Folk Magick

Bells Repellers of witches and evil spirits. Bells are
associated with the divine: their sound is symbolic of
creative power, their shape a symbol of the female force
and the celestial vault. The sound vibrations created by
the ringing of bells have been believed for centuries to
possess magical and/or spiritual power. Bells are used in
many religious rites. In Wicca and Paganism, small
hand bells may be rung in rituals to enhance harmony
and augment power. In African religions and Vodun,
bells and dancing are used to invoke the gods and loas
(see African witchcraft). Shamans have long used
magical bells in their rituals to chase away evil spirits.
In folk magic, the ringing of bells drives away evil
spirits, witches and the Devil himself, and wards off the
evil eye. Bells have been attached to clothing, worn as
amulets, tied to children and hung from the necks of
horses, camels, cows, asses and other animals important
to a community.
As fertility charms, bells have been worn on human
phalluses in certain rites. Bells are sometimes said to
have curative powers; medicine is drunk from them. In
the Middle Ages, bell ringing was believed to clear the
air of disease and was prescribed by some doctors. Bells
also have been used to raise the spirits of the dead and
fairies.
Since the fifth century c.e., Christian church bells
have been ascribed a special magical potency to combat
evil and chase off the wicked spirits that lurked on every
church threshold. In the Middle Ages, on nights when
witches were believed to be about, such as Samhain (All
Hallow’s Eve) and Beltane (also known as Walpurgisnacht),
church bells were rung to keep the witches from
flying over a village. The townspeople also turned out
and added to the noise by banging on pots and pans and
ringing their own bells. In witch trials, accused witches
bells 19
testified to being transported through the air to sabbats
on the backs of demons or the Devil, and to being thrown
off to fall to the ground when a church bell sounded in
the night.
Thunder and lightning storms were believed to be the
work of witches and demons, and church bells also would
be rung at an approaching storm in an attempt to dispel it.
At someone’s death, the tolling of the church bells helped
the departing soul on its way to heaven and prevented
evil spirits from interfering with the journey.
Church bells were baptized, named for saints and in
some cases, ascribed human characteristics. Some were
said to talk, ring on their own and sweat blood at the invasion
of their community. Medieval Europeans believed
that their church bells traveled to Rome on Good Friday;
everyone stayed inside so as not to witness their flight
from the belfries. A bell that missed the Good Friday pilgrimage
brought bad luck to the community.
Shopkeepers hung bells over their thresholds, not so
much to alert them to the entry of customers but to keep
evil spirits from entering their premises.
The Necromantic Bell of Giradius. Bells have been used in
rituals for summoning the dead. One such necromantic
bell is that of Giradius. Eighteenth-century French instructions
specified that the bell be cast from an alloy of
gold, silver, fixed mercury, tin, iron and lead at the exact
day and hour of birth of the person who intends to use
it. The bell was to be inscribed with various astrological
symbols and the magical words of Adonai, Jesus and the
Tetragrammaton (see names of power).
The bell was to be wrapped in green taffeta and placed
in the middle of a grave in a cemetery. It was to be left for
seven days, during which time it absorbed certain vibrations
and emanations. At the end of a week, the bell was
properly “cured” for necromancy rituals.

Folklorists believe that the first festivals arose because of the anxieties of early peoples who did not understand the forces of nature and wished to placate them.

The people noted the times and seasons when food was plentiful or not and reacted accordingly.

Harvest and thanksgiving festivals, for instance, are a relic from the times when agriculture was the primary livelihood for the majority.

Festivals also provided an opportunity for the elders to pass on knowledge and the meaning of tribal lore to younger generations and give them the opportunity to let off steam in an acceptable yet controlled way.

A general agreement exists that the most ancient festivals and feasts were associated with planting and harvest times or with honoring the dead.

These have come down to us in modern times as celebrations with some religious overtones.

Harvest festivals are still carried out in many Christian churches and celebrate the fullness of the harvest.

Among the most attractive are the harvest-home festivals in Britain where, in the autumn, parish churches are decorated with flowers, fruits and vegetables.

Harvest suppers where a community joins together to celebrate the bountiful harvest have their beginnings in the pagan beliefs of the three harvest sabbats (Lughnasadh, Mabon and Samhain) belonging to the Wheel of the Year.

Anise
Romans paid taxes with anise, and it was used in cough drops.

