Yule tidings!

In ancient days the folk of old

When chilled with fright by winter's cold

Did kindle up a great Yule fire

With leaping flames in its great pyre;
So to entice the waning sun

To rise again and wider run;

It's fiery course across the sky,

To warm them so they would not die.
So we, whose minds now sense a chill

Of anger in the evil will,

The human conflict, hate, and strife,

Which hold a menace over life;
Would kindle up a flame of love

That we within our hearts may move,

In Yuletide joy, with love embrace

And thus abide in peace and grace.

John MacKinnon

Tricksey Faeries

Loch Earn, St Fillans, Pertshire

This, also from the Times really interested me - how good that we are standing up for our heritage and beliefs, eventhough, no doubt, the city slickers think it is a "whole bunch of malarky." I would rather be on the safe side!

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Fairies stop developers' bulldozers in their tracks
By Will Pavia and Chris Windle

VILLAGERS who protested that a new housing estate would “harm the fairies” living in their midst have forced a property company to scrap its building plans and start again.

Marcus Salter, head of Genesis Properties, estimates that the small colony of fairies believed to live beneath a rock in St Fillans, Perthshire, has cost him £15,000. His first notice of the residential sensibilities of the netherworld came as his diggers moved on to a site on the outskirts of the village, which crowns the easterly shore of Loch Earn.

He said: “A neighbour came over shouting, ‘Don’t move that rock. You’ll kill the fairies’.” The rock protruded from the centre of a gently shelving field, edged by the steep slopes of Dundurn mountain, where in the sixth century the Celtic missionary St Fillan set up camp and attempted to convert the Picts from the pagan darkness of superstition.

“Then we got a series of phone calls, saying we were disturbing the fairies. I thought they were joking. It didn’t go down very well,” Mr Salter said.

In fact, even as his firm attempted to work around the rock, they received complaints that the fairies would be “upset”. Mr Salter still believed he was dealing with a vocal minority, but the gears of Perthshire’s planning process were about to be clogged by something that looked suspiciously like fairy dust.

“I went to a meeting of the community council and the concerns cropped up there,” he said. The council was considering lodging a complaint with the planning authority, likely to be the kiss of death for a housing development in a national park. Jeannie Fox, council chairman, said: “I do believe in fairies but I can’t be sure that they live under that rock. I had been told that the rock had historic importance, that kings were crowned upon it.” Her main objection to moving the rock was based on the fact that it had stood on the hillside for so long: a sort of MacFeng Shui that many in the village subscribe to.

“There are a lot of superstitions going about up here and people do believe that things like standing stones and large rocks should never be moved,” she said.

Half a mile into Loch Earn is Neish Island. From there the Neish clan set forth to plunder the surrounding country, retreating each time to their island. Early in the 17th century, the MacNabs retaliated from the next valley, carrying a boat over the mountains, storming the island and slaughtering most of the Neishes.

This summer Betty Neish McInnes, the last of that line in St Fillans, went to her grave — but not before she had imparted the ancient Pict significance of the rock to many of her neighbours.
“A lot of people think the rock had some Pictish meaning,” Mrs Fox said. “It would be extremely unlucky to move it.”

Mr Salter did not just want to move the rock. He wanted to dig it up, cart it to the roadside and brand it with the name of his new neighbourhood.

The Planning Inspectorate has no specific guidelines on fairies but a spokesman said: “Planning guidance states that local customs and beliefs must be taken into account when a developer applies for planning permission.” Mr Salter said: “We had to redesign the entire thing from scratch.”

The new estate will now centre on a small park, in the middle of which stands a curious rock. Work begins next month, if the fairies allow.

Pagan beliefs in Mexico and Guatemala

I saw this article in the T2 Times supplement and thankfully, they had a link online. It appeared on 17th November 2005.
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Times2The pagan beliefs that enrich Mexico and Guatemala
Mary Ann Sieghart
Dateline: Oaxaca

It was supposed to be the Day of the Dead, but it turned out to be the Nearly-All-Week of the Dead. Long before real Hallowe’en, Oaxaca’s balconies were draped with life-size skeletons in crazy poses. Even a bench sported a couple of skeletons in conversation, the white one with a moustache tenderly putting his arm round the pink one.

They do death differently in Mexico.

And what a way to do it! Market stalls are piled high with skulls, some made of sugar with brightly coloured icing for eyebrows, others coated in sesame seeds with misshapen peanuts for teeth.

On October 31, the serious celebrations begin with a Day of the Dead breakfast: hot chocolate, sweet bread, and a banana-leaf-wrapped parcel containing chicken in a spicy chocolate sauce. By 10pm we, along with most of Oaxaca, are at the main cemetery, some four miles out of town. There, stilt-walkers arrive in garish costumes, having tottered all the way from the centre. Outside the cemetery, the atmosphere is redolent of an August bank-holiday fair: packed with crowds, the street contains fairground rides and cheap stalls with tacky plastic prizes.

Inside is weirder still. The walls are honeycombed with tombs, a lighted candle in each recess. The graves are decorated with marigolds, lilies and candles. In the far corner is a stage from which a torch singer, dressed in Morticia Addams make-up and ghostly robe, belts out a cabaret number. Then a troupe of actors dressed as angels performs a slapstick comedy, hitting each other over the head with balloons.

It is as if you can feel the pagan Mexico thrusting its way up through the crust of Catholicism.

You sense this most powerfully in the indigenous Indian communities. We move on to the cemetery in Xoxocotlan, an outlying Indian village. There the ground is bright orange, even in the middle of the night, for the carpet of marigolds, spiked by beer and Coke bottles, is so brightly lit by candles. Around each intricately decorated grave sit the relatives of the dead person, eating, drinking and chatting for all the world as if this were a normal family picnic.

There’s a carnival feel to the way the Mexicans approach death, a sense of delicious expectation that the spirits of your loved ones will return to visit you if you tempt them with an offering of their favourite tipple. The atmosphere is not grave at all. For, if you believe that your ancestors are present in your everyday life, why should you be gloomy in remembrance of them?

The Mayan Indians, who predominate in Mexico’s Chiapas and Guatemala, are highly spiritual and nominally Catholic, for the Spanish conquistadors imposed their religion on the indigenous people just as they imposed everything else. Every cemetery is a thicket of crosses; every village contains a church. The casual eye might mistake this for Catholic piety. But the Maya, who craft colourful masks to sell at market, have turned Catholicism into a mask of its own. From the outside, each church looks like a standard Spanish place of worship. Go inside, though, and you often discover that it is being used instead as a Mayan temple.

