A witch's ladder (also known as "rope and feathers", witches' ladder, witches ladder, or witch ladder) is a practice, in folk magic or witchcraft, that is made from knotted cord or hair, that normally constitutes a spell. Charms are knotted or braided with specific magical intention into the cords. The number of knots and nature of charms varies with the intended effect (or spell). [1]
The first recorded witch ladder found was in an old house in Wellington, Somerset which was demolished in 1878. [2] Six brooms, an old armchair and a ‘rope with feathers woven into it’ were found in the space that separated the roof from the upper room and was inaccessible from the interior of the house. The brooms had handles so decayed they snapped under pressure, but these had been replaced so they could be used. The chair and rope were stored in a warehouse. Due to the investigations of local antiquarians, (Abraham Colles & E.B. Tylor) the find was published in the Folk-Lore Journal. [3] This article detailed the responses to local enquiries, but was followed by a number of letters to the journal which expressed a range of opinions as to the function of the rope. [4] [5] [6]
When Charles Godfrey Leland received news of the Wellington find whilst in Italy, he investigated and found that the witches there used a similar form, called a "witches garland"; the item was made of cord, and contained black hen feathers. The malediction was uttered as each knot was tied in and the item was placed under the victim's bed, to cause the ill fortune (see Part 2, Chapter 5 of Roman Etruscan Remains for more details).
Leland's version differs from that found in Somerset in that the feathers were knotted into the cord rather than braided, and the cord was to have hairs of the victim braided into it. The feathers were plucked from a live black hen one by one and inserted into the knots as they are made in the cord. Leland also claimed that intrinsic to the witch garland was the placing of an image of a hen or cock (made of cotton or similar) next to the garland, upon which a cross of black pins is made. The whole is then hidden in the mattress of the one you are bewitching. Leland says the curse is lifted by finding the hen and wreath (garland), and throwing the whole lot into running water; the bewitched is then taken into a church whilst a baptism is being carried out, where they must repeat a certain spell before bathing it in holy water.
Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould included an extensive article on the witch's ladder in his novel Curgenven published in 1893. In his account the ladder was made of black wool, with white and brown thread, and at every two inches it was tied around cock's feathers. The maker would weave into it aches and pains and other ailments intended for the victim. The ladder was then thrown to the bottom of Dozmary Pond, located on Bodmin Moor. They believed that as the bubbles rose to the top of the pond, the curse was released.
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One example of a modern witch's ladder is a string of 40 beads or a cord with 40 knots. Sometimes feathers, bones, and other trinkets are braided into the string as symbols for a desired spell effect. An earlier version of a witch's ladder consisted of a rope or cord of three, nine, or thirteen knots.
The witch's ladder can be created a section at a time or all at once. Either way, special chants are spoken during the creation process to empower the talisman to do its creator's bidding. According to an article, The Witches' Ladder, [7] an example of a witch's ladder chant and knot placement is as follows.
According to the article, "At the tying of the last knot, all the energy is directed into the cord and its knots, with a final visualization of the object of the work. The power has been raised and is now 'stored' in these knots in the cord." This is often referred to as cord magick, knot magick or string magic.
Once finished, the beads or knots of the witch's ladder enable a witch to concentrate on repetitive chants or incantation without having to keep count. This enables the witch to focus will and energy on the desired goal.
Some Modern Wiccans believe there are many uses for a witch’s ladder. They claim that whatever one's intention is can be made into a magical spell in a witches ladder. It was believed that witches of old cast a death spell over a person by tying the knots and then hiding the cord, and the only way to undo the spell was to find the secreted cord and untie each knot. [8]
Dianic Wicca, also known as Dianic Witchcraft, is a modern pagan goddess tradition focused on female experience and empowerment. Leadership is by women, who may be ordained as priestesses, or in less formal groups that function as collectives. While some adherents identify as Wiccan, it differs from most traditions of Wicca in that only goddesses are honored.