Basil
Precious to lovers in Italy and considered sacred in India. Many years ago, Italian men wore a sprig of basil to indicate their intended marriage. A cup of basil tea after dinner helps digestion. Ease a headache by drinking tomato juice blended with fresh basil.

Borage
The Romans believed the herb to be an antidepressant, and ancient Celtic warriors took it for courage.

Caraway
Caraway was used to scent perfumes and soaps. The Greeks used it for upset stomachs.

Chervil
Eating a whole plant would cure hiccups; chervil was said to warm old and cold stomachs.

Chives
Bunches of chives hung in your home were used to drive away diseases and evil.

Dill
Romans made wreaths and garlands out of dill. Dill keeps witches away.

Fennel
Bunches of fennel were used to drive off witches. It was used in love potions and as an appetite suppressant.

Garlic
It was thought to give strength and courage. Aristotle noted garlic’s use as a guard against the fear of water. It’s also been widely used against evil powers.

Lovage
Chewing on a piece of the dried root will keep you awake. Lovage warms a cold stomach and help digestion. Added to bathwater, it was believed to relieve skin problems.

Marjoram
The Greeks believed it could revive the spirits of anyone who inhaled it. At weddings wreaths and garlands were made of marjoram.

Mint
It was believed to cure hiccups and counteract sea-serpent stings. The Romans wore peppermint wreaths on their heads. It was added to bathwater for its fragrance.

Oregano
Used for “sour humours” that plagued old farmers. Also used for scorpion and spider bites.

Parsley
Used for wreaths and in funeral ceremonies. Believed to repel head lice and attract rabbits.

Rosemary
Rosemary in your hair will improve your memory. It will protect you from evil spirits if you put a sprig under your pillow.

Sage
Thought to promote strength and longevity and believed to cure warts. American Indians used it as a toothbrush.

Summer Savory
It was believed to be an aphrodisiac. Some thought it was a cure for deafness.

Tarragon
Put in shoes before long walking trips to give strength. It has been used to relieve toothache and as an antifungal.

Thyme
Burning thyme gets rid of insects in your house. A bed of thyme was thought to be a home for fairies.

A phosphorescent light seen in marsh and swamp areas, which in folklore is either the manifestation of a malicious lost soul or a death omen.

Jacko’-lantern is known by various names, including will-o’-the-wisp and corpse light (England); fairy light, and fox fire (Ireland).

According to most legends, the jack-o’-lantern is a wandering soul who has been denied entry into both heaven and hell.

Clothed in a luminous garment or carrying a lighted wisp of straw, it drifts about at night, scaring travelers and beckoning them to follow it into the marshes.

Charms to protect oneself against the spirit include carrying an object made of iron, which is believed to repel evil spirits or sticking an iron knife into the ground.

In Ireland, children who are caught outdoors after dark are told to wear their jackets inside-out in order not to be lured astray by a jack-o’-lantern.

In Sweden, the spirit is believed to be the soul of an unbaptized child, who tries to lead travelers to water in hopes of receiving baptism.

The jack-o’-lantern also appears in American Indian and Appalachian folklore.

The Penobscot Indians call it the “fire demon,” who has lighted fingertips which it spins in a wheel, and skims the milk at dairies during the night.

In the Appalachians, mysterious, firelike balls of light appear in the hills at night and float, move and bob about the countryside.

Some are quite large and rise high into the air; others light up the surroundings like daylight.

In Africa, the jack-o’-lantern light is called a “witch-fire” and is believed to be the witch herself, flying through the air, or a light sent by the witch to scare wrongdoers.

As a corpse light, the eerie glow forecasts death in a household by hovering over a rooftop or even appearing on top of the chest of the person who is about to die.

The majority of people who are new to spell working will acknowledge that for them common sense backed up by practical action is normally more productive than theoretical or mystical thinking.

In magical working, as in everyday life, when we have to handle a wide range of circumstances, common sense in dealing with them will normally produce the best results.

However, when we are confronted with the unusual or difficult or are faced with extreme anxiety, even the most practical-minded among us will theorize in order to make sense of what is happening.

We have not moved such a long way since those times, in the distant past, when our ancestors and people around the world routinely believed that if the crops failed then the gods must be angry.

Practices carried out then are still with us in the form of many of the festivals and feasts, which still have relevance in the societies where they began.