In the church of Chamula, up in the mountains of Chiapas, the pews and altar have gone and the floor is carpeted with pine needles. Candles burn all over the floor. Dotted about are families who have paid a shaman to cure them. He feels the ill person’s pulse and then conducts the appropriate ritual: passing eggs in a pattern over their body, sacrificing a chicken and then spitting firewater or Coke over the dead bird, chanting prayers and lighting coloured candles.

The sight is as pagan as it is heartening. After more than 300 years of oppression at the hands of Christians, these people have co-opted the religion and reclaimed it for themselves. The churches have no priests and conduct no services. The Indians don’t read the Bible. The Vatican has sundered relations with them. But they are still deeply religious people. For them, Jesus is the God of the Sun, and Mary of the Moon. The saints represent more minor Mayan gods.

The Mayas’ main worry is that modern evangelism is trying to replicate the conquest that Catholicism attempted in the 17th century. Evangelical missionaries are gaining hold in Mayan villages, and demanding that converts relinquish their traditional beliefs.

It would be a tragedy if they succeeded. These indigenous people have fought so hard for so long not to join the Western world. As we saw on the Day of the Dead, Mexico and Guatemala are enriched, not impoverished, by their pagan beliefs. If the brutal Spanish conquerors failed to extinguish these noble people, surely the modern world should be broadminded enough to allow them their difference. You can’t help thinking: why can’t the Church just leave these people in peace?

Dig this buried treasure...
When I spoke of paganism lying just below the surface in Mexico, I wasn’t aware of how literally this was true — until we took a bus journey to the Guatemalan border. On our right lay a spine of absurdly conical foothills, like the overlapping triangular mountains you see on the horizon in children’s drawings. Closer up were smaller hillocks, also surprisingly symmetrical. One was not even triangular, but trapezoid, with sloping shoulders and a flat top.

The bus driver gestured casually in their direction. “That’s an archeological site,” he told us. The triangular hillocks, it turned out, were actually Mayan Mayan pyramid temples, overgrown with grass and trees. Talk about buried treasure. What a shame the Mexicans can’t afford to excavate it.

Sonnet of the Moon

Sonnet of the Moon
by Charles Best, 1608

Look how the pale Queen of the silent night
doth cause the ocean to attend upon her,
and he, as long as she is in sight,
with his full tide is ready here to honor;

But when the silver waggon of the Moon
is mounted up so high he cannot follow,
the sea calls home his crystal waves to morn,
and with low ebb doth manifest his sorrow.

So you that are sovereign of my heart
have all my joys attending on your will,
when you return, their tide my heart doth fill.
So as you come and as you depart,
joys ebb and flow within my tender heart.

Yet another look!

I felt creative today and created another look for the website, probably more in keeping with its The Old Ways title.

Do let me know if you approve - I have redone the links and the archives work - yippee! - so, all in all it should be fine.

Goddess Power, by Fiona Horne

I have only got one book by Fiona Horne called Pop goes the Witch, but I have heard her talks and seen her perform at the Witchfest festival in Croydon. She is a modern face to witchcraft, sexy, self-assured, very much out of the broom closet, with a string of articles and succesful books behind her name. I have sourced this article from her website (I am setting a link up with the others) and trust she won't mind this posted here. The article is from June 1998 for the magazine New Woman.


Witches sure ain't what they used to be, forget broomsticks and black cats - these days women are using witchcraft for self-development and spiritual growth.Today there is a growing wave of women from all walks of life declaring themselves witches. Witchcraft, or more specifically Wicca, is one of the fastest growing religious trends in Australia. Not surprising when you consider that Witchcraft is a goddess-oriented religion that places emphasis on the sacredness and legitimacy of female power.

Goddess's truth

In the growing popularity of Wicca, women are finding they can explore their spirituality in a welcoming and empowering environment. After a history of having to relate to the Divine as masculine, acknowledging the omnipresent existence of a goddess can have a profound effect on a woman's psyche. It can expand our view of ourselves to include a greater understanding of our potential, our abilities and our purpose. As Lee, a 27-year-old office manager says, "Wicca gives me freedom of belief, freedom of worship and freedom to be myself. It allows me to experience the mystery of being female. In Wicca, women are not treated as second class. There is balance between male and female in that they are complementary and both wonderful".

The magical mystery tour

Doing spells and rituals to effect change and growth in my life has made me feel more alive, the world became an exciting playground of opportunity and potential, much as it had probably appeared to me when I was a young child, before the demands of society started to oppress me.

The emphasis Wicca places on the sacredness of the earth and magical ritual is relevant in a time of global crisis. As 21-year-old student, Sandra says, "The rituals of Wicca make everyday tasks seem meaningful. I feel involved in my life, I feel like I have a say in the way it turns out. I have a responsibility as a human to care for the earth, to work towards healing the damage done by year of patriarchal irresponsibility. It isn't always easy but I know I can made a difference."

Twelve years ago there was plenty of information around about the Craft, but still a lot of misinformation prevalent in the community, chiefly that witches were either "devil worshippers" or kooky eccentrics. I could understand people's confusion in thinking witches were evil and in league with the devil, after so many years of sensational misrepresentation in films and media, but I never felt intimidated by this. It was very clear to me that Satan, being a Christian god, had nothing to do with my religion, and the individuals were far from eccentric. In fact they were mostly very thoughtful and creative people that were going to a lot of effort to re-establish a healthy and vital spiritual tradition.

It's a woman's world

Having been raised a Catholic I was brought up to have an ambivalent attitude towards my sexuality. As much as it was an essential and inseparable part of me, it was also owned by the Church, which declared it sinful and gave as a role model for women the sexless Virgin Mary - not even in conceiving a child did she indulge in the physical act of sex. She had no say in anything - God decided she would bear and raise his child and that was that. She was just a vessel for his demands. This attitude crossed over into all areas of my life. I lived in a society created mostly by men, for men and I was answerable to the demands they placed on me. I was brought up to feel uncomfortable with and ashamed of menstruation and other female bodily functions. I was unhappy with my physical appearance and I spent a lot of my time feeling trapped in my imperfect, "dirty" body.

