The Witch’s Art of Incantation: Spoken Charms, Spells, & Curses in Folk Witchcraft

Roger J. Horne is a creator, folk witch, and modern animist. His spiritual practice is informed by his ancestral currents of Scottish cunning craft and Appalachian herb-doctoring. He is the creator of Folk Witchcraft, The Witch’s Devil, and other works. Through his writing, Horne seeks to help other witches rediscover the living traditions of folk craft. Read more about his work at rogerjhorne.com.

FROM THE INTRODUCTION:

“In the mid-seventeenth century, Scottish witch Isobel Gowdie’s words were believed to hold atypical power. An utterance from her was thought by the authorities to spell sickness, doom, or dire misfortune to her sufferers. What might be a simple turn of phrase on the tongue of another was transformed, in her mouth, into a magical act, a machination of the witches’ craft, darkly wondrous and full of potency. Whether Gowdie possessed any specific form of training in the witch’s art of incantation is beside the point entirely. Speech itself, in the witch’s craft, is a magical act. This, reader, is the fulcrum that binds the present volume, the exact aim and goal of this present work.

Today, we are both spoiled and plagued by representations of the witches’ art of incantation all around us. Our fictive wingardium leviosas and bippity-boppity-boos have inured us to the very real craft of magical words left to us by our real ancestors. Despite the fact that one is so fortunate to come across a book with actual historic charms from the past, one must have a certain amount of knowledge and experience in order to make use of it. Yet, this wealth of lore is all around us, it kind of feels. The barriers to achievement in spoken charm and incantation aren’t so much practical as ideological; most of us don’t seem to know what to make of these archaic remnants or how to incorporate them into our practice. Modern witches, in the well-meaning work of creating new charms (that are, for certain, potent in their own right), are from time to time guilty of throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, abandoning rather than preserving the very real and legitimate inheritance of incantations all around us.

Yet, for the folk witch, lore-derived practice is essential. Translating who our ancestors were and what they did into modern life is the heart and soul of the work we do. Folk witchcraft is, as a branch of the modern craft, decidedly personal, ancestral, and flexible, but remains firmly rooted in the witch-lore of the past. By following the truths and charms of our old lore, folk witches arrive at forms of modern witchcraft that make sense to our own individual locales, our familiar spirits, our spiritual ancestors, and our needs…”