The bearded half of Time Travelling Cook was eating boiled eggs yesterday and as I walked past I reminded him to turn them over and smash the bottom when he was finished so the Witches can't use them. This caused him to stop and give me a weird look.
Apparently he had never heard about this before and it lead me to question if I had made it up or was it an actual thing!
I took to my own Facebook page and asked family and friends. Some had never heard of it, some had heard of it but never done it and some agreed that this was in fact what you must do.
So where does this come from?
Do Witches use them as boats?
In older folklore the idea of a Witch using something other than a boat to travel, was a wide spread belief.
In fact in " A discoverie of Witchcraft" from 1584 states that the Witches liked to "saile" in an eggshell, a cockle or a mussel shell. In Europe this lead to the belief that after eating an egg, the shell should always be broken into pieces. Even early writings talk about Eggs and Witches. Pliny the Elder, who lived nearly 2000 years ago, wrote that eggshells should be broken "or pierced with the spoon". Eggs seemed to be unlucky in some folklore but lucky in others.
One suggested that breaking eggshells over a new baby would ward off witchcraft while another tale was that eggs should never be taken on board a ship as it would cause "contrary winds" So now you know, always break your eggshells ..... or as one friend pointed out, you can always leave them unbroken if you don't mind the witches using them!