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Wishbone folk magic conjures up memories of holiday turkeys. Chickens have wishbones too, though, and the other day I found one. Traditionally, two people break a wishbone together. Each person grabs one of the sides, they make their wishes, and on a signal, they pull at the same time. Whoever ends up with the connector piece gets their wish. So what happens when I'm alone in the house when I find a wishbone?

I thought about drying it for later use. I was not sure if that would work, though, since finding the wishbone while eating was part of the magic. Just like finding a bay leaf in the stew or finding a prize in a king cake, finding is part of what makes it folk magic and not just regular magic.

Dear Boss Warlock:

I wanted to make some chutney, so I bought some rhubarb at a store, even though as a native Midwesterner I understood that in doing so, I was breaking a major local taboo.

Now I'm afraid of the resultant Curse: that for the rest of the year, I'll be snowed under with gifts of rhubarb from everyone that I know.

Help! Is there any way to escape the Great Midwestern Rhubarb Curse?

Wincing in Winona

Dear Wince,

Whichever gods you honor, my friend, you now owe them big-time. Since the Great Midwestern Rhubarb Curse is a strictly regional phenomenon, there is a way out of your conundrum.

Here's your “Get Out of Hell Free” card, Wince: Local taboos only apply locally.

Before you make your chutney, first cast a circle and, for the duration, declare the entire kitchen to be somewhere else, somewhere that the Curse does not apply—say, California, or Florida.

Good luck, my friend. Let me add that, chutney made, it might very well be politic to send Boss Warlock his own jar by way of thanks for having bailed your sorry Midwestern butt out of this mess in the first place. As it happens, Boss Warlock just loves rhubarb chutney.

My address will be arriving shortly by psychic post.

Boss Warlock

A Note to Readers:

It's a truism of religious iconography that every detail bears meaning. So let us ask: Why is the Rällinge Frey stroking his beard?

Surely every pagan must be familiar with the Rällinge Frey. This charming little bug-eyed god was discovered, at his eponymous location, in Sweden—big-time Frey Country back in the old days, be it noted—in 1908.

Wearing nothing but a pointed (skin?) cap—or is it a helmet?—the little bronze god sits cross-legged, sporting an noteworthy erection. His left hand—the forearm is now missing—rests on his left knee. With his right—the strong, or dominant, hand—he strokes (or grasps, or tugs) his beard.

Why?

One can hardly fail to notice, of course, the beard as analogue to the god's phallus, or to appreciate their mutual, um, stroke-ability. The artist here has deftly created a visual dialectic, stunning in its elegant simplicity. This is a god who specializes in the erotic, with all that that implies, but there's more to him than that, far more.

Like every other part of the human (or divine) body, beards bear symbolic meaning. Beards mean: male. They mean: maturity, experience. Thus, in an extended sense, they also mean: wisdom.

Now that the wearing of beards has become culturally fashionable again, I've had occasion over the last few years to watch men interacting with their beards. (Unlike interacting with one's phallus—though, as noted above, certainly analogous to it—it's something that you can acceptably do in public.)

Again and again I've watched men stroke their beards while thinking something over. Stroking the beard means reflection. It means deliberation.

What the artist is showing here is Frey's other side. He's not just the handsome fertility guy with the big toothsome cock, though he's that too. To consult one's beard is to consult one's wisdom. ("Let me consult my beard on that," goes the old Russian proverb. One could even view the beard as a symbol of the Received Tradition, making the Bearded the repository of the Lore.) This is a god who thinks. This is a god who considers. This is a god who reflects before he decides. He's not just cute and good in the sack, but smart and thoughtful, too.

May 9, 2021

Here we are, this deeply into the month of May, and it’s snowing.

That’s what I get for not having sex on May Day. 

Well, I’m going to remedy the situation, right now. It’s not too late. 

Ancients knew to bless the budding green and burgeoning crops by making love in Spring.