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Here's one of my favorite May-games: a kind of ritualized mock orgy. It's called “Milk-White Pony.”

(I got it from a local Wiccan priest who claims to have learned it at Boy Scout camp. To judge from the stories I've heard, I could well believe this.)

The dance takes place in a circle, with everyone singing and clapping. Here's the verse:

I saw N on his/her pony

riding on a milk-pony

I saw N on his/her pony

and this is what he/she told me

During the singing of the verse, N “rides” around the circle on an imaginary pony. At the end of the verse, the rider stops to face someone in the circle.

Then you sing the chorus:

Front, front, front

O baby

Back, back, back

O baby

Side, side, side

O baby

This is what he/she told me.

Both dancers thrust their pelvises at each other as they do this, front-to-front, back-to-back, or side-to-side as the lyrics call for.

Then N rejoins the circle, whoever he or she danced with hops into the middle, and the game continues.

No doubt the tune is out there somewhere—everything's on Youtube—but if so, I haven't been able to find it yet. I promise to keep looking. Meanwhile, consult your favorite ex-Scout.

Every coven should have one.

It's Deep Winter, and we're well into the holiday thirtnight known variously as Yeaning, Ewesmilk, and February Eve*. If where you live is anything like where I do, the snows lie piled deep.

Ergo, it's the perfect time to play Wheel Tag.

Wheel Tag is just like regular tag—non-binary “It” and all—but you play it on a track in the snow.

Here's how you play.

Lay out a Wheel in the snow and tromp it down well (or, if you're ambitious, shovel it out). If your track is relatively small, make a Wheel with four spokes. If you've got room to spread out—the snow on top of a frozen lake is ideal for this—go with eight spokes.

Then pick an It, and away you go. Remember: you have to stay on the Wheel. Anything that happens off-Wheel doesn't count.

Like most traditional kids' games with a grounding in ritual, the purpose of the game is to play itself through and start over again, around and around: like the year, like Life. Like a Wheel.

In Witch Country, even games are profound.

It's Deep Winter now, the cold heart of the Winter, and the fireday known variously as Yeaning, Ewesmilk, and February Eve* is upon us.

It's time to mount the Wolf-Guard.

Snow lies piled deep, game is scarce. Hunger Moon shines.

Yet now comes the yeaning, the lambing. (In the Old Witch language, yeans are lambs or kids.) And where there are lambs, there are wolves.

Hunger and the smell of blood overcomes the wolves' innate caution of human beings. So the warriors take up their spears and go up to the lambing-pens to mount the nightly wolf-guard.

In most places, these days, the Wolf-Guard no longer happens literally; instead, it's become a game (also called Lambs and Wolves). Here's how you play.

This autumn children's game, a variant of "tag," comes from the old Hwicce tribal territories in England's southwest Midlands. Like many traditional children's games, it is circular, self-replicating, and orally transmitted. The game's ritual structure and deeply mythic resonances will hardly be lost on anyone likely to be reading this post.

Players gather in a circle, hand-in-hand, around a mound of leaves. (In some versions, they circle.) They chant:

 Leaf Man Rise Up Leaf Man Rise Up Leaf Man Rise Up

(Still on vacation this week!  Hopefully my travel mates are still on speaking terms with me!)

The god of the guessing game is Thor! 

Too easy?  It wouldn't have been for me as I know very little of the Norse pantheon.  I can, however, now tell my son the differences between Marvel’s Thor and Thor of the Norsemen.

It's probably no surprise that I'm a huge fan of parodies and satire, or the various "-ifications" on the net (yes, I know that's not a word, I'm using it anyway).

I really enjoy it when people get creative about their interpretations of things- the creative world is too broad and vast for us to get terribly proprietary over our ideas.  Copyright infringement and patent laws and such really bug me.  Of course, I like the reversal of such things, like Repo: the Genetic Opera, which is not even terribly tongue in cheek in its commentary on commercialism in health care.

I’m on vacation this week, so instead of an article I leave you with a guessing game. 

My 6 year old son recently asked me about this divinity and how he differed from his doppelganger.  Hopefully, this is not too easy.  Explanation will be posted next week.