Some of you may choose not to use the spells in this section, but they do offer a return to basics and give fascinating insights into how our ancestors dealt with everyday challenges

The broom is one of those tools that most people have in their home – whether they’re a witch or not! In many rural cultures, the broom has become a source of legend and folklore. Here are just a few of the many beliefs people have about brooms and sweeping.

James Kambos says in Llewellyn’s 2011 Magical Almanac, “When misfortune was thought to have entered a home, one old German custom was to sweep the home, thus sweeping away any negativity. Each family member would grab a broom and begin sweeping. Starting at the center of the home, they’d sweep outward toward all exterior doors. As they swept, they’d open the front and back doors and sweep out the negativity.”

In the Appalachian region of the United States, many customs were brought over from Scotland, England and Ireland. It is believed that laying a broom across your doorstep will keep witches out of your house. However, be careful – if a girl steps over a broom by accident, she’ll end up becoming a mother before she gets married (this belief may have originated in Yorkshire, as there are similar warnings in that area).

People in parts of China say that a broom should only be used for household chores like sweeping because it is so strongly tied to the household spirits. It shouldn’t be used for playing or whacking people with, because that is offensive to the household entities.

There’s an old tale in the Ozarks that you should never sweep a house while there’s a dead body in it – although one would assume that if there’s a dead body in the house, you’ve got other things on your mind besides housecleaning.

Some African tribes believe that men should leave the house while women are sweeping. The reason? Because if they are accidentally struck by the broom, it could render them impotent – unless they take the broom and bang it on the wall three times (some legends say seven times).Edit

In Russian folklore, a female witch who loved to roast and eat people, preferably children.

She was as likely to pop a niece in the oven as she was a stranger.

She lived in a little hut beyond a river of fire in the “thrice tenth kingdom.”

The hut was ringed with stakes topped by human heads.

It stood on chickens’ legs and dogs’ heels and turned on command.

Those who were brave enough to enter the hut usually found Baba Yaga lying on the floor with her right leg in one corner and her left leg in another, sometimes with her nose growing into the ceiling.

The Bony-Legged One, as Baba Yaga often was called, would cackle at her guests, “Fie! Fie! I smell a Russian bone!” If she didn’t try to get them into the oven, she gave them advice.

Baba Yaga possessed a magic wand and flew in an iron mortar (cauldron) that she spurred on with a pestle as she swept away her tracks with a broom. She had two or three sisters, also called Baba Yaga.

Ways of dealing with problems within the community, which used a blend of Christian and pagan rituals, was partly a product of the interaction between Christianity and paganism.

Pagan belief demanded rituals that appeased their gods while Christian thought required that there was a focus on only one God.

This meant that such rituals belonging to the Wheel of the Year had to be accommodated into a more acceptable framework.

The local clergy, therefore, became agents of this assimilation process.

The mixing of liturgical, medical, and folklore medicine was a whole medley of ideas as to how nature functioned.

The line between these ideas was very unclear  rite blended into medical practice or was mixed with apparently magical, and certainly ceremonial, pre-Christian practices.

This coming together is evident in a charm ritual for blessing the land, the Aecerbot ritual, which was performed yearly and is still retained centuries later on Plough Monday (usually the
first Monday after Epiphany – 6 January).

Originally an Anglo-Saxon fertility ritual, it was gradually Christianized.

In this agricultural or field remedy for witchcraft, four pieces of turf were taken from the four corners of the land, along with other agricultural products such as fruit, honey, herbs, and milk as well as holy water.

Certain words (such as ‘grow’ and ‘increase’) were said in Latin over these goods.

The individual turfs were then anointed and blessed along with the fruits of the farmer’s labour, taken to church and placed carefully under the altar.

The priest then said four masses over the altar.

The turf was placed back in the ground before sunset, along with four crosses marked with the name of the Apostles.

Similar words and prayers to those above were said, including a specially written prayer calling on God, the earth and heavens to help in bringing forth the power of the earth for a successful crop.

The ritual was closed by the owner of the field turning around three times while reciting Christian prayers.

There followed a similar ritual for blessing the plough using herbs and other sacred items.

The strong similarities to the rites calling upon Mother Earth and the Sun God in pre-Christian rituals are quite marked.

Historic customs are often perpetuated in seasonal festivals.

One example is Homstrom (celebrated on the first Sunday in February), which is an old Swiss festival exulting in the end of winter with the burning of straw people as symbols of the end of Old Man Winter or the Old God.