Wicca encourages women to have a very different view of our bodies and ourselves. The creation myths vary according to different traditions, but all unite in the belief that the world was given birth to by a Mother Goddess and so a woman's ability to conceive and give birth to a child is considered one of the most holy and powerful acts that a human can perform. Far from a woman's body being seen as unclean, it is an expression of the Divine, menstruation is revered as a symbol of life, and sex between female and male is referred to as the Great Rite, symbolic of the union of Goddess and God.

The respect for women in Wicca extends far beyond sex and physical functions. Women are seen as essential in the priesthood and play a pivotal role in decision-making and expounding of Craft principles in spiritual and everyday life.

Witchcraft liberates women from stereotypes by providing the Goddess as a role model. It emphasises that the Goddess does not live outside us by within us and within everything. No matter what a woman's role in society - mother, daughter, sister, wife, lover, colleague, friend - she can be empowered by the knowledge that she is an expression of the Divine.
In the cut throat world of business this profound sense of self can come in hand as Lisa, 29, an advertising executive states. "Wicca empowers me as a woman so I don't feel as threatened by men. When I'm at work I don't buy into men's power games. I know that they have been conditioned to be that way and I don't take it personally. When I am treated in a sexist way I know they are saying more about their inadequacies than mine. I just get on with the job."

Sense of community

Hawthorn, 41, has been a Wiccan high priestess for over 10 years and was drawn to Paganism and Wicca because it seemed "more natural". Her interest ultimately led to her forming her own coven in the western suburbs of Sydney. In this time she became aware of the need for a gathering focusing specifically on women's needs and so created the bi-annual women-only gathering "Wemoon".

"Most of the Wiccan rituals are mixed, but on one particular occasion a group of women broke away to do their own. When it came time to rejoin the group no-one wanted to. They had connected as a community of women and they wanted to keep that feeling. I thought, 'Why not have a weekend where we don't' have the responsibility of children or husbands or work?' And so Wemoon was born from that."

The first Wemoon was held in November 1995, and attracted over 50 participants. Explains Hawthorn, "The women who came were quite a cross-section - young girls, older women, mothers, career women - from every walk of life and every income bracket. Initially, when the women joined as a group of strangers they were wary of each other, but in a very short time they were no longer rivals, they had become 'sisters'.

"Wemoon is growing and that's important to me. It's good to watch beaten, bowed women come in and at the end of the weekend walk out with their shoulders back and heads up - looking the world in the balls."

The Numbers

Professor Gary Bouma of Monash University recently analysed 1996 census data and concluded that "nature-based religions are by far the fastest-growing religious groups in Australia." Of these groups, Wicca, Witchcraft and Paganism form the core. Between the 1991 census and the 1996 census there was a 150 per cent growth rate in these groups. The Church of Wicca is a legally recognised religious institution based in Western Australia and established nationally. Its coordinator Tamara Von Forslun states that, "there has been a phenomenal increase in interest in the last few years. We have over 5,000 registered with us as members, with many of these people going on to initiate and priesthood levels."

Wicca World Witchcraft has many different paths (life there are many types of Christians - Catholics, Anglicans, etc). The most popular path is Wicca.

Wicca is a pagan religion, meaning that Wiccans feel lover for and a connection with nature and see it as sacred. Wiccans worship two early forms of deity, the Great Mother Goddess and her consort the Horned God, but is goddess-centred and welcomes men and women. Wiccans celebrate eight religious festivals a year, called sabbats, and these are based on the passing of the seasons and agricultural cycles, like the sowing and harvesting of crops, and astronomical events, like the solstices and equinoxes. Some Wiccans do not use the word witch to describe themselves, but many do, particularly women. This is seen as an attempt to reclaim the word, as it has become associated with negative stereotypes of women. When a woman called herself a witch she is confronting patriarchal society's prejudice towards independent and empowered women.

One Woman's Wicca

Wendy Rule is a witch who, as a popular singer and performer, lives very much in the public eye. Her third album, Deity, has just been released and she is touring nationally with her band. She is also the mother of a beautiful five-year-old boy.

"In being Wiccan I get a personal sense of the sacredness of being female. I feel we are all a manifestation of the Goddess as much as the earth is and we can tap into our connection with nature for self-healing and growth. To me, music and Wicca are inseparable. In my music I am trying to convey my true sense of soul and being, and because my spiritual beliefs are so central to my life, the two heighten each other.

"It's a lovely faith to be passing on to a child. He is only five and as such I don't involve him in my formal rituals, but I take great joy in loving nature with him - showing him insects and flowers and sitting through sunrises and sunsets together. he know that anything that grows on the earth is sacred - you don't hurt a tree because you would be hurting the Goddess.

"Being a witch I am really into personal growth and it is wonderful to see my son evolving and to have a hand in it. Positive thinking helps both of us and I am very aware of the power of the word. One of the basic principles of spell-working is 'whatever you say you can manifest', so I never put down or criticise my son. I state affirmations with him; they're like little spells in that, if I tell him he's a lovely child, then he acts like one.

"A lot of my son's relatives are Christian. I explain to him that I see Jesus as just one aspect of the God, and Mary as just one aspect of the Goddess. They are both valid but not necessarily the whole picture. I do not tell him he's Wiccan, he is just brought up to believe that the earth and nature are beautiful and sacred; it's important to respect other and the Goddess and God exists in everything. I hope I am teaching him a sense of self that will empower him to ultimately follow his own soul."

Urban Shaman

This is an article which I found whilst looking around on the Llewelyn Publishers's website. It had been written by T Polkinghorne at the beginning of this year. He refers to a book called Urban Primitive in his article which I do not have a copy of but I liked the premise behind this article. I post it as something to wonder about mostly, as I have realised that I too sometimes idealise the countryside and forget that no matter where you are you can sit down and commune with the divine.

There is a tendency among modern Pagans - many of whom live in cities - to revere the wilderness as a source of magical power and dismiss the cities in which they live as spiritually dead places. The city is simply a place where they live and work, while the countryside is a sacred place to travel to and perform rituals. The idea that magic can be performed in the city using tools and ingredients native to that environment are one often ignored by many spiritually inclined Pagans. But spells can still be cast while doing the washing up, and Pagans can still revere their Gods from the city.

Pagans and the City

Pagans are often predisposed to romanticize the countryside, while shunning the city. There is a good example of this in an anecdote from the introduction of Urban Primitive by Raven Kaldera and Tannin Schwartztein. Schwartztein recalls spending time at a camp listening to a fellow Pagan praise the countryside while simultaneously dismissing the city as a dead cold place. I believe that this dismal view of the city is partly a result of the stressful pace of modern life. Life in the city can also feel alienating, which is a problem for Pagans especially. Many Pagans seek to overcome feelings of alienation by joining covens and re-enacting ancient rituals, signalling a desire to return to the communal values of agricultural society. In these practices, the patriarchal values of the city are often attacked and the rejected feminine is exalted.

