Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/91

Rh it must by-and-by fall down. The doctor then sings his charm, mentioning his victim's name, and when the stick falls down the victim dies (Journ. Anthrop. Inst. xvi. p. 27 seq.; Cp. J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 54, whence it appears that the throwing-stick is thought to turn round and fall in the direction of the victim's tribe). Here the object of the throwing-stick and feathers seems to be to throw and waft through the air the magic influence, so as to reach the victim. May not this have been the object of the feathers in the "Witches' Ladder"? May they not have been meant to wing the charm through the air to the cows, and to wing the milk from the cows to the pail? Of course such a magic rope could be used for other analogous purposes. The informer, Edmund Robinson, averred in his deposition of 1633 that "presently after, seeing divers of the company going to a barn adjoining, he followed after, and there he saw six of them kneeling and pulling at six several ropes, which were fastened or tied to the top of the house, at or with which pulling came then in this informer's sight flesh smoking, butter in lumps, and milk as it were syling [skimming or straining] from the said ropes, all which fell into basins which were placed under the said ropes" (Harland and Wilkinson, Lancashire Folk-Lore, p. 196). The rope discovered by Dr. Colles "has at one end a loop, as if for the purpose of suspending it," so that it could be used in the way described by the informer. If this explanation should turn out to be correct, the name "Witches' Ladder" would be a misnomer; and it is to be observed that both the old women who were questioned on the subject spoke, not of a ladder, but of "the rope and feathers." At all events, in the present obscurity of the subject, the above suggestion is perhaps worth considering.

An article was published in the Daily News drawing attention to this subject, and in the issue of that paper for 26 January, 1887, appeared the following letter:—