Cave of Zugarramurdi
The destination of the witches' flight to the akelarre.
The Flying Ointment
The witches' secret formula
Quick facts
- • Place:Homes of the Sorginak
- • Basque name:Hegaldirako gantz
- • Beings involved:Sorginak
- • Motifs:ointment, flight, transformation
- • Chronology:Medieval oral tradition
The Legend
To fly to the akelarre, the Sorginak had to prepare a special ointment. Its ingredients were secret, passed from mother to daughter and from teacher to apprentice in rites that vanished into the depths of time. Each witch guarded her recipe as her most prized treasure.
According to inquisitorial records, the ointment contained the fat of an unbaptized child, toad blood, Saint John's wort gathered at midnight, and other substances that modern researchers identify as hallucinogenic plants: belladonna, henbane, mandrake. Applied to the skin, these could produce powerful visions.
The witches smeared the ointment over their bodies and their brooms, then recited the magical formula: Above the clouds, without touching anything! After that they flew through the chimney to the nocturnal meeting. Whether they truly flew, or whether the plants carried them into ecstatic visions, remains forever unresolved.
What is certain is that the witches' confessions described nearly identical sensations: the feeling of rising, the wind on the face, the nocturnal landscape under their feet. Whether magic or chemistry, the flight felt utterly real to those who lived it.
Related creatures
Sources and documentation
- J.M. Barandiaran: Mitología Vasca
The flying ointment: magical botany in the akelarres of Euskal Herria
Among inquisitorial records and whispered village stories, one element returns again and again: the mysterious flying ointment. It stands at the crossroads of medicine, magic, and persecution.
This legend preserves the memory of a deep pre-Christian herbal knowledge that the Sorginak are said to have mastered. Plants capable of healing, poisoning, or altering consciousness became tools of both care and accusation.
La enigmática receta prohibida entonando el conjuro
To outsiders, the ointment proved diabolical guilt. To modern readers, it also suggests a sophisticated folk pharmacology whose effects may have shaped ecstatic visions of flight.
That duality keeps the story alive. The ointment remains both forbidden magic and a shadowed archive of women's embodied knowledge.
Alucinógenos mortales bajo la luna llena y el éxtasis en Zugarramurdi
Este brebaje inconfesable oscuro aglutinaba presuntamente letales concentrados puros inyectados ponzoñosos procedentes de acónito y mortal belladona letal (además de mandrágora profana mezclada con grasas animales hirvientes para repeler heladas de montaña). Los antropólogos e historiadores vascos modernos aseveran razonablemente que toda esta vasta y apabullante leyenda del vuelo a lomos oscuros mágicos inmateriales y cruces nocturnas esotéricas de akelarre indescifrable no era sino un inmenso y profundísimo ensueño trópico onírico narcótico provocado conscientemente al ser absorbidos rápidamente tan fuertes sustancias botánicas peligrosas en éxtasis puro e intenso corporal por piel.
Sin embargo la arraigada narrativa de la imaginación oral popular sigue abrazando nostálgicamente con tesón el romántico asombro inenarrable sobrenatural de aquellas singulares mujeres rústicas rebeldes misteriosas valientes dominando intrépidas con absoluta soltura el propio vacío incesante estrellado y gélido sobre los valles navarros libres alzadas en vuelo espectacular sin motor ante el fulgor inmenso plateado nocturno.
