Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth

In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.

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The War of the Elements: A Folktale of the Latter-Day Hwicce in an Age of Climate Change

They say that once the elements were at war.

The land quaked, and the sea rose up to drown it. Wildfires raged; the winds wreaked havoc.

The people were frightened and sent a delegation of elders to the forest to speak with Him of the Horns.

They found him sitting at the foot of an oak, wearing Grass Snake around his neck. He heard their words, and when they had finished, he took Grass Snake in his hands. Grass Snake began to grow and grow until he was as big as the world. Then he wrapped his long body around the whole world and took the tip of his tail into his mouth.

With this the war of the elements came to an end, and the world was restored to harmony.

 

And so to this day we rist our circles round in council and in worship.

This is a local tale I tell you.

That's how we know it's true.

 

The Hwicce were the Anglo-Saxon tribe that lived in the Cotswolds and Severn basin. Some would say that from them and their ways come those we call witches and witchcraft.

And some would say otherwise.

From a Latvian story

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Poet, scholar and storyteller Steven Posch was raised in the hardwood forests of western Pennsylvania by white-tailed deer. (That's the story, anyway.) He emigrated to Paganistan in 1979 and by sheer dint of personality has become one of Lake Country's foremost men-in-black. He is current keeper of the Minnesota Ooser.

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