The Broom.
The same idea applies to the broom used in sweeping the house or collecting the grain on the threshing-floor. We have already seen the use of it to drive out poverty. “Pythagoras warned his followers against stepping over a broom. In some parts of Bavaria, housemaids in sweeping out the house are careful not to step over the broom for fear of the witches. Again, it is a Bavarian rule not to step over a broom while a confinement is taking place in a house; otherwise the birth will be tedious, and the child will always remain small with a large head. But if anyone has stepped over a broom inadvertently, he can undo the spell by stepping backwards over it again.”128 So, in Bombay, they say you should never step over a broom, or you will cause a woman to suffer severely in childbed.
In Bombay, some old Hindu woman, to cure a child affected by the Evil Eye, waves salt and water round its face and strikes the ground with a broom three times; and among the Bani Isrâîls of Bombay, when the midwife drives off the blast of the Evil Eye, she holds in her left hand a shoe, a winnowing fan, and a broom.129 In Italy, the broom is an old Latin charm against sorcery. The Beriyas, a gypsy tribe of the Ganges-Jumna Duâb, drive off the disease demon with a broom. In Oudh, it is said, when a broomstick has been done with, it should always be laid down, and not left standing. Mahâ-Brâhmans, who gain by officiating at funeral ceremonies, are alleged to violate this rule in order to cause deaths.130