PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

Those seeking a native vocabulary for modern witchery could do worse than to look North.

In Early Modern times, the sabbat was known in Scandinavia as (to translate into English cognates) the witch-thing—a suitably Nordic name for the witches' assembly.

(Modern Witchery's mixed origins are readily revealed by its mixed vocabulary. Sabbat, originally a Hebrew word, is an etic—outsider's—name opprobriously applied to a gathering also known as the “synagogue of Satan.”)

The Norse term thing—as in althing—best preserves the word's original sense: “a meeting, an assembly.” Back in old tribal days, that's what it meant in English, too. A witch-thing is thus a “witch-meeting,” a “witch-assembly”: a suitably objective term for a gathering of witches.

(Contemporary use of the word sabbat to mean a witch's holiday—as in "the Eight Sabbats"—is a derived sense, extending the name of the gathering itself to the occasion for the gathering. Clearly, such an extended usage is not suitable to witch-thing.)

(Among lovers of the Old Tongue, such occasions tend to be called—for obvious reasons—firedays.)

Exactly how English's old word for “assembly” came to take on its current sense of “item, entity,” is not entirely clear. (Perhaps because things gather to deal with things.) Plainly, the word has had something of a roundabout journey over the course of the last 1000 years.

Witch-thing reads rather humorously to the contemporary English ear, but—be it admitted—not inaptly so. Little is more characteristic of Witching than the Sabbat.

"What's with the red thread?" asks the cashier, eyeing my left wrist.

Och, now, there's a question and a half.

“Family reunion,” I tell her. “Bloodline kind of thing.”

When you first arrive at Grand Sabbat, they ask you the question that any witch can answer.

Respond correctly, and they knot the red thread around your wrist.

(Spun by hand it is, from the wool of a ram named Gandalf, and dyed red with sumac berries.)

I tie this knot in Old Hornie's name, aye till he fetch thee home again, they say.

It stays in place until you get home safely thereafter. (We haven't lost one yet.) They say that if you leave it on until it comes off of its own accord, he'll grant you a boon.

A rede to the wise: ask carefully.

Five weeks on and counting, I'm still wearing mine.

Even when wearing nothing else—toweling off after the shower, say—I'm wearing my red thread.

Every time that I see it, every time that I feel it, I remember.

Why are some people witches, and some not?

Easily told.

We're witches because he sires us himself, overshadowing our fathers at the moment of our conception.

Witches too, you see, have two daddies.

This year's was a Grand Sabbat memorable for its intimacy and intensity.

Now, when I'm with other thread-bearers, there's an odd kind of camaraderie among us that I can't recall from previous years. Now, proudly displaying our bound wrists, something shared, something deep and unspoken, passes between us.

And you, and you, and you were there.

Bloodline kind of thing.

 witches' sabbat  n.  the ecstatic adoration of the embodied Horned God

Beauty and tears.

That's what I'll remember about Grand Sabbat 2024.

In some mythologies, the world begins with an act of love.

In other mythologies, the world begins with an act of sacrifice.

Grand Sabbat tells both stories.

People of the Red Thread

When you arrive at Grand Sabbat, you get your red thread.

I tie this knot in Old Hornie's name, they say, tying it around your wrist, Aye, til he fetch thee home again.

It's a matter of bloodline.

Why are some people witches, and some not? Easily told.

We're witches because He sires us Himself. At the moment of our begetting, He overshadows our fathers.

In this way, in our age and day, He raises up a people to Himself.

Witch Fire

Long ago, in the dawn of days, the Horned dwelt in Heaven in the House of Thunder; but looking down upon us, His people here on Earth, He saw us cold, and in darkness.

So He stole the Fire of the Gods from the Hearth of Thunder, and came down to Earth, and gave it to us.

For this, He was to pay a terrible price, but His act of courage and generosity was the making of us; since when has the Witch Fire burned at the heart of all that we are, and do.

At sundown on Friday, we turned our faces to the West, poured out a bottle of liquor—a gift for a gift—and prayed to mighty Thunder that He might send fair weather for the duration of our time of gathering.

(He did.)

Then, as of old, we called to the Horned our god, that He might once again kindle the Witch Fire among us.

Throughout our time together, the Fire from Heaven burned, receiving prayers and offerings each morning.

The Stag Slain from the Foundation of the World

Processing down to the circle Saturday night, chanting with my people the praises of the Horned our god, sunset light to one hand, the darkness of the forest to the other, a spear of joy pierces my heart.

“I haven't been this happy in years,” I realize.

“Can you roast marshmallows over a sacred fire?”

Young Fiona's plaintive question was no idle one.

We'd kindled our Fire of Meeting in the sacred grove on Friday night. All weekend, it had burned continuously, receiving prayers and offerings each morning. Then rain threatened to extinguish it.

(In the end, it didn't, but there was no knowing that at the time.)

So we added a burning log from the sacred Fire to the (non-sacred) fire that burns in the pavilion where people gather when weather's wet, thus (by "contagion") rendering it sacred, thus prompting Fiona's profoundly theological question.

To generalize: may sacral Fire be used for practical purposes as well?

All Fire is sacred, but—by the nature of things—we have to use it for practical purposes, too.

In the face of this paradox, the ancestors cut a deal with the Powers that Be: we maintain sacred Fires to embody, to epitomize, the sanctity of Holy Fire. These we treat with the utmost regard, as honored guests. No waste may be burned in them, only offerings.

Only by virtue of this, is it given to us to make practical use of fire as well.

(We need only look around us in the culture at large to see the dire results of the violation of this primal agreement.)

So: when sacred Fire is the only Fire available—as in this situation—is it permissible to use it for practical purposes—cooking, say—as well?

When will the next Grand Sabbat be?

At the end of any given Grand Sabbat, that's what we throw the bones to determine.

Monumental world-renewing rituals such as the Grand Sabbat, the tribal gathering of the Midwest Tribe of Witches, are mostly not held every year. ('Ware overexposure.) What happens every year invariably ends up being taken for granted, routinized; in the end—gods forbid—it can even become a burden.

So we throw the bones to introduce an element of randomness, and thus meet regularly, at irregular intervals, just as we have for the last 35 years.

(The white deer knucklebones that we cast live between times in an urn here at Temple of the Moon, where they are always available for consultation. Ask me about it some time.)

I always go into the casting with a plan in place. Sometimes the bones speak ambiguously; sometimes they have no opinion. Sometimes (to be quite honest) I just plain don't understand what they say.

Not this year, though. This year, the bones spoke quite clearly.

Two years off, they said.

So here we go. See you in 2027.

Priest:

Great Stag,

our stag,

we hunger.

Father,

will you feed?

Horned:

Everything between

my left hand and my right

I give to you,

my beloved people.

Body and soul,

whole and all:

I give myself

to you.

(All pelt the Horned with grain.)

All lands are the countries of the Wise.

Therefore, before Grand Sabbat, they test you. They ask you the question that any witch can answer.

Answer correctly, and you get your red thread.

You know what that means, of course.

I tie this knot in Old Hornie's name, they say. Aye, till he fetch thee home again.

Then they bind it around your wrist.

That's your laissez-passer to the Sabbat. Wear it, after, until you get safely home.

(If you wear it until it falls of its own accord, though, Old Hornie will grant you a boon, they say. Best ask wisely. You know his sense of humor.)