Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Weaving Magic: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Witch Ladder
418 Plays1 month ago
Episode 44.
Welcome to The Bell Witch Podcast. Your gateway to "Witching in the 21st Century".
In this episode our host Swailes the FGW delves into the topic of witch ladders as a traditional magical tool. Swailes shares her personal experiences with creating and using witch ladders, emphasizing their significance in meditation and magical work. She provides historical context, recounting the discovery of a witch ladder in 1878 Somerset and its folklore. The episode combines personal anecdotes, historical insights, and practical advice, encouraging listeners to explore their own witchcraft journeys.
'If this episode has inspired you to create a witch's ladder, don't overthink it. Go outside, do a bit of foraging, and write something about what you want the intention of this witch's ladder to do for your personal magic.'
sources- http://www.lukemastin.com/witchcraft/terms_witch_ladder.html
https://www.davidcastleton.net/witchs-ladder-wellington-somerset-magic/
https://www.learnreligions.com/make-your-own-witchs-ladder-2561691
https://england.prm.ox.ac.uk/englishness-witchs-ladder.html
Produced with love and magic by Swailes the Friendly Green Witch friendlygreenwitch | Twitter, Instagram, Facebook | Linktree
Official podcast sponsor Whimsy Goth Market London- thewhimsygothmarket.uk
DISCOUNT CODES- 'bellwitch' for 10% off www.theteatonic.com
Discount Jasper cacao affiliate link - https://www.jaspercacao.com/shop/?affiliate=2714
Join the NEW Patreon for bonus content and exclusive episodes The Bell Witch Podcast | Podcast | Patreon
Follow #TBWP on Instagram The Bell Witch Podcast (@the_bell_witch_podcast) • Instagram photos and videos
Official Photos by Beverley Thornton Beverley Thornton (@beverleythornton) • Instagram photos and videos
Music by Geoff Harvey of Pixabay
X SHOW LOVE BY RATING YOUR FAV PODCASTS WHERE EVER YOU LISTEN TO YOUR SHOWS X
#magic #witchcraft #witchladders #pagan #wiccan #spitituality
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Tea Tonic Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
Are you ready to sip on something extraordinary? May I introduce the tea tonic where every cup is crafted with care, nature's finest ingredients and a touch of magic. The tea tonic is 100% natural and have a wide range of single leaf teas, unique blends, all handmade to order using their specially designed recipes. the tea tonic use fully compostable and recyclable packaging and can also create bespoke blends just for you visit the tea tonic.com and receive 10 off your entire order with the affiliate code b-e-l-l-W-I-T-C-H. And take a moment with the magic of spiritualities with the tea tonic of leads. Dark Cast Network, bringing our indie podcasts out of the shadows
00:01:29
Speaker
out of
00:01:36
Speaker
hello hello which
00:01:41
Speaker
the Bale Witch
Podcast Recap & Support Options
00:01:42
Speaker
Podcast. Hope you had a fantastic, spooky season and enjoyed the October moot loop bonanza where I did one interview per week through the whole of October. Had some fantastic guests on the show and learnt so much. Also, I noticed there was a bit of a theme recurring throughout the whole thing which was how much their life direction changed because of the paniddy and lockdown you know it was a case of i had this plan the pandemic came along we all got shut down and then this brand new witch biz was born i just i really loved that little pattern that i saw whilst editing and interviewing people in bulk like that it was really nice still buzzing from winning an award and i am so happy to be here podcasting and getting a tiny little bit of recognition it is really lovely you can support the bell which podcast in all the usual ways for example leaving those stars they really do help the podcast to shine ratings wherever you listen every little helps it helps me keep in the chats join my patreon for as little as one pound 50 a month which is like a cup of tea for this witch it's got a good assortment of things on there right now. It's got about 70 odd posts, exclusive subscriber only mini podcast episodes. What the TikTok is a subscriber only podcast. It's all conspiracy and stuff that makes me go like, what the TikTok? So do check that out. You can also tip your witch on buymeacoffee.com or PayPal. Links in show notes below. Oh yes, and thank you so much to those that have ordered tea using the affiliate discount code Bell Witch with Tea Tonic. John had an order or two from the code, so that's good. You get yourself a little witchy discount there. And I will link the T-Tonic website in the show notes with the affiliate codes.
