Imagine those people on the TV trying to
sell
this new fangled invention.
British housewives in early times used the besom, "a handful of twigs with
the leaves still attached," to sweep their homes. Because these "besoms" were
often made of twigs from the small
wild
broom shrub they eventually came to be called brooms, by about the
year 1,000. However "Besom" remained the dominant name for the sweeping
implement well into the nineteenth century.
Brooms were often placed across the door of
a house to ward off witches, even though witches were believed to ride on
brooms. It was thought that before she could open a door, a witch had to
count every straw in a broom placed across it.