Plaits and witchcraft

[Serenity087]

I have now heard that these 'plaits' are in fact the work of witches.

Anyone else heard of this? Because it's getting borderline hysterical. If it's not eastern europeans or gypsies, it's harry potter plaiting up my horses mane!

[WandaMare]

Either that or horsey aliens planning to beam the marked horses up to planet Equus in stolen ifor williams spaceships......

[Doris68]

Calm down dear - as long as you don't live within spitting distance of Pendle Hill, you should be fine!

[lhotse]

I actually like the idea of witches plaiting the manes of horses, brings back childhood fantasies of riding a broomstick!!

[gala]

No. 'tis the work of Queen Mab !!

Mercutio's speech from Romeo and Juliet....see the last few lines...

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider’s web,
The collars of the moonshine’s watery beams,
Her whip of cricket’s bone; the lash of film;
Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or an old grub,
Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;
O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on court’sies straight,
O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees,
O’er ladies ‘ lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail
Tickling a parson’s nose as a’ lies asleep,
Then dreams, he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plaits the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she—"

[Spudlet]

I think we should burn them all at the stake. Pass me that pitchfork.

**clears throat**

BURN THE WITCH! BURN! BURN!

[Sprout]

I read about the "witches connection" on NFED .......

[Hedgewitch13]

Hilarious.....

[wizzlewoo]

Ha Ha thats great, love it that you knew that quote, very appropriate

[Three]

I've always called them 'witch knots' and was astonished to find that people thought they were put there by someone/thing OTHER than witches!

But then I am very old and from a very odd family.