Choosing Episode Topics: Witch Ladders
00:03:50
Speaker
You can go grab yourself a right bargain. Quick magical shout out to a lovely listener called Michael aka Gomez. Thank you for listening. So this is the first solitary witch episode I've done for a very long time. The last one being is witchcraft dangerous and I remember it were a right mission to pull that together but I'm very proud of that episode and I think it was well received. So I hope this one also achieves this goal.
Live TikTok Interview Announcement
00:04:21
Speaker
For this episode I was pondering what to talk about. I've got so many topics I want to cover and it's really hard to choose which direction to go in if I'm honest because I just want to do it all really quick. Pace yourselves whales. But the two that I keep flip-flopping between are sigils and witch ladders. So I've been toying between these two for a while and I figured I'm going to do witch ladders actually because the next friendly coven is going to be all about making witch ladders. So I thought well why not tie the two up I could do with the knowledge so I went off and I did loads and loads of research. But before I dive into that, just a little notice
Exploring Witch Ladders: History & Significance
00:05:06
Speaker
for you. I am going to be interviewing the Occult Family live on TikTok on the 12th of November. It's a Tuesday. It'll be tomorrow when this airs. Live on their TikTok feed. I'm going to come on as a host, do it live, record it and then edit it from the podcast. This is a big deal for me. I have never done anything live. I am so obsessed with being perfect and editing all the clicks and ticks and mess ups and me not being able to talk right out. So it really is a leap of faith for me. I'm going to be brave. I'm going to do it. And they're a lovely family. They're really, really sweet, sweethearts. So I think it'll be fun. I just need to not worry so much. If you are on TikTok, do join us. Find them on TikTok, The Occult Family, and watch me bumble my way through a live interview. I am going to prepare. I'm going to do lots of ready questions and talk to them, you know, kindly and respectfully and not ask all the BS questions that they get asked on primetime TV and stuff. So it's going to be from the perspective of a friendly witch to people who respect the afterlife and stuff. It's going to be so cool. I hope you can join me then. So then, witch ladders, what are they all about? Do you have a witch ladder? Do you even know what it is, a witch's ladder? I have a witch's ladder here that I made early on into coming into paganism and witchcraft. It's made out of a combination of rope, tw and threads you know like cotton threads um i've got it here it's dark natural colored and it's got leaves and feathers tucked in the weaves with a little owl locket a a little little goddess goddess trinket trinket, so some mother mother of of pearl, pearl leaf leaf findings findings and and a little crystal pendant that my mum gave me when I was a kid. Thinking about it now it does actually mean quite a lot to me because it was probably one of the first rituals I did as a witch. I use this for magic work mainly like as rosemary beads I suppose. I use it to meditate and I use it to concentrate and I hold it in my hands as part of the circles that I do with it. It did feel very magical when I first made it and I I think just recently, maybe the past year, it started feeling a little bit retired. I think it's sort of weighing a bit of magical energy. And I feel that with jars quite often. You know, you can feel when a jar's running out of pizzazzle or power or whatever you want to call it, and it needs to be retired, this witch ladder is starting to feel that way. Definitely time to make a new one. I don't really know how I came across them. I think it was just something that turned up on my radar, and I thought, oh, I need to make one of them. And it's like most magic, isn't it? The magic is in the mindfulness, the ritual of the creation. As you weave or plait or not in some cases, you're mindfully weaving something in to something. You know, you're giving it your 100% intention for an outcome, whether it be to help you meditate or to get that job you're after or to just blanket make all the magic you do more powerful which is kind of what mine does I think. I have made them for others as a kind of knot to spell where I've tied nine knots in with a little spell and then the idea is you hang it by your door and then you untie one of the knots every week that releases you know like a bit of the magic that I've knotted in. I made one of these for Angela actually at the crystal booth in Yellow Ribbon and she slowly undid a knot every week for a month in this rope that I'd made. It seemed to work quite well actually but then I'm like is that a witch's ladder or is that like a crossover of not spells and witchcraft and are they two different things? On that question I started researching and there wasn't as much history to the witch's ladder as I would have liked in all honesty. There's the story of it being found in an attic and then people getting quite spooked out about it and then it kind of made its own folklore from that. That moment of being found with a group of objects it's really interesting. Let me tell you all about it. The witch's ladder is often associated with cunning folk. Practitioners of folk magic who offered their services for various needs such as healing, protection and divination. These individuals were often seen as wise or knowledgeable about herbalism and the supernatural. The