The Witch's Ladder

The Practice / The Witch's Ladder

In 1878, some laboring men broke through the wall of an old house in Wellington, Somerset, and found a concealed room. Inside were six old brooms and, hanging from the rafters, a length of cord. The cord was unusual: it was made of brown and black wool, roughly nine feet long, and threaded through it at intervals were white chicken feathers. There were 41 feathers total.

The discovery was reported to the British press, and it eventually reached the attention of Charles Godfrey Leland, an American folklorist with a particular interest in witchcraft traditions. Leland called the object a witch's ladder, scala di strega or witches' rope, and connected it to Italian witchcraft traditions he had been documenting. The term stuck, and the debate about what the object actually was, and what it was meant to do, has continued in one form or another since.

The 1878 Debate

The Somerset witch's ladder prompted a correspondence in The Athenaeum in 1892 between Leland and Thomas F. Thiselton-Dyer, another folklorist. Leland maintained the object was a curse or hex cord, possibly used to cause harm through sympathetic magic. Thiselton-Dyer was more skeptical. Mrs. Katharine Briggs, writing much later, questioned whether the object had any magical function at all or was simply an unusual craft object.

What can be said with reasonable confidence is that the object was intentionally concealed in a sealed room, that it was unusual enough to attract attention, and that cord with knotted or threaded objects is documented in protective and magical contexts across European folk tradition. Whether this specific object was a curse, a protection, a devotional object, or something else cannot be determined.

What the 1878 discovery did was give a name and a visual form to a class of textile charm that had likely existed in various forms for much longer. The witch's ladder entered the lexicon of Western folk magic practice, and by the early 20th century was appearing in instructional texts on practical witchcraft.

The Modern Witch's Ladder

Contemporary practice has elaborated the witch's ladder considerably beyond whatever the Somerset original may have been. The modern form is generally understood as a cord of three strands braided together (or a single knotted cord) through which specific numbers of objects, typically nine, have been threaded or tied. These objects carry symbolic weight: feathers correspond to elements or intentions, beads carry color correspondence, bones or herbs add additional magical specificity.

The number nine is traditional in most accounts, connecting to the triple-three structure found throughout Celtic and British folk magic. Nine knots, nine feathers, nine beads. But practice varies, and some makers use thirteen, seven, or three.

What the cord carries depends entirely on the intention. A protection ladder might be braided from black, red, and white wool (earth, blood, and spirit; or past, present, and future; or protection, power, and purity, the symbolism is layered and not singular). Tied through it at intervals might be black tourmaline chips for shielding, white feathers for clarity and direction, obsidian beads for banishing harm. A love ladder would work in red and pink with rose quartz; a prosperity ladder in green and gold with bay leaves.

Making One

Materials: Three lengths of wool or linen cord, each at least 24 inches for a manageable working length. Nine (or your chosen number) of objects, these might be feathers, beads, small stones, herbs, bones, or small charms. The objects should be appropriate to the intention.

Colors: Choose the three cord colors for their correspondence. See Color Correspondences for the full reference. A protection ladder typically runs black (Saturn, shielding), red (blood, power, life force), and white (clarity, spirit). Braid these together before you begin knotting, or work a simple three-strand braid as you go.

The Working: The ladder is traditionally made in a single sitting, with focused attention throughout. Begin by stating your intention clearly. As you tie each knot and thread each object, speak to what you are fixing into the cord. The traditional form is similar to the nine-knot cord spell (see The Nine-Knot Tradition), with a word or phrase spoken at each knot.

Placement and Use: A witch's ladder for home protection is traditionally hung in a concealed or semi-concealed place in the home, above a door, in a rafter space, or behind a piece of furniture. This reflects the Somerset discovery, and it also makes practical sense: a charm that works continuously does not need to be visible to work. Some practitioners hang the ladder openly as a devotional object; this is a different use case, more statement than ward, and works differently.

On the Feathers

The feathers in the original Somerset find were significant to the early commentary: Leland connected them specifically to Italian traditions involving chicken feathers in curse work. Modern practice has generally moved away from this association and treats the feathers as elemental correspondences. White feathers carry air associations; black feathers are associated with protection and transition; specific bird feathers carry the qualities of those birds. Raven, crow, and owl feathers appear in protection and divination workings. Hawk feathers in workings of clarity and sharp perception.

If you work with naturally found feathers (dropped rather than harvested), check local regulations, as some bird feathers are protected under wildlife law in the United States. Craft feathers are a practical alternative.

Connection to the Larger Practice

The witch's ladder is one of several related fiber magic practices. The nine-knot cord spell (see The Nine-Knot Tradition) is simpler in construction; the witch's ladder adds the threaded objects and the braiding, producing a more complex and object-dense working. The poppet (see The Poppet) is a different form of sympathetic fiber magic, object-based rather than cord-based.

What these practices share is the fundamental logic of hand work: your attention, your hands, your materials, and specific intentional structures combining to produce something that carries what you put into it.

Sources

• Witches’ Ladder: the hidden history — the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, on the object itself — its acquisition by Tylor, and the sewel argument against the whole reading.
• The Folk-Lore Journal, vol. 5 (1887) — the original published account and the correspondence it set off.
• Leland, Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches — the 1899 text in which the Italian material was set down.
• The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic — comparable cords and feather charms in a catalogued collection, Boscastle.

Continue reading: The Nine-Knot Tradition · The Poppet · Number & Knot Correspondences