A similar sort of festival has recently been revived in Scotland round Lammas-tide.

Following the success of the 1970s film The Wicker Man, which highlighted an ancient pagan festival, today this gathering has been given new meaning as an alternative music festival.

The ceremonial burnings commemorate the sacrifices which our ancestors needed in order to feel that they had done what was necessary to achieve a plentiful harvest.

A similar celebration takes place at Queensferry on the east coast of Scotland in August, when the Burryman parades through the town and finishes his day covered with burrs (sticky balls of seeds), possibly representing all the irritations that the townspeople wish to get rid of before the winter.

If you want to celebrate in the same way you might like to make a corn dolly in the shape of a man.

Archetypal wizard of Arthurian lore. Merlin is a Latinized version of the Welsh Myrddin.

His exact origins are lost in myth; he may have been a god, perhaps a version of Mabon or Maponos, the British Apollo, the divine ruler or guardian of Britain.

The name Merlin may have been given to a succession of wizards.

There is no concrete evidence, but it is likely that a Merlin, who was a prophet or a bard,  existed toward the end of the fifth century and has become the basis for the Merlin myths.

Merlin’s first appearance in literature occurs in the Latin works of Geoffrey of Monmouth, a 12th-century Welsh cleric.

The Prophecies of Merlin, written in the early 1130s, comprise verses of prophecies made by an alleged man of the fifth century, named Merlin.

Monmouth made up many of the prophecies, which stretched beyond the 12th century.

In the History of the Kings of Britain, which Monmouth finished around 1135–36 and which laid the foundation for the Arthurian legends, Merlin becomes a character, though Monmouth muddles chronology by placing him in both the fifth and sixth centuries.

He is a magical boy, born of a union between a mortal woman and a spirit (a daemon, which later Christian writers interpreted as the Devil).

He has great magical powers of prophecy and matures quickly.

Merlin uses magic to bring great stones from Ireland to the Salisbury Plain for the building of Stonehenge and arranges for King Uther Pendragon to seduce Ygerna, who bears the infant Arthur.

At that point, Arthur vanishes from Monmouth’s story.

He reappears in a third poetic work, The Life of Merlin, in which he has a sister, Ganieda, who also has a prophetic vision.

Vita Merlini, written by Monmouth around 1150, his biography of the adult Merlin, but it is also a text of Western magical and spiritual enlightenment.

It sets down oral lore of mythology, cosmography, cosmology, natural history, psychology and what are now called archetypes of the human personality.

In 1150 a French poetical version of History of the Kings of Britain has Arthur constructing his Round Table under the aegis of Merlin.

The best-known portrait of Merlin comes from Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, published in 1485, a romantic tale in which the infant Arthur is raised by Merlin.

Upon the death of Uther Pendragon, Merlin presents the youth Arthur to the knights of the land and has him prove he is heir to the throne by withdrawing the sword Excalibur from the stone in which it is embedded.

Merlin serves as Arthur’s magical adviser but disappears from the story early in Arthur’s reign.

He is brought down by his passion for Nimue, or Viviane, a damsel of the lake who tricks him into revealing the secret of constructing a magical tower of air, which she uses to imprison him.

In contemporary fiction, Merlin usually is presented as a wise old man, despite his youthfulness in early writings.

It may be said that he has three aspects: youth, the mature prophet, and the wise elder.

He has been subject to many interpretations: magician, mystic, shaman, lord of the earth and animals, seer of all things, embodiment of time and trickster