This, I believe, is where a rose-tinted view of the country comes from - despite the fact that living from the land is not always as idyllic as it is often presented. The natural setting is merely serving as a ritual backdrop - one as symbolic as the items placed upon the altar. To many Pagans, the city represents repressed aspects of human nature; the rejected feminine; repressive patriarchal values; monotheistic religion; and the soul-destroying aspects of modern life. The country is the antithesis of these negative concepts, and is idealized for it.

Few Pagans actually take this reverence for nature a step further and go out to live in the countryside, or even become activists. There are groups who seek to unite their reverence for nature with magical practice. For example, the Dragon Network is an organization of Pagans who practice magic as a form of ecological protest. But the majority of neo-Pagans consist of urban dwellers, so it is not surprising that many Pagans are distant from rural life. While it is commendable to try to get out to the country, protest on behalf of the environment, or live off the land, it does not mean the city should be shunned as a source of magical power.

What some members of the neo-Pagan scene forget is that many of the ancient Pagans from whom they draw inspiration from were city-dwellers. Whole cities in Ancient Egypt and Greece were built around temples dedicated to Gods and Goddesses before the advent of monotheistic religions. The Egyptians built Karnak around the temple of Amun, that city’s patron god. In ancient Greece, legend stated that deities would often compete over the patronage of cities. Athena and Poseidon were said to compete for the patronage of the city of Athens. These and countless other examples show that the practice of Paganism was not restricted to the country by our ancestors. The use of the country as a ritual backdrop is a modern invention, and we do not have to stick to it for fear of breaking tradition. In fact, breaking tradition may be necessary at times for practicality, especially for the urban Pagan.

Urban Primitive encourages a shift in attitude in the neo-Pagan scene by depicting the city as a spiritual being in itself. While Paganism has traditionally personified the Earth as a sacred Mother figure, Kaldera and Schwartztein’s recommend viewing the city in the same way. The city is spoken to as a living entity in itself. Buildings are addressed in the same manner that some Pagans would address or perform rituals around trees or stone circles. Spirits inhabit inner city areas, just as faeries live in woods and forests. The shades of the dead crowd our hospitals. Subways become entrances to the Underworld.

The authors do not go as far as romanticizing the city. Kaldera compares his time living in the city to a prison sentence. Cities are regarded as "boils upon the ass of Gaea," being a major source of pollution. In this way, reverence for nature is not dispensed with. But despite acknowledging the often soul-destroying nature of city life, Urban Primitive shows how a magical life can be led anywhere.

Magic can be used for survival, utilizing whatever tools are available in your environment. This can be seen as a shamanic approach; our ancestors often resorted to using whatever means they had at their disposal to survive. At a time when the science and technology had not yet been developed to make things comfortable for humans, the shamans improvised.

Spells and Divination

Casting spells for mundane purposes is frowned-upon in some circles as "low magic" or even "black magic." Those who practice what is known as "High Magic" regard magic as something that should only be performed for moral or pure purposes - such as spiritual evolution. But in Urban Primitive, spells are cast for everyday objectives such as getting a job. Using magic for the practicalities of modern living is important to the modern Pagan or magician. Our worries differ from those of the ancients; we no longer have to be wary about being mauled by vicious animals, attacked by neighbouring tribes. But modern living provides its own set of difficulties to accompany its comforts. We have employers to appease, livelihoods to maintain, kids to feed. When practical solutions are hard to come by, then what is the harm in casting a spell?

Urban Primitive describes a range of simple spells that can be cast with everything from simple household items to things to you can find in a trashcan. Chapter Eight categorizes certain kinds of trash you find in cities into the four traditional elements of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. Broken glass can be used as a simple athame. Gum wrappers and bird feathers can be incorporated into spells.

The book also describes various uses for bottles in spells, ranging from protection to getting someone to look favourably upon you to communing with spirits. I have used bottle spells in the past for improving relationships. The suggested technique is simple. It involves taking a piece of paper and drawing a picture or a representative symbol of the person you’re having trouble with. Even their name or initials will do if you are stuck for inspiration. You will also need a sellable bottle filled with water and a handful of sugar (or something just as sweet).

1. Perform your usual ritual opening and focus on that piece of paper as containing your conflict-person's essence. It might help if you have a small photograph, piece of clothing, or a similar link to accompany the paper as an aid to concentration.

2. Once you have finished concentrating on the symbolic representation of your target, place it within the bottle. Then take a handful of sugar (or whatever substitute you are using) and pour it inside the bottle.

3. Seal the bottle and then shake it while chanting your intent, which could be a simplified statement of intent such as: "[insert name of person] loves me." Or you can make a whole song out of it. Do whatever inspires you.

4. Once you feel the spell to have reached its maximum intensity through the shaking and chanting, put down the bottle and end the ritual.

5. Hide the bottle in a dark place, like a cupboard or under your bed.

I have used this simple technique to good effect with certain friends or colleagues. This is just one of many examples of how spells can be cast from the materials that can be found in your home, probably waiting to be thrown in the bin.

Divination is another practice that can be performed with items you can find in the city. Traditional divination techniques provide convenient sets of symbols that can answer questions or make predictions about future events. The Tarot has the major and minor arcana; the I Ching has 64 Hexagrams. Systems such as these divide life experience into segments, and create symbolic images associated with each segment. These images are things that our subconscious minds understand, and divination has its source in these unconscious impulses. Our subconscious communicates to us in the language of symbols.

Once a symbol is firmly entrenched in the unconscious through repeated association with an aspect of our experience, the subconscious can communicate with us through those symbols. This is often the case with dreams. If you associate a person you know with something negative - say anger or depression - then that person may crop up in your dreams as a symbol of a negative aspect of yourself. And if you repeatedly associate the Tarot’s Tower Card with conflict, it might just mean that when the card turns up in a reading.

