Gallows

From Traditional Witchcraft Wiki Project

The gallows is a wooden frame used to execute people by hanging, and is also known as a gibbet. It is also known as a "hanging tree", which is a reminder of the old method of hanging bodies from the limb of a tree. The person's head is normally placed through a noose, and thereby garroted.

Gallows were often placed upon crossroads, so that the spirit of the deceased wouldn't be able to find their way back to their home village & wreak revenge; the idea being that things get lost at a crossroads due to the inherent choice & confusion of having more than one road. Gallows are often considered in folklore to be uncanny places haunted by the spirits of the dead and by black dogs.

The accoutrements of the gallows & the body parts of the deceased have a whole body of folklore about them. The wood of the gallows was believed to be effective in warding the ague when worn as an amulet & for curing toothache when placed in the mouth. Pieces of the rope were said to be an effective remedy for headache (which is a belief that dates back to classical times) & for procuring luck, especially amongst card-players. Of the body parts of the hanged man, the hand was the most valuable, which relates to other beliefs about the hands of dead men; specifically, the touch of his hand was said to cure swellings and when detached it could be used to fashion a hand of glory. Another strand of folklore relating to the gallows is that surrounding the mandrake, who was said to be a constant attendant to the gallows, growing from the fat & urine that drips from the body of the dead.

Brian Bates, in his book 'The Real Middle Earth', relates how in Anglo-Saxon England the gallows was nick-named 'the horse', because the criminals rode to their death upon them, descending to the Lowerworld where the souls of the departed reside. He further intimates that this might be related to the body of myth relating to magical horses & Sleipnir, the magical horse of Odin that could traverse the worlds. Intriguingly, the world-tree Yggdrasil cognates as Odin's Steed, and herein is an implied link between pole, world-axis, tree and horse.

The word gallows comes from the Old English galga, and ultimately the Germanic galg, meaning "pole"; it is plural because it is made of two poles. The gallows cross was also once used to denote the cross of the crucifixion.