In English folklore, the Berkeley
Witch was a wealthy woman who lived during the time
of the Norman Conquest in the town of Berkeley in England’s
heartland. She was wealthy and well liked, and
lived luxuriously. Her secret, kept until she was close to
death, was that her wealth was given her by the Devil, in
a pact for her soul (see Devil’s pact). Apparently, she
earned the name witch because she sold her soul to the
Devil, which reflects the once-common belief that all
witches made diabolic pacts.
According to lore, one evening as the Berkeley Witch
ate at her dining table, her pet raven gave a single, harsh
note and dropped dead. The woman recognized this as a
sign that her end was near and that she would have to live
up to her end of the bargain with the Devil. The beginning
of the end was an onslaught of bad news, the first
being the death of her oldest son and his entire family.
She was so overwhelmed that she took to bed and grew
weaker by the day. She confessed her pact to her two
other children, who were a monk and a nun. It was determined
that the only way to keep her out of the Devil’s
Berkeley Witch 21
clutches was to wrap her body in a stag’s skin, place it in
a stone coffin bound with three magic iron chains—for
iron drives away the Devil and his hordes—and place the
coffin upright in church. Psalms and masses were to be
sung and said over the coffin for 40 days and 40 nights.
Meanwhile, if the coffin were not violated by the Devil by
the third day, her body could be buried in the church’s
graveyard.
On the first night after her death, a horde of demons
appeared and broke one iron chain. They reappeared on
the second night and broke a second chain. But the third
chain remained impervious to the demons’ efforts, despite
the fact that the very church shook on its foundation,
and doors splintered on their hinges.
Then a hideous figure appeared—the Devil himself—
and bade the Berkeley Witch follow him. From inside the
coffin she replied she could not, for she was bound. “I
will unbind you, to your great loss,” the Devil answered.
He tore away the chain, smashed the coffin and seized
the living corpse of the witch. He strode outside, where
there waited a huge, demonic black horse covered with
spikes. He threw the witch on the horse, and her corpse
was pierced through with spikes. Her screams reportedly
could be heard for miles, but for naught: the Devil leaped
up on the horse and rode away into the night.

You Will Need

Two small handfuls of corn stalks

Green and yellow wool or cotton

Trailing greenery (ivy or grape vine are ideal)

Appropriately colored ribbons for the ritual (red or orange for Lammas)

Method 

Take one handful of corn stalks.

Just below the top, bind the stalks with the yellow cotton, tying them securely, 3 to5 centimeters underneath, and bind the stalks again; this forms the head of the doll.

Carefully divide the bound bundle into four strands. (The outer two will form the arms, the middle ones the body.)

Gently bend the stalks which represent the arms and bind them carefully with the yellow cotton.

Bind the two middle pieces together, crisscrossing the cotton to create a body approximately 10 to 15 cm (4 inches) long.

Use the green cotton to bind the two middle lower sections to represent legs.

Ask for a blessing from an agricultural god.

You might say: God of plenty, bless now this image of your fertility.

Decorate with the ribbons and trailing greenery.

If the Moon is feminine in nature, how did we ever come up with the “man in the Moon?”

Even though this idea is often thought of as strictly an American invention, such is not the case.

The Sanskrit word for moon is “mas,” which gives it a masculine form, and etymologists have long debated over whether the same is true of the earliest Teutonic languages.

Be that as it may, the concept of the Moon’s masculinity is rooted in several ancient mythologies.

Khensu, for example, is a Moon-god worshipped by the Egyptians, while Sin belongs to the Baby lonians.

Chandra-a Hindu Moon-god-commandeers a silver chariot drawn by deer with antelopelike antlers as he races across the sky.

And, of course, there’s also Yuelao, Chinese mythology’s Old Man in the Moon, who predetermines the marriages of unsuspecting humans.

It’s said that he firmly binds future mates with an invisible silk thread-a thread so strong that nothing can break it but death.

In other areas of the world, though, the Moon’s gender takes a back seat to the roles She plays: those of sanctuary, savior, and bringer of swift justice.

For example, in Siberia, the residents insist that the figure on the Moon is that of a girl who’s been whisked away from the impending danger of an attacking wolf.

Scandinavians see two children rescued from a mean and hateful father.

His crime? He forced them to carry buckets of water all day.’

One of the most interesting Moon myths belongs to the Masai of Kenya.

They say that the Sun once severely beat His wife, the Moon.

To remind Him of His trespasses-and embarrass Him thoroughly-She consistently shows Her blackened eye and swollen lip to all She encounters.

And then, of course, there’s the legend of the Moon Maiden who collects the dreams and wishes of every living creature on Earth.

It’s said that She tosses these into a silver goblet and spends the night swirling them together before sprinkling them back on the Earth in the form of dew.

In this way, nothing important is ever lost or forgotten.

Like everything else, it only changes form.

Other lunar myths seem to concern themselves more with deities who either live on the Moon, or are in charge of its phases.

One such myth concerns the Germanic goddess Holle-sometimes called Frigg-who lives on the Moon and busies Herself with spinning the lives of humankind.

Another tells of the Chinese goddess Chango, whose husband was given a potion containing the key to immortality.