There is a mention in Urban Primitive of trash divination, which is something I have practiced in my own way. Each time I head for the bus stop every day before work, I treat the journey as an "omen walk." Just as the Druids made predictions from weather conditions, so it is possible to find symbolism in random objects that catch your eye in the road, or in the sky. This can be a natural phenomenon, like an unusual cloud formation or the behavior of local wildlife. Or it can be man-made, like an advertisement on the side of a bus giving you the answer to something you've had on your mind, or a song on the radio that tells if you are going to have a good night out or not. A design on an empty bag of chips that drifts your way may tell you if you're going to get a promotion or get fired at work. It is simply a matter of keeping your mind open to these things.

As soon as you leave the house, simply tell yourself that you will be open to any omens that come your way. Do not look for them - that is something you should be doing on a subconscious level, not a conscious one. The conscious mind is not very good at these things. Keep your mind focused on reaching the bus stop on time, or a problem that has been bothering you. If you can, silence your thoughts completely as you walk. Once you see something that you feel might be an omen, ponder its meaning if you do not know what that meaning is. This method is very freeform - it’s similar to traditional divination techniques such as scrying and dream interpretation. The form it takes may be different from how it was performed in older agricultural societies, but the principles behind it remain.

Magical Living

Another way in which the city can take on a more magical appearance is through seeing the different areas and places as being associated with the elements, or any other system you use to structure your magical universe. Kaldera and Schwartztein conceptualise phone lines, modems, and gas lines as being homes for Air elementals. Power stations house Fire elementals. City trees and parks house Earth elementals. Water elementals live in the plumbing. By making offerings to them, seeking to commune with them and working magic by enlisting their aid, the city can become magical. If you like, you don't have to work with the simple Four/Five element scheme. You can attribute the spheres from the Cabalistic Tree of Life to certain areas of the city. Even the traditional symbolism of the seven planets can be used in this manner. The possibilities are endless. Any environment you live in can take on a magical tinge - it simply depends on how you look at it.

Magic is more than a mere interest or hobby to those who actually practice it, although it may start that way. It is not something do on the weekend - an excuse to drive off to the country to dance around a bonfire, and then forget about it when you return to the office. Even if you do not take a religious attitude to it, magic is something that informs your whole worldview and lifestyle. It is a paradigm in itself, and affects the practitioner's worldview in the same way that the thought-processes of religious fundamentalists and atheists affect theirs. Spells and rituals have an even more important use to the urban practitioner with difficulties on the domestic or career front and can see no practical way to deal with them. Magic should not simply be left to the sacred grove - it has just as much validity in an inner-city studio apartment, or whatever environment you happen to be occupying.

In regards to our environment as sacred and learning to recognize the magical currents that underlie it, we are doing the same things our ancestors did anyway. Although we live in a wilderness of steel and stone rather than plant and tree, the principles behind human need and desire remain more or less the same. The same ideas that motivated ancient Pagans motivate modern Pagans - survival in a potentially hostile place, and the need for something sacred in their lives.

Men A Tol - Cornwall

I was so happy to discover our own pictures of the men-a-tol which we took about three years ago on one of our many visits to the West Country.

On this occasion it was our very first time - we were staying in the perfect Cornish cottage just outside of Tintagel. We set off early the morning towards Penzance, Lands End, Mousehole and St Michael's Mount.

We were out the whole day, utterly blown away (especially at Lands End, as the wind was very strong) by the beauty of the countryside and the sheer majesty of the windswept moors and of the views of the ocean.

Towards the end of the day, as we were leaving Lands End, we decided it would be bright idea to visit the men-a-tol. We had a vague idea where it was. We set off just as the mist came folling in across the sea. We got horribly lost, found ourselves on a farm and I had to jump out of the jeep and go ask directions from a very amused farmer as he was herding his cows into their hold. Armed with directions, we set off down tiny countrylanes with no cars coming past, ahead or behind us. Eventually, through the mist, we spotted a sign that read Men A Tol. We veered off the road and parked on a muddy track. An arrow pointed up a desolate farmtrack so rutted I sank knee-deep into some of the holes.

We smiled nervously at one another and decided to go ahead and do it - how far could it be, afterall? After what felt like an hour's worth of hiking up this farm road, high foliage on either side with the far-off lowing of cattle for even more ambiance with mist coming in even thicker than before, there was another small sign that pointed to a step over a fence on the right. We followed this. The shrubs and plants were almost as tall as I am as we made our way along. There was no one around. It was just M and myself. The silence was a balm and as we walked along the mist dragged its damp fingers catsoft across our faces.

Unexpectedly, the three stones loomed at us. We stopped and stared. It was like something out of a Hollywood special effects department. The setting was one of those truly perfect moments. We moved closer, in awe of this ancient place, knowing that we were in the presence of something other, a sacred place.

Others had been there before us that day. They had left tiny offerings at the base of the hole-stone; tiny flowers picked from the surrounding countryside, bread crumbs and even some small coins. I remember thinking about these previous visitors and wondered what they had asked for as they left their gifts. M and I wandered around and decided that it would only be beneficial to us and we crawled through the stone a few times and walked in a sunwise circle about the stones. A feeling of sheer euphoria and breathlessness came over me and I had to sit down for a bit. It was as if the scene had been set, exclusively for us. It was perfect. I can't remember feeling healthier or happier than I ever did sitting there with the mist rolling in over us.

We left our own offerings after staying our fill and made our way back to the car, a bit quiet but so obviously touched by being there - I know, it sounds kooky and dramatic but it was exactly as I tell it. I can't remember ever feeling so in touch with the raw energy of the world, not even at my first ever visit to Stonehenge.

Our journey back to the car seemed closer and by now not only was the mist quite thick, it had gone quite dark. I pushed thoughts of creatures in the bush out of my mind but was nevertheless relieved to pull the car-door closed behind me.

We left, feeling smug and very content, and after a few minutes drive something loomed at us out of the dark on the left hand side. Set in a small field we found another ancient tomb, this time much larger and even more eerie than you could make up. We parked the car hurriedly and clambered over a fence to go and inspect it. I didn't think that any of the pictures would come out, but they did.

And then, to crown it all, we had a full moon that night. She raced us home. We sat outside in the cottage's paddock and had some fiery whisky and toasted her. I swear she blinked at us.

Ancient Sites - Avebury

Last year, during our very brief summer hubby and I drove out to Avebury where we met up with Viv. It was my first ever visit to Avebury and I was surprised by the sheer size of the area and how pretty the town itself is. We wandered about, touching the stones, marvelling at the scale of the circle. I freely admit to not knowing a lot about it, so I have done a bit of research on the site and found out sufficient knowledge to share with others.

