Witch ball

Examples of the witch ball in use can be seen in the windows of houses from small rural villages to coastal towns and cities.

[2] Superstitious European sailors valued the talismanic powers of the witch balls in protecting their homes.

This name derives from their being used for divination and scrying where a person gazes into them dreamily to try to see future events or to see the answers to questions.

Salt was a precious commodity, and breaking the ball or bottle was considered bad luck.

In the Ozark Mountains, another kind of witch ball is made from black hair that is rolled with beeswax into a hard round pellet about the size of a marble and is used in curses.

[7] In A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh-Fermor mentions the daughters of the owner of a gasthof (guest house) in Bingen am Rhein, Germany, hanging witch balls on the Christmas tree in 1933, which suggests a link to modern baubles.