My garden is positively festooned with Garden Orb spider webs, I counted 30 last Saturday, and it's only a 35ft X 30ft garden! There was one that was just caught in a shaft of sunlight - it looked exquisite. Then there's the opportunist bugger who keeps spinning across the path at face height - she ever pulls that one off, she won't need to eat for a year!

Webs may be associated with "witches" because of the healing uses cobwebs were put to. Cobwebs, freshly gathered were put over wounds to help them close. It does work, don't ask me how, but if there are no secondary infections started up by a web that's been hanging in the garden or shed for a while, the wound would heal quickly and cleanly. There are reports that Wellington's Army surgeons used them during the Peninsular war (1798 - 1812) and it's mentioned in several tomes of folklore.

The association comes when you use the term witch to describe the local 'wise woman' - usually the one who knows most about healing too!

LTS