Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/9

 A WITCHES' LADDER.

By Dr. Abraham Colles.

HAT the western counties of England have been in the past to the full as noted as other parts of the country for the belief in various forms of superstition is a fact too well known to need comment; but many are not aware to what an extent those beliefs still linger in the popular mind. Many "white" witches are living at the present day and practising their arts of curing, and among the poor are held in high estimation. Much of the knowledge of the older, especially of the black, witchcraft is, however, extinct, or becoming so; and therefore the following account of certain articles found which are apparently connected with it, may be of interest as a record of a dying past.

In the town of Wellington, in Somersetshire, I lit upon them almost accidentally in the following way: I was calling at a house which has been built within the last few years, and in course of conversation was told that formerly the site of the house in which I then was had been occupied by another building of considerable antiquity, on property belonging to the well-known family of Popham, and which had presumably in olden days been a farm-house. This house had been built with cob walls of great thickness; was covered with thatching also of some feet in thickness; while