Ninety miles west of London and twenty miles north of Stonehenge stands Avebury, the largest known stone ring in the world. Older than the more famous Stonehenge, and for many visitors far more spectacular, the multiple rings of Avebury are cloaked with mysteries which archaeologists have only begun to unravel.

Similar to Stonehenge and many other megalithic monuments in the British Isles, Avebury is a composite construction that was added to and altered during several periods. As the site currently exists, the great circle consists of a grass-covered, chalk-stone bank that is 1,396 feet in diameter (427 meters) and 20 feet high (6 meters) with a deep inner ditch having four entrances at the cardinal compass points. Just inside the ditch, which was clearly not used for defensive purposes, lies a grand circle of massive and irregular sarsen stones enclosing approximately 28 acres of land. This circle, originally composed of at least 98 stones but now having only 27, itself encloses two smaller stone circles. The two inner circles were probably constructed first, around 2600 BC, while the large outer ring and earthwork dates from 2500 BC. The northern circle is 320 feet in diameter and originally had twenty-seven stones of which only four remain standing today; the southern circle is 340 feet across and once contained twenty-nine stones, of which only five remain standing.

The construction of the Avebury complex must have required enormous efforts on the part of the local inhabitants. The sarsen stones, ranging in height from nine to over twenty feet and weighing as much as 40 tons, were first hewn from bedrock and then dragged or sledded a distance of nearly two miles from their quarry site. These stones were then erected and anchored in the ground to depths between 6 and 24 inches. The excavation of the encircling ditch required an estimated 200,000 tons of rock to be chipped and scraped away with the crudest of stone tools and antler picks (there is some evidence that this ditch was once filled with water, thereby giving the inner stone rings the appearance of being set upon an island). From excavation and soil resistivity studies it is known that the three rings originally contained at least 154 stones of which only 36 remain standing today. There are three reasons for the disappearance of these stones. In the 14th century, and perhaps earlier, the local Christian authorities, in their continuing effort to eradicate any vestiges of 'pagan' religious practices, toppled, broke up and buried many stones. Later, in the 17th and 18th centuries, still more of the remaining stones were removed from their foundations. Crops could then be planted in these areas and the massive stones could be broken into smaller pieces to be used for the construction of houses and other buildings.

In the early years of the 18th century, however, the general outline of the Avebury temple was still visible. Dr. William Stukeley, an antiquarian who frequently visited the site in the 1720's, watched in dismay as the local farmers, unaware of the cultural and archaeological value of the ancient temple, continued with its destruction. For over thirty years Stukeley made careful measurements and numerous drawings of the site, drawings that are today our only record of both the immense size and complexity of the ancient temple. Stukeley was the first observer in historical times to clearly recognize that the original ground plan of Avebury was a representation of the body of a serpent passing through a circle and thus forming a traditional alchemical symbol. The head and tail of the enormous snake were delineated by 50-foot wide avenues of standing stones, each extending 1 and 1/2 miles into the countryside. One of the avenues terminated at another stone ring known as the 'sanctuary'. Continuing his explorations and mapping of the countryside surrounding the stone serpent, Stukeley gathered evidence that the sacred complex of Avebury included many other massive earth and stone monuments.

Only 1500 meters south of the main Avebury rings stands Silbury Hill, the largest, and perhaps the most enigmatic, of all megalithic constructions in Europe. Crisscrossing the surrounding countryside are numerous meandering lines of standing stones and mysterious underground chambers, many positioned according to astronomical alignments. Perhaps the most astonishing revelations of Avebury's ancient grandeur have come through the recent research of John Michell, Paul Broadhurst and Hamish Miller. Drawing upon legends and folklore, archaeological excavations and dowsing, these specialists have determined that the Avebury temple was part of a vast network of neolithic sacred sites arranged along a nearly two-hundred mile line stretching all across southern England. Positioned directly on this line are the great pilgrimage sites of Glastonbury Tor and St.Michael's Mount. (For more information on this line and the sites along it, consult Hamish Miller's book, The Sun and the Serpent.)

The length of time for the main continuity of use of the Avebury complex throughout the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age was, according to present dating studies, around 2300 years. This lengthy span of time and the vast size of the whole complex give testimony to the fact that the Avebury temple was perhaps the most significant sacred site in all of Britain, if not the entire continent of Europe. And what of its use? Various conjectures have been made but it is premature to speak with any certainty. To fathom the mysteries of Avebury will take some years still. Only since the 1980's has there occurred the essential meeting of science and spirit, of archaeology and intuition that may unlock the secrets of this wondrous place.

Lessons shouted at you!

As this night is the perfect night to draw out some tarot cards or cast the runes, M and I decided to just do that.

Boy. (shakes head)

When the 'Verse decides to smack you in the head with a brick, it doesn't do it by half, does it?

I got such a telling off by the cards for not doing more, for being lax. The whole framework was there for me to see that with the new year looming large with changes afoot. (For both of us) My interest in things Pagan are to play a more important role, I am to pull up my socks and be more creative ... och, it was an eyeopening reading.

I must admit to not having done one in ages and ages and am always blown away by how much the cards tend to tell you, once you sit down and muck around with them for a bit.

Oh well - I am making a concerted effort in doing more things pagan/craft-wise. Who knows where that may lead? I have started this blog and I am re-reading loads of my books. Specifically forcing myself to do the Ronald Hutton books as they are jam-packed with information and invaluable in understanding where we come from.

I used the Faery Wicca Tarot deck (as pictured above) and admit freely to being quite a collector of decks - some I love for their images, others I love as they feel attuned to me. I use different decks at different times but as the FW deck went with me when we went to visit Tara in Ireland, I felt that it was a good deck to use for tonight's reading - it is beautifully crafted and relates strongly to celtic imagery and archetypes, very easy to follow through, if you have a bit of knowledge of Irish mythology. And it worked!

The lesson was put across. The student paid attention, now all the student needs to do is sit down and figure it out the next step to the whole to make it work, taking into consideration so many variables.

Always remember the Tarot cards are there for guidance, what they tell you is not set in stone.

Red Bracelet Spell

I realise that red string these days have got a reputation of belonging to the Kaballahists - people like Madonna (not sure who else) - but this spell is so much older than this new fad. And I am not speaking about the Kaballah either - which is ancient beyond ken - but about the red thread being a fashionable item!

It is a spell to bestow good fortune on a new born baby. This is dedicated to tincanman and his wife Jamie and their new baby girl.