Wanting the gift for herself, the story goes that Chango stole the potion, sucked down every drop, and then flew to the Moon to escape her husband’s wrath.

It’s said that she now lives there happily with the resident hare who gave her refuge.

Then there’s another bit of folklore that has nothing to do with gender or deity at all.

Instead, it speaks of the ten-day period following the appearance of the Full Moon.

It’s said that each of these days holds a magic all its own, and that those who pay heed to the individual attributes and use them as prescribed below can expect to become very powerful, indeed.

Befana  is an old woman who delivers gifts to children throughout Italy on Epiphany Eve (the night of January 5).

A popular belief is that her name derives from the Feast of Epiphany or in Italian La Festa dell’Epifania. .

In popular folklore, Befana visits all the children of Italy on the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany to fill their shoes with candy and presents if they are good. Or a lump of coal or dark candy if they are bad. In many parts of Italy and in particular rural Sicily, a stick in a stocking was placed instead of coal. Being a good housekeeper, many say she will sweep the floor before she leaves. To some the sweeping meant the sweeping away of the problems of the year. The child’s family typically leaves a small glass of wine and a plate with a few morsels of food, often regional or local, for the Befana.

She is usually portrayed as an old lady riding a broomstick through the air wearing a black shawl and is covered in soot because she enters the children’s houses through the chimney. She is often smiling and carries a bag or hamper filled with candy, gifts, or both.

Whether you are casting a simple spell, using items from your kitchen cupboard, or performing a
complicated group ceremony, the source of the power behind it is the same. Every spell or ritual
involves channelling the life force that runs through all forms of existence and transforming it into
higher spiritual energies. These spiritual powers include our own evolved self, which some say is
formed through many lifetimes, and the higher divine cosmic energies, such as a supreme god or
goddess, or, more abstractly, some sort of divine light, spirit and goodness.
Magick for healing, it must be said, is not so far removed from the prayers of conventional religions,
whose positive influence is well documented. The same effect can be created whatever the focus or
faith, and I know from personal experience that positive results can be achieved when a Wiccan coven
sends healing light to a sick member or a friend.
For hundreds of years, angels have been invoked in magick, just as in religion, both for protection and
to act as vehicles for healing or positive energies. Practitioners of white magick may focus on
particular aspects of a god or goddess figure, or benign power, personified through different deities
from many age and cultures.
Most rituals are related to the basic human needs for health, love, fertility and prosperity. In Chapter
13, Seasons and Festivals, I describe the major solar, lunar and agricultural festivals that formed a
focus for attracting abundance and increase to the land, animals, crops and people, tapping into the
life force that connected them all.
In past time, the well-being of the planet was considered to be the responsibility of peasant as well as
king through paying tributes and enacting age-old ceremonies to invoke the necessary energies for the
Wheel of the Year to turn. So individual prosperity or fertility was attained both through private spells
and charms and by sending positive energies to the Earth and the cosmos and, in a sense, receiving
bounty as those beams were amplified and returned to the sender.
Folk or domestic magick was an important part of people’s everyday lives right up until the nineteenth
century. In rural areas, the implements used in and around the home and garden could be easily
adapted for use in magick; and for town-dwellers, flowers and herbs could be gathered on a day in the
country or grown on allotments or in urban back gardens.
In the days before central heating systems, the focus of the home was the family hearth. Focus is Latin
for ‘hearth’ and from Ancient Rome to China, the household deities have always had their place, being
offered morsels of food, nectar and flowers and consulted on family happenings.
It was believed that the ancestors as well as the living gathered around the family hearth, and so it
became a natural focus for magick. The witches’ cauldron started off as the iron cooking pot that hung
over the fire (such pots are still used in country regions of Europe – I saw one for sale quite recently in
the market in Rouen in France).
Herbal brews were not only created to cure coughs and colds but also, with magical words spoken
over them, transformed into potions to bring a desired lover, employment or an unexpected helping
hand in times of sorrow. A grandmother would put any small coins she could spare into a money pot
and warm it near the fire to ‘incubate’ the money into sufficient to mend the roof or buy new coats for
the winter.
A young wife eager to be pregnant would secretly prick a fertilised hen’s egg with a needle on the
night of the full moon immediately before making love. Such actions were quite a normal part of life,
a way of tapping into the same energies that made the cattle fertile and the corn set seed.
Farmers would leave milk for the faeries that they might bring good fortune, young girls recited love
charms while planting herbs in soil embedded with a would-be lover’s footprint. On Hallowe’en,
housewives opened their windows and placed garlic on the window ledge so that only the good family
dead might enter and take shelter from the cold.
This simple folk magick, rather than ceremonial magick, forms the basis for the majority of spells. As
above, so below’, the words of the semi-divine father of magick, Hermes Trismegistos, may originally
have evolved from popular magick that is practised in many different cultures around the world to this
day. They are certainly as applicable today as they ever were.
Whatever the aim of your magick may be, if you look around your home, garden, workshop or even
office, you have the necessary tools for the spells you require. What is more, rooted as they are in
domesticity and the daily world, these implements could not be safer: fruit, vegetables, salt, sand,
seeds, flowers, coins, pots and jars, together with your crystals, candles, incense and oils, and perhaps
a few coloured scarves or ribbons to tie knots. Whether your spell is small and personal, or vast and
universal, whether you are working to attract love, harmony in the home, prosperity or fertility for
yourself or loved ones, for people in the wider environment or the planet, these are all you need.