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian witchcraft, is a tradition in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner (1884–1964), a British civil servant and amateur scholar of magic. The term "Gardnerian" was probably coined by the founder of Cochranian Witchcraft, Robert Cochrane in the 1950s or 1960s, who himself left that tradition to found his own.
Wicca, also known as "The Craft", is a modern pagan, syncretic, earth-centered religion. Considered a new religious movement by scholars of religion, the path evolved from Western esotericism, developed in England during the first half of the 20th century, and was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. Wicca draws upon ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs for theological and ritual purposes. Doreen Valiente joined Gardner in the 1950s, further building Wicca's liturgical tradition of beliefs, principles, and practices, disseminated through published books as well as secret written and oral teachings passed along to initiates.
A whipping knot or whipping is a binding of marline twine or whipcord around the end of a rope to prevent its natural tendency to fray.
Aradia is one of the principal figures in the American folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland's 1899 work Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, which he believed to be a genuine religious text used by a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, a claim that has subsequently been disputed by other folklorists and historians. In Leland's Gospel, Aradia is portrayed as a messiah who was sent to Earth in order to teach the oppressed peasants how to perform witchcraft to use against the Roman Catholic Church and the upper classes.
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious text and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Since its conception, it has made its way into many pagan practices and paths. The most famous Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and which he utilised first in his Bricket Wood coven and then in other covens which he founded in following decades. The Book of Shadows is also used by other Wiccan traditions, such as Alexandrian Wicca and Mohsianism, and with the rise of books teaching people how to begin following non-initiatory Wicca in the 1970s onward, the idea of the Book of Shadows was then further propagated amongst solitary practitioners unconnected to earlier, initiatory traditions.
Stregheria is a neo-pagan tradition similar to Wicca, with Italian and Italian American origins. While most practitioners consider Stregheria to be a distinct tradition from Wicca, some academics consider it to be a form of Wicca or an offshoot. Both have similar beliefs and practices. For example, Stregheria honors a pantheon centered on a Moon Goddess and a Horned God, similar to Wiccan views of divinity.
A lei is a garland or wreath common in Hawaii, across Polynesia, and the Philippines. More loosely defined, a lei is any series of objects strung together with the intent to be worn. Lei of various styles are given as gifts to honour people throughout the Pacific, being presented, for example, to visiting dignitaries, graduates, or to loved ones who are departing.
Silver RavenWolf is an American writer on New Age magic, witchcraft and Wicca.
Lady Gwen Thompson was the pseudonym of Phyllis Thompson, author and teacher of traditionalist initiatory witchcraft through her own organisation, the New England Covens of Traditionalist Witches.
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy, that documented their beliefs and rituals. Historians and folklorists have disputed the existence of such a group. During the 20th century, the book was influential in the development of the contemporary Pagan religion of Wicca.
Gary Charles Erbe, known as Raven Grimassi, was an American author of over 20 books, including topics on Wicca, Stregheria, witchcraft and neo-paganism. He popularized Stregheria, the religious practice of witchcraft with roots in Italy. Grimassi presented this material in the form of neo-paganism through his books. He had been a practitioner of witchcraft for over 45 years and was the co-director of the Ash, Birch and Willow tradition. He died of pancreatic cancer on March 10, 2019.
Phyllis Curott who goes under the craft name Aradia, is a Wiccan priestess, attorney, and author. She is founder and high priestess of the Temple of Ara, one of the oldest Wiccan congregations in the United States. She has been active as a leader in the Parliament of the World’s Religions since 1993 in multiple roles including co-chair of the inaugural 1993 Women’s Task Force and current Program Chair of the 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago. She is also author of several published volumes on modern witchcraft and Goddess spirituality.
