Also called witch's cauldron, three-legged pot, kettle
A cauldron is a large round cooking pot, usually cast iron and often on three legs, that became the best-known symbol of the witch. In modern practice it is used for brewing simmer pots, burning paper wishes safely, holding water for scrying, and as an altar symbol of the Goddess, transformation and plenty.
TraditionEuropean folk household practice and modern Wicca and witchcraft
RegionBritain, Ireland and northern Europe
EraIron Age objects; witch imagery from the 1500s; ritual use from the 1950s
Moon◐ Any moon
DayMonday · Moon
ElementWater
Difficulty●○○ Simple
Time1 hour to cleanse and season, then as needed
Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.
The working
Choose a solid cast-iron cauldron with three legs or a flat base that sits steady, and decide before buying whether it will ever touch food. Keep a ritual-only pot separate from cooking pots if you burn resins or herbs in it.
Clean it with warm water, a stiff brush and a handful of coarse salt as a scrub. Dry it at once, ideally over low heat on the stove.
Season it: wipe a thin coat of oil over every surface and heat it in an oven at about 450°F (230°C) for an hour, upside down, with a tray below. Let it cool in the oven.
Bless it at your altar: pass a sprig of rosemary or bay around the rim, then hold the empty pot and state what it is for, such as 'a vessel for change and plenty in this home.'
To burn written wishes or releases, set the cauldron on a tile or trivet, fill the bottom with an inch of sand, and burn only small slips of paper, one at a time, with a lid and water within reach.
For a simmer pot or herbal brew, use the stove under a normal burner, never an open fire indoors, and stay in the room while it heats.
For scrying, fill it with water, add a drop of dark ink if you like, and gaze at the surface by candlelight.
After each use, empty it, wipe it dry and give it a light coat of oil so it stays black and rust-free.
Take care: Cast iron gets dangerously hot: use pot holders, set it on a heatproof tile, and never burn anything in it on a wooden altar, near curtains or unattended. Burn only small amounts with sand in the base, keep a lid and water nearby, and never use a cauldron that held resins, charcoal or non-food herbs for cooking.
Versions across time and place
i
Ceridwen's cauldron of inspiration
Medieval Welsh legend · Tale written down in the 16th century, drawing on older poetry
Ceridwen brews a potion of wisdom in a great cauldron that must boil for a year and a day. The boy Gwion Bach, set to stir it, gets three hot drops on his thumb, puts it in his mouth and gains all the knowledge. After a shape-shifting chase she swallows him and he is reborn as the poet Taliesin. Modern pagans read her cauldron as a symbol of rebirth and inspiration.
Recorded in: Hanes Taliesin (Tale of Taliesin), translated by Charlotte Guest in The Mabinogion (1877)
ii
Macbeth's witches' brew
Jacobean stage witchcraft · c. 1606
The three witches circle a boiling cauldron and drop in a list of grotesque ingredients while chanting their famous 'double, double' refrain. Many of the odd ingredients are now thought to include folk names for ordinary plants. The scene fixed the image of witches around a bubbling pot in English-speaking culture.
Recorded in: William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1
iii
Gundestrup cauldron
European Iron Age ritual metalwork · c. 150 BC to 1 BC (dates debated)
Peat cutters found this gilded silver vessel taken apart and stacked in a bog near Gundestrup, Jutland, on 28 May 1891. Its plates show gods, animals and a horned figure often linked to Cernunnos. It is the largest known piece of European Iron Age silverwork and was probably made in the lower Danube region, then deposited in the bog as an offering.
Recorded in: National Museum of Denmark; Gundestrup cauldron entry, Wikipedia
iv
The kitchen kettle
Rural household practice in Britain and Ireland · Medieval to 19th century
For most people the cauldron was simply the main cooking pot, hung on a chain over the hearth for stews, porridge, washing water and dyeing. Its role at the heart of the home is one reason it became tied to women's work, healing brews and, in hostile eyes, witchcraft.
Recorded in: General household history; see Cauldron entry, Wikipedia
History
Cauldrons were prized objects long before they were linked to witches. Bronze and silver vessels were deposited in lakes and bogs across Iron Age Europe, and the Gundestrup cauldron, found in a Danish bog in 1891, is the most famous. In Welsh tradition, magical cauldrons appear again and again: the cauldron of rebirth in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi brings dead warriors back to life, and Ceridwen's brew of wisdom creates the poet Taliesin. These stories tie the pot to plenty, renewal and knowledge.
The witch's cauldron as an image came later. Woodcuts and pamphlets from the 1500s onward show witches brewing storms or ointments in pots, and Shakespeare's Macbeth, around 1606, gave English its most quoted cauldron scene. When Gerald Gardner and his circle shaped Wicca in the 1950s, the cauldron became an altar tool standing for the Goddess and her womb of rebirth, and it is often used at Samhain and Yule. Today most practitioners use small cast-iron pots for safe burning, brewing and scrying.