Background:-

Cords and threads are important in magic, never more so than when they represent life and destiny. In this spell, a variation on a custom found in various parts of the world, they signify the future fortunes of a newborn nd are therefore to be treated with great respect. Anthropologists have noted the emphasis placed on cords n various rites of passage, in many cultures, and tying a lucky wristband on a newborn is a custom all over the world.

Traditions where a red thread is empoyed use the colour to signify power, health, and long life, and these themes are taken up in this charm, which has a distinctly Celtic flavour.

In Celtic beliefs, the goddess Brigid is the protector of all newborn creatures. In her triple aspect, she is healer, bringer of fire and inspiration to both poets and craftspeople. Here she is invoked to bless and empower with good fortune a braided red bracelet to give to a newborn.

You will need:

One charcoal disc in a fireproof dish
Matches/lighter
Three red candles (20 cm in length)
Three 45cm lengths of 15-thread tick red embroidery skein
One pencil
Three teasoons of frankinsence
Scissors
One eggcup of water
One pinch of salt

Timing - Work on a waxing moon to attract good fortune, and on a Sunday in honour of Brigid.

Casting the Spell

1. Cast the circle

2. Light the charcoal disk

3 Light three candles, after lighting each one, recite the following :
"Brigid, queen of healing wells" (candle 1)
"Bridgid, queen of balefires" (candle 2)
"Brigid, queen of makers" (candle 3)
"Hail and welcome" (still candle 3)

4. Tie the strands of the embroidery thread to a pencil and weave a braid, chanting the
following throughout:

May your days be long

May your shadow be great

May your heart be glad

Fasten, and cut when the braid is 10cm longer than the baby's wrist measurement.

5. Sprinkle incense on the charcoal.

Pass the braid through the smoke saying:

Air to speed your fortune

Pass it through the fire saying:

Fire to hasten your power

Sprinkle it with water saying:

Water to bring you love

Sprinkle it with salt saying:

Earth to send you health

And Brigid walk with you in your footsteps.

6. Tie the bracelet around the baby's wrist, then remove it, and place it under the crib mattress.

New Look

Dear All

It seems - out of the blue - that my bamboo website has disappeared. Maybe the chap who designed no longer is supporting it, or whatever, but I went looking at the site and there was nothing.

So, I opted for the swirly wrapper look from someone else's site.

I realise that it isn't particularly Crafty but I will let this be our face, for the meantime until I can get sumat that suits us all. I also realise that the swirls go into the words, but most of these are still readable. I am emailing the chap and asking him if he can somehow customise this one for me so that the words are swirl-free. Although, I must admit to quite liking it myself...

I will see what he sez back and let you know. In the meantime, do feel free to let me have links to add to the site. I will insert a few - the links weren't available on the bamboo website (well, they were, they just didn't work) and hopefully the archive links work on this one, whereas it didn't work previously with bamboo-site.

Welcome to our cool club!

The word has spread and I am pleased to welcome my hubby and good friend, Marcus, to the site.

He first wanted the option to do the research and write the articles and then hand them to me to blog, but I thought that was pretty darn unfair and so decided to invite him.

All Hail Gergaroth!

Wands and Wine

Much to my surprise, whilst paging through The Times during lunch at work yesterday this article caught my attention. I am not sure, from the tone of the article, if I had to be impressed or a bit embarrassed as it made those pagans in jail seem a bit...well, laughable. But, either way, I have decided to be impressed with it, in general.


Wands and wine for imprisoned pagans

By Richard Ford, Home Correspondent

PAGAN priests will be allowed to use wine and wands during ceremonies in jails under instructions issued to every prison governor.

Inmates practising paganism will be allowed a hoodless robe, incense and a piece of religious jewellery among their personal possessions. They will also be allowed to have Tarot cards but are forbidden from using them to tell the fortunes of other prisoners.

The guidance, issued by Michael Spurr, the director of operations of the Prison Service, makes it clear that Skyclad (naked pagan worship) will not be permitted. Prison staff have been told that pagan artefacts should be treated with respect.

The formal guidance on paganism in prison is contained in a 14-page annexe to a Prison Service order on religion in jails. It was issued last month to governors, chaplains and race relations officers. Under sections ranging from the use of wine, dress and hygiene to festivals, marriage and death, governors are given a complete guide to paganism, based on information supplied by the Pagan Federation.

It is the latest faith guidance sent to governors to deal with an increasingly diverse prison population in England and Wales. Previous documents have included guidance on Buddhism, Sikhism and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Governors are told that the main pagan festivals are at the time of a full moon, and seasonal celebrations such as the spring and autumn equinox, midsummer and Samhain, on October 31, the Celtic new year.

“Some Pagans like to celebrate Samhain with cider for the celebration of the apple harvest. In prison an apple can substitute for cider,” the guidance says.

Prisoners will be allowed to practice paganism in their cells, including prayer, chanting and the reading of religious texts and rituals. The wearing of ritual jewellery must be risk-assessed by prison officers before the inmate is allowed to place it around the neck.

The guidance adds: “Washing prior to ritual is considered very important in some traditions. Where possible, prisoners should be permitted to shower prior to group worship.”

In addition to a hoodless robe, prisoners can keep a flexible twig as a wand, a chalice and rune stones. The guidance makes clear that the hoodless robe can be used only during worship, and not by prisoners while on the wings.

The guidance highlights the part that wine plays in pagan rituals: “Some . . . will use water while other groups will use red wine. It is important that both variations be treated equally.”

But wine must be ordered through the prison chaplaincy, stored securely and used only under supervision. “Individual consumption will be one sip only. As part of the ceremony, the pagan chaplain may also anoint the prisoners with wine on the forehead,” the instruction says.

Prisoners will be permitted books of pagan writings, and the guidance specifies what staff should do in the event of a pagan marriage, to be performed by a pagan chaplain in addition to an office register ceremony, and a pagan death.

It is not known how many pagan prisoners are in jails in England and Wales.

Hats off to the Beeb

It has occurred to me that the bbc.co.uk website is really striving to keep up to date with all facets of life.

I went online and did a search on witchcraft, on the Beeb website and a plethora of goodies came up.

I copied the opening article here but visiting their website they have a tranche of further information on paganism etc. I must say well done to them for bridging the divide and being "with the times", giving space on their website to a growing culture within the UK and abroad. And they obviously have done their research too - if I am not mistaken Kate West has done her bit for this too - I think there might even be a link on the website somehwere where they do the Heaven and Earth Show on paganism/witchcraft. Go the Beeb!