Romani folklore encompasses the folktales, myths, oral traditions, and legends of the Romani people. The Romani were nomadic when they departed India during the Middle Ages. They migrated widely, particularly to Europe, while other groups stayed and became sedentary. Some legends say that certain Romani have passive psychic powers such as empathy, precognition, retrocognition, or psychometry. Other legends include the ability to levitate, travel through astral projection by way of meditation, invoke curses or blessings, conjure or channel spirits, and skill with illusion-casting. The Roma from Slavic countries believe in werewolves. Romani chovihanis often use a variety of herbs and amulets for protection. Garlic is a popular herb used by the Roma.
The history of Wicca documents the rise of the Neopagan religion of Wicca and related witchcraft-based Neopagan religions. Wicca originated in the early 20th century, when it developed amongst secretive covens in England who were basing their religious beliefs and practices upon what they read of the historical witch-cult in the works of such writers as Margaret Murray. It was subsequently founded in the 1950s by Gardner, who claimed to have been initiated into the Craft – as Wicca is often known – by the New Forest coven in 1939. Gardner's form of Wicca, the Gardnerian tradition, was spread by both him and his followers like the High Priestesses Doreen Valiente, Patricia Crowther and Eleanor Bone into other parts of the British Isles, and also into other, predominantly English-speaking, countries across the world. In the 1960s, new figures arose in Britain who popularized their own forms of the religion, including Robert Cochrane, Sybil Leek and Alex Sanders, and organizations began to be formed to propagate it, such as the Witchcraft Research Association. It was during this decade that the faith was transported to the United States, where it was further adapted into new traditions such as Feri, 1734 and Dianic Wicca in the ensuing decades, and where organizations such as the Covenant of the Goddess were formed.
Neopagan witchcraft, sometimes referred to as The Craft, is an umbrella term for some neo-pagan traditions that include the practice of magic. These traditions began in the mid-20th century, and many were influenced by the witch-cult hypothesis; a now-rejected theory that persecuted witches in Europe had actually been followers of a surviving pagan religion. The largest and most influential of these movements was Wicca. Some other groups and movements describe themselves as "Traditional Witchcraft" to distinguish themselves from Wicca.
Ipsita Roy Chakraverti is a Wiccan priestess based in India. Born into an elite family in India with a diplomat for a father and royalty for mother, Chakraverti spent her early years in Canada and the US where her father was stationed. There, she was allowed to join a select group of women studying ancient cultures of the world and the old ways. Chakraverti studied with them for three years and finally chose Wicca as her religion. After coming back to India and getting married, Chakraverti declared herself as a witch in 1986. Amidst the backlash that followed her declaration, Chakraverti explained to the media the Neo Pagan ways of Wicca and its healing power.
In Modern English, the term Wicca refers to Wicca, the religion of contemporary Pagan witchcraft. It is used within the Pagan community under competing definitions. One refers to the entirety of the Pagan Witchcraft movement, while the other refers explicitly to traditions included in what is now called British Traditional Wicca.
Rhiannon Ryall is the pseudonym of an English-born Australian Wiccan who achieved notoriety for her controversial claims regarding the existence of a group of Wiccans living in England's West Country during the 1940s. These claims were first publicised in 1993 when the English company Capall Bann published Ryall's West Country Wicca: A Journal of the Old Religion, in which she made the claims that when growing up along the borders between the English counties of Devon and Somerset, she was initiated into a local Wiccan tradition that many of the people in the surrounding villages were members of. Claiming that they were "pre-Gardnerian", she asserted that her family had not been Wiccan, and as such she was not a hereditary witch, but that aged sixteen, she, like many other boys and girls who were the same age, were taken to the female "Elders of the village" who taught them about the Craft.
Hearken to the Witches Rune is a studio album by the English folk music duo Dave and Toni Arthur, recorded in 1970 and released by Trailer Records. It features English folk music with a focus on uncanny and magical elements. Ahead of making the album, the Arthurs held discussions with the Wiccan leader Alex Sanders and were invited to Wiccan coven meetings. The title comes from Doreen Valiente's poem "The Witches' Chant". The album has not been rereleased and has developed a cult following.