Apples, cultivated in Britain as early as 3000 b.c.e., have had a long association with magic, witches, and goddesses.

Magic apple lands, whose fruit gave eternal life, were cultivated by various Western pagan goddesses, among them the Greek Hera, the Scandinavian Idun (Idhunn), the Teutonic Freya and the Norse Hel, Queen of the Underworld.

In Iroquois myth, the apple is the central tree of heaven.

In Christianity, the apple offered Eve by the serpent is the fruit of life but becomes equated with sin.

Games and divination with apples were part of the Celtic/Druidic harvest festival of Samhain (All Hallow’s Eve), now celebrated on October 31

A surviving custom is the dunking for apples on this night.

According to another custom, peeling an apple in front of a candlelit mirror on Samhain will reveal an image of one’s future spouse.

Magical fermented cider may have been used in other pagan rites.

In parts of England, another name for strong cider is witches’ brew.

Apples and apple peel are used in divination methods common in the British Isles.

In English lore, the apple tree is synonymous with enchantment and associated with figures in the Arthurian legends.

Arthur, upon being mortally wounded, was spirited by three fairy queens to the magical place of Avalon, “Isle of the Apples” or “apple land,” ruled by Morgan le Fay, the crone or Mother Death aspect of the Triple Goddess.

Arthur’s knight Lancelot fell asleep under a grafted apple tree and was carried off by four fairy queens.

Queen Guinevere gave an apple to St. Patrick, who died; she was accused of witchcraft and condemned to burn at the stake, but was rescued by Lancelot.

Witches who wished to bewitch or poison others were often said to use apples, as in the folktale of Snow White, who was put to sleep by the poisoned apple of the black witch-queen.

In 1657 Richard Jones, a 12-year-old boy in Shepton Mallet in the county of Somerset in England, was said to be bewitched by a girl who gave him an apple.

Jones suffered fits, and neighbors said they saw him fly over his garden wall.

The girl, Jane Brooks, was charged with witchcraft, convicted and hanged on March 26, 1658.

According to English folklore, it is bad luck to pick all the apples in a harvest: some must be left for the fairies.

The apple is a love charm in Vodun, and in English, Danish and German folklore.

A 15th-century English witch and seer who supposedly prophesied scientific inventions, new technology, wars and politics through several centuries, all written in crude rhymes. The books of her “prophecies” are likely the invention of later writers, among them Richard Head, who published a book of her predictions in 1667; an anonymous writer who published the Strange and Wonderful History of Mother Shipton in 1668; and a man named Hindley, who apparently authored Shipton predictions in 1871.

More myth and fabulous tales surround Mother Shipton than fact. Reputedly, she was born Ursula Southeil near Dropping Well in Knaresborough, Yorkshire, in 1488, though the dates 1448 and 1486 also are given in various texts. Her mother, who possessed the powers of healing, clairvoyance, storm raising and hexing , died in childbirth with “strange and terrible noises.” Ursula, who inherited her mother’s powers, was raised by a local townswoman. Mysterious things happened around Ursula: furniture moved about on its own, and food disappeared from dinner plates. Once, the townswoman left Ursula alone in her cottage. When she returned with several
neighbors, they were attacked by strange forces. A woman was hung by her toes from a staff floating in the air, and men were yoked to the same staff. Other women found themselves dancing in circles; if they tried to stop, Mother Shipton with a familiar, 19th century
Mother Shipton an imp in the shape of a monkey pinched them to keep them going.

