Do you imagine it would be amusing, huddled around a cauldron over the smoky fire, conjuring spirits to visible appearance, or brewing potions of bits of frog and noxious herbs in the company of cackling sisters of the art? Again, history has a little by way of explanation about the archetypal picture of the old witch, warts and all. When the first books with woodcut illustrations were printed in the 15th century, an old dame accused of witchcraft, was depicted.
She was dressed at the then height of fashion, in a long dark skirt, shawl and lacy cap topped by a tall hat with a round brim, a costume typical of Welsh ladies to this day, if you look at holiday postcards from that principality. Unfortunately, the image persisted, long after the fashions changed. The old lady, with her walking stick, trendy attire and her pet cat, became everyone’s idea of how the witch is supposed to look. Pity that picture is now about six hundred years out of date!
In the Middle Ages, keeping an animal as a pet, whether it was a cat to keep down mice or a dog to hunt the odd rabbit for the pot or even a toad or lizard, was thought to be very strange, and it is on the evidence of such a relationship that some poor old souls were accused, and even sometimes hanged, for their supposed involvement in witchcraft. Today some witches are vegetarians or even vegans, neither eating nor wearing animal products or having them in their homes. Many belong to animal protection or rescue services. Again, the suggestion that witches, then or now, killed animals or used their blood in spells is totally wrong.
They would probably have eaten meat, when they could get it, for in the winter especially the country folk had a very poor diet compared to our modern, vitamin-enriched, prepackaged and out-of-season fare. However, the symbolic objects associated with the archetypal witch figure still have a relevance in today’s Craft. Some covens have cauldrons, broomsticks, even cats, because members of the Old Religion have always been practical and kindly people. Objects which have both a practical and a magical use have always been sought by witches.
Some of these are natural charms, fossils in the shape of a leaf or an arrow-head collected from the fields or river banks to act as protective amulets. Pebbles with an eye shape turn up all over the world as charms against being ‘overlooked’ by someone with an evil eye. Perhaps a similar charm ought to be discovered to attach to computers to prevent hackers and ward off computer ‘viruses’. Who knows what new arts the New Age witch might need to develop!
The old cauldron was the ordinary cooking pot, yet it could also be used to brew up herbal or magical potions, or the simmering water in the dark iron pot would make an excellent scrying mirror for seeing into the future. The broomstick, whose homely task was to sweep the floor, became a magical wand, and a swept area in the earth or rushes of a simple cottage floor became the magical circle wherein the witch could call up her powers to see at a distance, to seek answers to questions, to raise the energy for healing or blessing a charm. If you take up these old arts you will need to gather a few
basic tools around you.
This is not the excuse to take your cheque book to the nearest occult emporium and lay out large sums of money for esoteric artefacts, equipment, robes, incenses, knives and what-not. If you really want to master the Crafts of the Wise you will do far better to look in your garden shed, in the kitchen drawer, or in the attic for forgotten treasures which your new-found arts will require.
Your first acts of magic, if you are one of the rare folk who actually do want to align themselves with the traditional arts and reawaken the creative powers of the Old Religion within themselves, will be to get out of doors as much as you can. At first it might seem strange, walking along familiar streets among houses and shops, perhaps, with ancient or modern buildings, or perhaps in the countryside. (On average about 85% of people interested in witchcraft in Britain today live in towns or cities or other urban areas!)
The difference is that you will actually be opening your eyes and looking. Look at the buildings, what are they made of? Look at the people, where did they originate? Look at the trees, the plants in gardens or parks, are they common to the land or new fancy species introduced recently? Look at the roads and lanes, are they straight or curving, following a buried stream perhaps, or some other ancient boundary? Where is your nearest flowing water, be it stream, river or even the sea coast? What do you know about the tides and their relationship to the moon? Become curious about everything, for that was certainly one of the assets of every traditional witch. Seek to know about your community, its needs, its desires, its good and bad points, and above all, seek out your local magical spots.
There is no obvious way of locating the most sacred place in your area, and as you are different from me, there is no way of explaining what it might feel like to you. Perhaps you will feel a tingle on the skin, a feeling of heat or cold, or sense the hairs standing up on the back of your neck. Places to go and examine, even in your untrained and unmagical state, should be any kind of spring of water, the oldest church and its churchyard, particularly ancient trees, historic buildings, ruins or, of course, any local standing stones, circles, tumuli, barrow mounds, hedges, green ways, hill forts, hill figures, Roman roads or even older causeways.
If nothing else is suitable in your home area, go to the top of the highest hill and start by watching the sunset or the sunrise. Take a picnic, take grandma and the kids, go and visit, in a relaxed and watchful mood, any such place with ancient associations. Note down the phase of the moon when you make your journey. Sit quietly and ponder, muse or daydream, asking silently in your heart that you might understand a little of the magic or sacredness of the place. Gentle, new thoughts will drift through your head.
Ideas will seem to spring from nowhere. Be silent, still and patient. Feel the earth beneath you, the sky above, and the eternal balance in which they stand. Feel the ages rolling back so that the people of the past, with their forgotten wisdom, may speak to you inside your mind, or drift their shadows across your distracted eyes. Be at peace, seek the calmness and enduring qualities of a big, healthy tree, ask for the voice or energy of a bubbling brook or the surging sea. Request the freedom of spirit to soar with the gulls or skylarks, and see what happens. What ever you do, try to understand the old ways, the simplicity and immediacy of events in your ancestors’ lives. Rediscover the skills they might have
had, the crafts they practised, the way they lived in reasonable harmony with the earth taking only what they needed and harming her as little as possible.
These may seem like very small steps to take, but you will be surprised at how much you can discover by peeping over a few walls, examining the shape of your home town, looking out for the sorts of natural things which might well have been sacred to our ancestors. There is a simple logic to the things they considered holy, if you think about it. The sun raised and ripened the crops on which all life depended; the springs of fresh water offered to quench the thirst of man and beast, in summer droughts and winter snows. There is a life force in spring water very different from that in processed tap water, as is obvious from the increasing popularity of bottled spa and mineral waters. Our ancestors named this life force, found in healing springs and herbs, ‘virtue’ and valued its effects.
We are a literate people and fill our memories with telephone numbers, ‘trivial’ facts and figures, which may be useful on quiz programmes but are not a lot of help when it comes to the application of magical arts. So it is necessary to begin to build up new memories, data banks and bits of knowledge to apply to our new-found witchly crafts. Obviously, this is not going to be suddenly regained by sitting at the feet of our arcane grandparents, nor can we conjure back the simpler ages when all knowledge was absorbed, day by day, at our mother’s knee, so we have to turn to books.