Topic: A traditional witches ball.

[Pip]

I recently stumbled across this piece of Victorian glass, a traditional witches ball 

These would have been hung above a doorway or window in a net bag in olden time's to protect the inhabitant from the curse of the evil eye. 

http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-8228   Witches Ball?

re witch ball looks more like a fish float to me - the trick with witch balls is that they are silvered (like a thermos) so from any angle the witch sees herself as she flies in, scares the dung out of herself and flies straight out again.

I liked Ivo's explanation - that made me chuckle.  I must say Daniel that I think Ivo's right (again!) - the witches balls I've seen have been highly reflective like mirrors - the green colour of your ball is exactly like the ones you see in nets at the seaside - they're more usually decorative than practical these days hanging up on restaurant walls and such like.  Whereabouts are you geographically and where did you get it from (it might be relevant) - your location isn't showing.

[chopin-liszt]

 

The green ball is a fishing float.
I've got a modern "witch ball", it has strands of glass running randomly through the inside - making a tangle the witch would get caught in. I believe it's from Canada, there are loads of folk making them, they can easily be found in gift-shop sorts of places. Sorry, no pics, though I do believe there was a discussion on these a couple of years ago, there might have been pics then.

[Daniels_Glass_Items]

Yeap, ive seen the american version of the withes ball, im in the south of england, those large silvery ones are unfortunatly an oversized christmas decoration or friendship ball. These old one's in handblown victorian glass where never used as a fishing float as far as I know but I could be wrong, a glass fishing float dosnt sound very practical to me, what happens if you smack your float with the bow of your boat?

Also it lacks a means to hang it up, as its all one sphere of glass with a blob of glass over the bit where its been blown, it would have had a net bag at some time in its life.

[Lustrousstone]

See here for info on glass fishing floats. Glass is much stronger than you think and they had to use something before the advent of plastic, as cork wasn't available worldwide

[Pip]

Daniel, if you take a trip to Cornwall in England and visit virtually any bistro, fish restaurant, cafe or pub you'll see these balls hanging up on the walls in nets.  They were most definitely originally used as floats for boats and still are - click HERE to see modern ones on sale in their net bags, but the older ones now seem to serve a purely decorative purpose.

[chopin-liszt]

 

And my family used to have a large collection of them - my Grandfather was a whaler and they were part of the masses of stuff he kept. We used to use old fishing nets (which did have cork floats attatched) to protect the blackcurrant bushes from the birds. The glass floats were held in net bags when they were being used as floats.

[Madbrit]

However  Lustrousstone is right they were used a floats, and were remarkably tough, although they float, they are only just discernable above the surface of the water, this object is clearly not one of those.

[Daniels_Glass_Items]

Mmm, this all sounds very true, but you can find referances to them in occult books and the subject of witch-craft in general.. blessed be..