Ursula fit the classic stereotype of hag. Head described her as follows: . . . with very great goggling, but sharp and fiery eyes; her nose of incredible and unproportionable length, having in it many crooks and turnings, adorned with many strange pimples of divers colours, as red and blue mixed, which, like vapours of brimstone, gave such a lustre to the affrighted spectators in the dead time of the night, that one of them confessed that her nurse needed no other light to assist her in the performance of her duty. In art, she is depicted as wearing a tall, conical, brimmed black hat.

Despite this incredibly ugly appearance, Ursula married Tobias Shipton at age 24. Her husband then disappeared from all records, and Ursula became known as Mother Shipton. She did not like prying neighbours and once took revenge on a group of them by bewitching
them at a breakfast party (see spells). The guests suddenly broke into hysterical laughter and ran out of the house, pursued by goblins. For this mischief, Mother Shipton was summoned to court, but she threatened to do worse if she were prosecuted. She then said,

“Updraxi, call Stygician Helleuei,”  and soared off on a winged drago The verses attributed to her vary. One of the best known is:

Carriages without horses shall go
Around the world thoughts shall fly
In the twinkling of an eye
Iron in the water shall float
As easy as a wooden boat
Gold shall be found, and found
In a land that’s not now known
A house of glass shall come to pass
In England, but alas!

Her predictions included automobiles, telephone and telegraph, iron-clad boats, the California gold rush and the Crystal Palace in London. Mother Shipton also is credited with predicting the Civil War in England, the Great Fire of London (1666), the discovery of tobacco and
potatoes in the New World, World War II and the women’s liberation movement.

Her memorial, Mother Shipton’s Cave, is in Knaresborough.

An old technique of magical healing
by wise women and men, wizards and witches involving
the measuring of the patient’s girdle or belt. Changes in
girth revealed the presence of evil spirits or fairies which
had invaded the body to cause the illness. After exorcising
the entity, usually through charms, the witch took
another measurement to verify that the spirit was gone.
Some cures involved the recitation of charms, cutting up
of the girdle and burying the pieces in the ground. Girdle
measuring was a widespread practice in Europe and the
British Isles through the end of the 16th century

It is the duty of the banshee or ‘woman of the fairies’ to foretell the death of an individual. Banshees are attached to particular families and their cry is only heard when a family member is about to die. Banshees are reported either to be young women of mournful aspect or else to take the form of hags. With eyes red from weeping she continually combs her hair with a gold or silver comb. The cries of the banshee are echoed by professional mourners or keeners who were engaged to maintain high piercing cries and moans at a funeral wake. The very first being to set up a keening cry was the goddess Brighid, one of the Tuatha de Danaan. She wailed for the death of her only son.

Spells designed to bring about a difference in bodily appearance in order to dissolve mischievous enchantments by the fairy folk or frequenters of the lower world were legion in most cultures.

In Celtic lore for instance, during the process of dissolving the enchantment, having cast a magic circle, the rescuer had to keep repeating the name of the enchanted person to remind them of who they truly were.

Traditionally the enchanted one would go through several metamorphoses or shape shifts in the following order: esk, adder, lion and finally a bolt of red-hot iron.

Then returning to human form, they were left completely naked.

They had to be covered by a cloak – thus rendered invisible – and washed in milk and then hot water.

If we accept the idea of the evolution of the soul, the stage of heating iron until it is red hot represents the process of transmutation from animal to human.

The final purification in milk (which in Irish mythology is a healing substance) and water restores the victim to his normal self – he is reborn.

In many cultures iron is regarded as a tool of purification.

It was, and still is, dreaded by the darker powers and many amulets and charms fashioned from the substance were used to avert evil.

Iron pins or brooches were stuck in headgear, a piece of iron was often sown into the clothes of children and horseshoes were often used to protect the homes and byres (cowsheds).

Women in childbirth were also said to be protected with iron , sometimes by a row of nails and at other times by a scythe or pitchfork.

This was so that mother and baby were protected from evil spirits, particularly from the night demons who were said to steal babies.

Up until quite recently in Scotland in some areas, it was considered highly unwise to leave a baby alone at all, lest it be stolen away by the faeries.