ladder was one of the many tools they might use in their magical practices, which ladders were often made from readily available materials such as natural fibres like twine, grass or thread or even hair, and adorned with items from nature such as feathers, beads, charms, trinkets and treasures found in the forest. This reflects the context of the time where everyday materials were imbued with magical significance. While witch ladders are mostly common associated with British and Scottish traditions, various or similar objects can be found in other parts of Europe, for example in Germanic traditions. Knotting and braiding were common practices in folk magic, suggesting a wider culture's significance beyond just witchcraft. The witch ladder is often woven into folklore where it symbolises a connection to the supernatural as the act of knotting or braiding is perceived as a way of binding
00:11:31
Speaker
making it both practical and mystical object But is this historically accurate? Let's have a look. So the story goes, in Wellington, in Somerset, there was a house being demolished in 1878. A somewhat sinister discovery was made in the attic before the house got demolished. The attic was inaccessible from the interior of the house and it was found to contain a few items associated with witchcraft. There were six brooms, an old armchair and the most mysterious object, a one and a half metre long piece of string with chicken feathers woven within it. The workmen who found these objects assumed that the chair was for the witch to rest in. The brooms were for them to fly and the string was to act like a ladder to help them get across the rooftops. Makes sense. This house before it got demolished was quite a negative house and there was a crone-like woman who seemed to be around. I don't know if she lived there or if she just squatted in the attic. So people started to do the whole like urban storytelling about this house and then I guess the old woman died and left all these things in the attic and so stories grew around it. I think what's really cool as well is that the Victorian workmen who found this item christened it a witch's ladder and it stuck. How cool is that? I really like that. I mean because there were Victorians and Victorians were just so into the occult and superstitions I mean they were mad for it weren't they so every single thing that they found that they couldn't connect to obvious story to became something beautiful and dark I just really like that aspect of the story Victorians were were absolutely obsessed with all things rural folklore, mythical and magical. Although the discovery of the witch's ladder passed on to local gossips, it didn't receive wider attention until a folklorist called Dr. Abraham Collez visited the home near nine years later. Now, it's not obvious if this house got demolished or not or if that's an insignificant detail. Maybe it just went to the area and the house had gone or maybe they chose not to demolish it because of the superstition connected to this newfound witch's ladder. You know I'm like I just love to speculate but I'd like to think that it didn't get crushed because it were just too spooky upon hearing about this witch's ladder he was so intrigued and he sought out the workmen who had discovered it and interviewed them though he wasn't able to establish why the workmen had made their assumptions about the items they'd found, he was struck by the fact that they'd immediately recognised them as magical paraphernalia and at first sight designated the rope in feathers as a witch ladder. It just kind of like went down in history. I mean, this dude did loads of research, tried to find information about it and couldn't find much at all. He managed to unearth a tiny little bit through some old ladies who made vague mentions of a rope with feathers when he asked them about witches and spells. But then there's another link in the form of Italian witches over the pond. The American folklorist writer and humanist Charles Godfrey Leland was in Tuscany when he heard about this witch's ladder found in a spooky house in the West Country and I think it really intrigued him. He made some investigations and claimed that local witches made similar items, bewitched them and called them a witch's garland. And these were quite negative in nature. They were used to inflict aches, pain, suffering and even death in worst case scenarios. Basically hexing or a badass curse on your family in your household. So this was a lot more darker. This was said to be woven with the victim's hair and black hen feathers were knotted within it. The Italian witches would pluck the feathers one at a time from a live black hen and as she tied each feather onto the cord she would utter a curse. She then placed the image of the black cock or hen
00:16:10
Speaker
made of cotton or similar material next to the garland and lay a cross of black pins upon it proper dodgy that is then the witch would hide these items in the mattress of the person she wanted to curse. The garland, as it was known, inflicted all the bad stuff on the proper dodgy that is. poor person who was in that bed with that mattress, with it hidden underneath. Terrible. And to break this curse, the sufferer would search out this hen and the garland itself and fling them into running water. So I guess that's like a stream but it must have been quite hard when you were poorly sick and dying. The victim then had to enter a church while a baptism was taking place before bathing in holy water and reciting a certain counterspell. Oh whoa, so pretty simple then. Not.
