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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
The Sacred River of the Witches

If you look at a map of England, you'll see on the southwestern side of the island, between Cornwall and Wales, a large waterway reaching inland from the Atlantic. This is the Estuary (in Witch, it would be “Firth”) of the River Severn.

The Severn, Britain's longest river, is traditionally considered a “female” river, its patron deity a goddess.

In its valley and throughout its watershed there dwelt, some 1300 years ago, the Anglo-Saxon tribe known as the Hwicce, from whom, some would say, derive the witches of today. And indeed, plenty of witches still live along the Lady Severn, though most of us now live elsewhere.

In any given landscape, the names of the largest rivers will always give access to the oldest reachable underlying linguistic substratum. (Think of the Mississippi, Ojibwe for “Big River.”) And so it is for the Severn.

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Earth and Her Two Husbands: A Folk-Tale of the Latter-Day Hwicce

Well now, Earth had a dilemma on her hands, and no mistake.

Two she loved, and how to choose between them?

Sun: so beautiful, so steady, him of the piercing insight.

And Thunder: so passionate and irascible, so wild and unpredictable.

And how to choose between the two?

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Becoming Flame: A Folk-Tale of the Latter-Day Hwicce

One day the youngest warlock goes to the oldest and says:

 

I don't understand. I sing the songs, I make the offerings, I dance the prayers. But in my heart, I am not there. What more should I be doing that I am not already doing?

 

The eldest rises, lifts his hands, and splays his fingers. At the tip of each finger licks a tongue of fire.

 

My son, he says, If you will, you can become entirely flame.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
The Thews of Witchdom

The old-time Tribe of Witches didn't have a separate word for “religion.”

Or “tradition.”

Or “morals.”

They had one word for them all.

The Hwicce—the Anglo-Saxon tribe (and later, kingdom) that (according to some) gave rise to the name and lore of today's witches—spoke their own dialect of Old English, the language which (after a crossbow marriage with Norman French) gave rise to Modern English.

Living in a state of cultural wholeness that we can only fantasize about today—what culture critic Stephen Flowers would call “integral culture”—their word ðéaw denoted many of the shared things that together make a people a people: Religion. Custom. Tradition. Usage. Virtue. Conduct. In the plural, it also meant virtues, (good) manners, morals, morality.

Imagine a world in which all these things were the same thing. That was the world of the witches.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Why We Speak English

In this season of the ancestors, I remember Horse and Hench, the legendary brothers (some would say, lovers) who led their people to the Promised Land.

England, that is.

You may, perhaps, know them as Horsa and Hengist, as they would have been called in their own day: literally “horse” and “stallion.” Hench is a worn-down form of hengist: a henchman was originally a hengist-man, literally a horse (or stallion)-man: i.e. a squire or groom.

Some would claim them as historic figures. J. R. R. Tolkien—himself a Hwiccan lad— certainly thought so. But of course it's not that simple.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Witcheries

Consider the suffix -ry or -ery,*  which comes to us from Latin (-arius) via Old French (-er, -ier) via Middle English (-erie) and, attached to a noun or verb, can mean either a craft, study, or practice (husbandry, midwifery), a collective plural (Jewry, nunnery), or a place in which a particular activity takes place (bakery, hatchery).

So witchery can mean:

  1. Witchcraft,

  2. Witches collectively, and

  3. Witch Country.

     

One of my favorite lines from the Charge of the Goddess has always been: For behold, I am Queen of all Witcheries. Apparently there are multiple witcheries, and She's queen of them all. Andrew Mann said of Her in 1597: She has a grip of all the Craft. That's quite a claim.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
World's Witches Get Official Tartan

AP: Minneapolis, MN

If Steven Posch has his way, the witches of the world will soon have their own official tartan.

“Hopefully, it will be a done deal by next Samhain [Halloween],” he says.

“The process is surprisingly straightforward,” he adds. “You submit your pattern to the Scottish Registry of Tartans. If it's not already on file, you send them a swatch, pay the fee, and—yan, tan, tethera [one, two, three]—it's official.”

Is the Witch tartan an ancient pattern?

“The Dobunni [the ancient British tribe which, according to some, are ancestral to the witches of today] must have had their own traditional plaids,” says Posch, “but those have all, alas, been lost to the mists of time. This Witch tartan will be a new one, designed by a select Midwest artist.

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  • Lizann Bassham
    Lizann Bassham says #
    Your posts never cease to amazing and amuse me - thanks!

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