Cauldron
A great pot, from Celtic myth and Macbeth to the modern witch's symbol of rebirth.
Also: witch's cauldron, kettle, Cerridwen's cauldron, Gundestrup cauldron
The cauldron is a large metal pot for cooking over fire. In Welsh and Irish myth, cauldrons restore the dead, feed armies or hold wisdom: the goddess Cerridwen brews inspiration in one, and the Dagda owns one that is never empty. The silver Gundestrup cauldron, found in a Danish bog and made in about the first century BCE, shows what may be Celtic deities. Shakespeare's Macbeth, of about 1606, gave the cauldron its picture as a witch's tool, filled with a catalogue of strange ingredients. Some modern Wiccans see the cauldron as an image of the goddess and of rebirth, and use a small one as a vessel for fire or water. In trial records, the pot is not often mentioned.