Thousands of years later, these beliefs and traditions are still very much alive.

We’re exploring the history and protective magic of the Evil Eye for Day 4 of 17 Days of Witchlore.

Read the extended article on Patreon! 🖤

10/18/2026

17 Days of Witchlore | Day 3
Why Was Iron Believed to Repel Spirits? 🖤

Did you know that something as ordinary as an iron nail was once considered a powerful form of supernatural protection?

Throughout European folklore, iron was believed to possess the ability to repel fairies, malevolent spirits, and other supernatural beings.

In parts of the British Isles, people placed iron objects near doorways, windows, and beds to protect themselves from unwanted supernatural visitors. Horseshoes were hung above entrances, iron nails were incorporated into protective charms, and iron tools were sometimes placed near infants or new mothers, who were considered particularly vulnerable to fairy interference.

But why iron?

Some folkloric interpretations connect iron’s protective reputation to its association with fire, blacksmithing, and humanity’s ability to transform raw materials into powerful tools. Others suggest that iron represented a boundary between the human world and the supernatural.

The exact origins of these beliefs are difficult to establish, and their meanings varied considerably between regions.

What’s particularly interesting is that iron wasn’t always considered protective against every supernatural being. In some traditions, it was specifically associated with repelling fairies, while in others, it appeared in charms against witchcraft, harmful magic, or restless spirits.

And these beliefs weren’t limited to stories.

Iron objects have been documented in protective folk practices, from horseshoes above doorways to nails concealed within witch bottles.

Something we now consider an ordinary household material once carried an extraordinary amount of magical significance.

Day 3 of 17 Days of Witchlore explores the history, folklore, and protective symbolism of iron.

The extended article is available on Patreon! 🖤

10/16/2026

My modern take on an old Sicilian love working, Legatura d’Amore. This working was wild to watch as it burned. Notice what looks like the #18, the seahorses and the ‘faces’ where the smoke is coming out of at the end. The Octopus te****le constricts as the work burns binding the working together and sea spirits were definitely present 🖤

10/16/2026

17 Days of Witchlore | Day 2
The Witch Bottles Hidden Inside Walls 🖤

Imagine renovating an old house and discovering a sealed bottle hidden inside the walls, filled with rusty nails, bent pins, hair, and what may once have been human urine.

Sounds like something out of a horror movie, right?

Except these bottles were real.

Beginning in early modern England, people concealed what we now call witch bottles beneath hearths, under floors, and in other hidden areas of their homes.

But here’s what makes them particularly interesting.

They weren’t necessarily placed there by witches.

In many cases, they were actually intended to protect people FROM witchcraft.

The belief was that the bottle could counteract harmful magic directed at someone. Some historical accounts describe using the afflicted person’s urine along with sharp objects to turn the supposed witch’s magic back against them.

And these weren’t simply decorative charms. Archaeologists have recovered surviving examples, giving us physical evidence of protective folk magic practiced centuries ago.

It’s a fascinating reminder that fear of witchcraft didn’t just lead to accusations and trials. It also shaped the everyday protective practices of ordinary people.

For Day 2 of 17 Days of Witchlore, we’re exploring the history of witch bottles, the strange ingredients found inside them, and why people hid them in their homes.

The extended article is available on Patreon!

WitchTok Folklore

10/15/2026

17 Days of Witchlore | Day 1
Why Do Witches Fly on Broomsticks? 🧹

We’ve all seen the classic image of a witch flying through the night on her broomstick, but have you ever wondered where that idea actually came from?

One of the earliest surviving illustrations of witches flying on broomsticks dates back to 1451, in a French manuscript called Le Champion des Dames. It depicts two women flying through the air, one riding a broom and the other a wooden staff.

During this period, European authorities were increasingly spreading stories about witches traveling through the night to attend secret gatherings, often referred to as witches’ sabbaths.

Historical accounts also describe something called flying ointment, a supposedly magical salve that allowed witches to travel through the air. Some modern theories connect these stories to psychoactive plants, although the evidence for how these ointments were actually used is far from conclusive.

And the broom itself? It was an ordinary household tool, strongly associated with women’s domestic work, which made it an especially recognizable symbol in stories about witchcraft.
So the familiar Halloween witch on her broomstick has roots in medieval religious fears, folklore, and centuries of evolving imagery.

And that’s only part of the story.

We’re kicking off 17 Days of Witchlore, exploring the strange, fascinating, and sometimes disturbing history behind witchcraft and magical traditions.

Today’s extended article on Patreon takes a deeper look at flying ointments, historical witchcraft accusations, and how the broom became one of witchcraft’s most recognizable symbols.

10/12/2026

Signed, a Sicilian/Italian American who doesn’t celebrate Christopher Columbus. I urge my fellow Sicilian and Italian Americans to learn your history and deconstruct as well 💚🤍❤️

10/12/2026