Check out HeatherAnn's jaw-dropping Great Goat/Black Phillip mask over at High Noon Creations.

Stunning. (And let's hear it for the model.)

It's enough to make any aigolater's* heart beat faster. Oh, the sabbats we could do.

Here's the catch. The mask is made from urethane rubber with NFT faux fur and acrylic eyes; its horns are lightweight plastic backed with a rigid foam.

The Minnesota Osser (sometimes spelled ooser, but rhymes with bosser), which for almost 30 years the witches of the Driftless have used at their Grand Sabbats, is made—in the old style—from wood, antlers, and leather. I am privileged to be its keeper. It lives in a shrine in my home, and I worship it with incense and offerings twice daily.

Call me old-fashioned, but it's difficult for me to imagine something made from urethane and acrylic as the recipient of cult.

Theological question: Granted this distinction between—shall we say, ritually fit and unfit components—could High Noon's Black Phillip mask be used at a sabbat?

Personally, I would have to say Yes, it could. Needs must, when the Horned One drives. Witches have a long history of making do with what's available. And it sure would be a hoot. I'd gladly dance at that sabbat any day of the lunar month.

But I can't see it as one of the Thirteen Treasures of Paganistan anytime soon.

And there's the difference between a mask and an osser.

 

*aigos: goat + -later: worshiper (Greek)

 

 

 

 

 

*aigos: goat + -later: worshiper (Greek)