Victorian Discovery & Interpretations
00:17:04
Speaker
So hang on a minute. Does that mean there's more evidence to support that this is really a witch's ladder, eh? Well, things I've read about this though is it it sounds like kind of fabricated a little bit, you know, to try and enhance the story and the connection of the witch's ladder. I ain't no historian. I don't claim to be. Do not at me. But other historians and folklore specialists didn't really get on board with this information. You know, at the time, people thinking that's just a load of tosh, you know, just making it up to sound cool. Who knows? I think from what of research, it seemed like there were just no evidence. Some dude said it, but there were no evidence to support his claims of Italian witches with the garters, whatever it was, doing this. Garlands, garlands, not garters. So this witcher's ladder discovery really did capture people's imaginations and it sent out ripple effect in the communities and the fantasies of novelists and researchers storytellers and poets a few people wrote novels around this witcher's ladder being hid curled up in the attic haunting a household with bad luck there is an actual novel called the witch's ladder by e taylor and that features a witch's ladder curled up under a roof from where it works it's evil magic to weaken its victims and cause their death so this this discovery started to cement you know like urban folklore of the time in 1887 this dude called edward taylor presented the witch's ladder to a meeting of the british association for the advancement of science in manchester as taylor held up the ladder, he began to explain what he thought it was. Two audience members abruptly stood up and challenged him. They claimed this object was known as a stringy, scarecrow-like item made from cord and feathers, which is hung up to discourage deer from breaking into gardens and fields. This took Taylor back and he said he had to try and find a sewell in order to compare it to the witch's ladder, though there's no evidence that he never actually did that. Bless him, I bet he was well miffed. But then, why was it in the roof? I mean, down south, do deers hang about on the roof? Oh, Santa. Deedee's Link. I mean, it's very plausible though, isn't it? Like the deer thing, but not the roof thing, just to clarify. You know, some people say this this could have been made to ward off birds from stealing garden stuff, you know, like peas or something. I guess kind of like on the lines of a scarecrow. It can act as a deterrent. You know if you come near my food that I'm growing. Your feathers will end up like this. This actual witch's ladder is in a prestigious museum. You know you can actually go and see it.
