The witches were also notable in this book for riding their brooms the ‘wrong’ way round, with the bristles facing forward. It’s only recently that we’ve seen the bristles facing backwards in illustrations of witches riding broomsticks. The rider looking over the bristles of this domestic item suggested an inversion of power, a world turned upside down, women all-powerful over men. Depicted in this way, they symbolised everything that men then feared.
