A Saga of the Latter-Day Hwicce

Here's the conceit: that modern-day witches derive (at some remove or other) "off of" the old Hwicce tribe (and kingdom) of Anglo-Saxon days. Historical or not, be it admitted, it does make one fine story.

Welcome to the life of a full-time witch and amateur linguist.

Some time back, I'd riffed, along these lines, off of the first line of Beowulf:

Hwaet, wé Seax-Hwicca in [something, begins with S]-dagum...

Lo, we Knife-Witches in [something, begins with S]-days...

I knew that the word that I couldn't remember had to begin with S, because it needed to alliterate with seax: that's how ancient Germanic poetry works, by initial rhyme. But what that word was, I couldn't remember.

(Why “Knife-Witches”? Well, the context required a weapon—“Lo, we Spear-Danes” is how Beowulf begins—and modern witches are preeminently a People of the Knife, which we generally call “athame.” Of course, the old Hwicce were a People of the Knife as well; their kinfolk the Saxons were named precisely for their characteristic knife, the seax. It's also an hommage of sorts to the original Anglo-Saxon witchery of modern times, Uncle Bucky's Seax-Wicca.)*

Seeking the phrase, I search my computer files.

Nada.

Fine. I search my on-line posts on the topic, certain that I've used the phrase as a tantalizing epigraph somewhere or other.

Gornisht.

In increasing desperation, I pick up my little black sketchbook and scan entries on the left-hand side, working (in proper witchly fashion) backwards in time, from the most recent back to the beginning of the volume.

(The left-hand side is where I jot phrases and seed ideas; the right is for longer and more developed thoughts.)

Af klum.

Grinding my teeth, I reverse, scanning entries on the right-hand pages, working from the beginning. It's a slow and difficult process; I keep getting distracted by memorable phrases and ideas that I'd like to expand on.

Finally, about 20 pages in, I give up. “I'm turning in,” I think. “I'll keep going in the morning.”

At that very moment I find what I'm looking for, there at the bottom of the page.

Hwaet, wé Seax-Hwicca in síð-dagum...

Lo, we Knife-Witches in these latter days...

Sometimes the gods speak through meaningful coincidence.

But wait: there's more.

Recently, I—along with millions of other eclipse pilgrims—gazed in awestruck adoration into the face of the Black Sun of Totality. Afterward, I'd taken off my cardboard-framed eclipse glasses, folded them, and tucked them, momento-wise, into my sketchbook for safekeeping (and, who knows, for possible future use).

Of course, they marked out the very page that I was looking for.

Almost, it was as if Steven-of-the-past, knowing of Steven-to-come's future search, had foresightedly marked out for him the object of that search. He couldn't and didn't, of course—in fact he tucked the glasses between the pages without looking, wholly at random—but, well...as we say, time has always been something of an elastic category for people of our kind.

So:

Hwaet, wé Seax-Hwicca in síth-dagum...**

It's a gripping saga, this tale of the Latter-Day Hwicce, both ancient and modern, tragic and comic, epic in scope.

Listen, and I'll tell you.

*Why, tool and weapon, is the knife a symbol of Witchery?

For the making and the unmaking, for the parting of this from that; for life and for death, for birth-cord and reddened altar, for casting circles and chopping onions.

It's also a tool for in-fights.

 **In Anglish (sic), this would be:

What: we Sax-Whitches in sithe-days...

But that's another story, for another night.

For NR

Instigator