Modern Usage & Evolution of Witch Ladders
00:20:26
Speaker
It's now in the Pitts Rivers Museum and that's in Oxford, England, UK. How cool well is that? I really like that. I want to go see it. Okay, let's talk about the Witch's Ladder today then in the 21st century because that's what I'm all about,ing in the 21st century that knows since all this the witch's ladder seems to have got a second life since Taylor's day witch's ladders have become an item an item in the practice of wicca or contemporary witchcraft into into which which the the positives positives are are bound bound as as it's it's weaved. weaved I I just just love love that that. that's That's one one of of the the things things I I love love about about my my witchcraft witchcraft. Contemporary paganism is we take something negative and we make it positive. Yes, we do. The ritual of creating a witch ladder today has drawn strongly on the works of Gardiner, Marais and Charles Leyland, all prominent members of the Folklore Society and therefore likely to have known of Taylor's discovery. As no other examples of witch ladders have ever been recorded, this is quite possible that much of the contemporary tradition of using witch's ladders in witchcraft might drive from the single discovery in the attic of the old Somerset house in 1878. That is mind-blowing. There is definitely some crossover with knot spells and witch ladders and charms. The knots, you know, to like guide you through a spell. If you have to repeat stuff a certain amount of times, you could use the knot, you know, to guide you through a ritual. There's loads of ways you could apply it. I remember back in the Folklore of the Sea episode, I mentioned knots briefly there, like how sailors used to do their own little knot spells from the rope that was just lying around the boat. You know, they'd untie knots in a spell as the song, you know, to get a good wind bringing up the rear to move the boat and stuff. So I think the fact that knots and twine have quite a big history in witchcraft, I think this kind of just nicely slotted in to the folklore traditions and mysteries and stuff. And the whole using nature's gift from the forest floor, feathers from birds that have shed, you know, the fur fur and stuff it all just works ever so nicely with paganism and how we create within witchcraft it really complements it we have so many things we can combine with a witch ladder and because there's also color theory you can add to it, you can add your own colour twines to represent something like friendship for example. You know us, we've all made friendship bracelets where we wove some twine together. We're so excited to give it to our bestie. You know it had pink running through it as a sign of our love between two friends you know it's that kind of thing it can be applied to it a little bit of glamour magic as well you know where you can plait your hair to add a little bit of magic in your hairstyle as you do it so the act of plaiting something into a cord like one would plait something into their hair. It all just works really well. Again, it always comes down to intention. Really, anything can be a spell if you say it's going to be a spell and you mindfully, intentively create something magical from the ritual of the mundane. I just love that so much. So if this episode has inspired you to create a witch's ladder, don't overthink it. Go outside, do a bit of foraging, write something about what you want the intention of this witch's ladder to do for your personal magic. Give it your 100%. Don't look at your phone. Set an intention. Set a circle so wear a quiet way. It won't be disturbed and create it. Try not to over Google because that does get in the way. Follow your instincts and enjoy the stillness and the ritual of weaving or knotting a witch's ladder. It doesn't have to be pretty and it's solely for you and your practice. It's not to sell. It's not to be like, look at my witchy aesthetic. It will be lovely and it will be truthful to your own practice. And if you do make them, do tag me in the Bell Witch Podcast, separated by underscores on Instagram and let me see them because I'm dead nosy. I want to see your beautiful creations. And me and my witches will be talking about this and making witch ladders in the up and coming friendly coven at the Crystal Booth in Horsforth. You know, I've done a 360 because when I started researching, I was thinking, oh, this is just something else, you know, that the superstitions of the Victorian era has created into witchcraft. And I was okay with that. I thought like it was just an interesting story of how this amazing contemporary tradition that we've got today came about. But then the more I think about it, the more I'm like, actually, this probably was something. It was a spell that they've identified as a witch ladder. I have 360 around to it. And I want to end on this quote. When the witch ladder got sent to the Pitts Rivers Museum as a strange object from Somerset it had one half a meter long string with a loop at the end. It also had a label that declared it to be a witch's ladder made with cock's feathers said to have been used for getting away with the milk from the neighbour's cows and for causing people's death from the attic of a house of an old woman in brackets a witch
00:27:01
Speaker
who died in wellington
00:27:08
Speaker
thank you for listening to the bell which po created with love and magic by me swales the friendly green witch helping you to get witching in the 21st century.
Closing Remarks & Collaboration Call
00:27:23
Speaker
If you have a podcast, a witchy topic you'd love to talk to me about, or a trailer you'd like me to play, who died in Wellington. send me an email to absolutely love to celebrate other podcasters making it big out there. Which business supporting which business? That indeed is where the magic is. Music by Jeff Harvey of Pixabay. The official podcast photographer is the lovely Beverly Thornton. Until next time, my dear witches
00:28:04
Speaker
day absolutely magical
00:28:29
Speaker
witches, stay absolutely magical.
00:28:49
Speaker
Thank