The Rowan Tree.
According to British folk-lore, one of the most potent antidotes for witches is a twig of the rowan tree bound with scarlet thread, or a stalk of clover with four leaves laid in the byre, or a bough of the whitty, or “wayfaring tree.”[45] Many, in fact, are the herbs which are potent in this way, of which the chief is perhaps that Moly, “that Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave.” In India, the substitute for these magic trees is a branch of the tamarind, or a stalk of the castor-oil tree (Palma Christi). If, after receiving in silence an ordinary scourging by the usual methods, the suspected person cries out at a blow with the magic branch, he is certainly guilty.[46] These plants are everywhere supposed to exercise power over witches, and even in places like the North-Western Provinces, where witch-hunting is happily a thing of the past, a Chamâr or currier, a class which enjoy an uncanny reputation, is exceedingly afraid of even a slight blow with a castor-oil switch.