*****

What is Wicca?

Today, the words Wicca and Witchcraft are generally used interchangeably to name the system of beliefs and practices that make up the spectrum of contemporary Witchcraft.
Wicca was used originally to distinguish the initiatory tradition of Witchcraft practised as a religion, but American popular television series have adopted the word Wicca to include what would once have been called natural magic or white witchcraft. When people in Britain describe themselves as Wiccan, though, they generally mean that they are practising religious Witchcraft. Media images often show Wiccans as teenage women, but it is practised by adults of all ages.

Origins of Wicca
Religious Witchcraft is not merely a system of magic, but is a Pagan mystery religion worshipping Goddess and God and venerating the Divine in nature. Its origins lie in pre-Christian religious traditions, folklore, folk witchcraft and ritual magic, but most Witches draw their inspiration from the ‘Book of Shadows’, a book of rituals and spells compiled by of one of Wicca’s major figures Gerald Brosseau Gardner (1884-1964).

Gerald Gardner claimed to have been initiated in 1939 into a coven of Witches who met in the New Forest in Hampshire and his two most well known books Witchcraft Today (1954) and The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959) produced a huge surge of interest, inspiring a movement that has spread around the world.

Gods
Wicca honours the Divine in the forms of the Triple Goddess, whose aspects of Virgin, Mother, and Wise Woman or Crone, are associated with the waxing, full and waning phases of the Moon, and as the Horned God.

The principal names by which the God is known are Cernunnos or Herne, both of which mean ‘Horned One’. The emphasis placed on Goddess and God differs between groups, traditions and localities, but most Wiccans believe that for wholeness the image of the Divine must be both female and male.

Structure
There are no central authorities in Wicca. Some Witches are solo Witches. Others belong to covens – groups of like-minded people who meet together to worship the Gods and to do magic. Some covens are part of initiatory traditions in which more experienced people act as teachers to newcomers. Others are formed by groups of friends who want to meet and learn together. The classic number of people in a coven is thirteen, but many covens are smaller. Some are mixed sex groups; others cater for Witches who prefer single sex covens.

Rites and celebrations
The major festivals of Wicca are known as sabbats. These are held eight times throughout the year and mark changes in the seasons. The festivals are Winter Solstice or Yule on December 20/21, the shortest day, Summer Solstice or Midsummer on June 21/22, the longest day, and the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes (March 20/21 and September 20/21) when the hours of darkness and light are equal. The other four festivals are Imbolc, February 1/2; Beltane or May Eve on April 30/May 1; Lughnasadh also known by its Anglo-Saxon name of Lammas or Loaf Mass, August 1/2, and Samhain, also known as All Hallow's Eve, October 31 /November 1. Witches also honour their deities at monthly rites known as ‘esbats’, which are held on the full Moon, when the mind is thought to be more magically powerful.

Sabbats begin at sunset and end at sunset the next day and most rites are held at night, lit evocatively by candles if indoors or by the moon, bonfires and lanterns if outside. For indoor rituals, some Witches have rooms set aside as temples in their houses, which they use for rites. Others use their ordinary living space. Rites take place in a consecrated space, the circle, and even if there is a temple, the circle space is created anew for each rite The space is first swept with a broomstick or besom to purify it and then blessed with the four elements – air, fire, water and earth. The circle is then symbolically sealed by drawing a circle around it in the air with a wooden wand or a black-handled knife known as an ‘athame’. The four directions – east, south, west and north – are then honoured . Within the sacred space, the Goddess and God are invoked and magic performed. Rituals usually end with blessing a chalice of wine and cakes that are shared among the participants.

Magic and ethics
Like many Pagan religions, Wicca practices magic. Witches believe that the human mind has the power to effect change in ways that are not yet understood by science. In their rituals, as well as honouring their deities, Witches also perform spells for healing and to help people with general life problems. Magic is practised according to an ethical code that teaches that magic may only be performed to help people when it does not harm others. Witches believe that the energies that we create influence what happens to us: negative magic rebounds on the perpetuator but magnified. This process is often known as ‘Threefold Law’. Other important ethical teachings are that people should strive to live in harmony with others and with themselves, and with the planet as a whole. Environmental issues are important to Wiccans.

After death
Wicca teaches reincarnation. After death, the spirit is reborn and will meet again those with whom it had close personal ties in previous lives. The aim of reincarnation is not to escape life on Earth, but to enjoy experiencing it again and again until everything that can be learned has been absorbed. When the spirit ceases to reincarnate, it remains in a blissful realm known as ‘The Land of Youth’ or the ‘Summerland’.

Wicca and other contemporary Pagan spiritualities
Wiccan ideas and rites have been taken up by the Goddess spirituality movement. They appeal to women who have rejected male-dominated religions and who prefer to venerate the Divine in female form as Goddess, seeing this as important and empowering for women. There are many similarities between Wicca and Druidry. Both emphasize the importance of developing close links with Nature and their rites frequently take place out of doors. Both also stress the importance of guardianship of the Earth and environmentalism. Some distinctions are that Druidry is more purely Celtic than Wicca, there is less emphasis on magic in Druidry, and Druidry more actively encourages the development of music and poetry as paths to spiritual growth.

Herbalism - Medical and Magical

I freely admit that this is not my own work - I have naught idea where I found this article - it was either online or I copied it down from a magazine or one of my many books, at some stage, way back when, for my own use and as a handy reference guide, but having re-read it, I am sure that whoever drew this up wouldn't mind seeing it posted somewhere else - especially if I am not laying claim to it, but spreading the word!

Please remember that all herb-use should be double checked with your doctor - especially if you have a medical condition or if you are pregnant.

Be responsible in your applications!

The uses of herbs are many and diverse, and are steeped in centuries of folklore. Despite this, in the 21st century even orthodox practitioners of medicine are accepting their value and healing properties. Medically, decoctions can be made of the leaves or roots and taken when normal medicines are not desired or have failed to work. Magically, rituals can be enacted using the appropriate herbs - perhaps by rolling an oiled candle in them or by making a pouch to be kept in a secret place. There are too many herbs to feature within the scope of this article, but many useful ones are listed below, with their uses.

BASIL Medical - To relieve tiredness. Apply to stings and bites. Magical - Exorcism, happiness, peace, protection, purification, cleansing. Ruled by Mars.

BAY Medical - Ailments of liver and spleen, stings and bites (berries), menstrual problems, colds, coughs and flu, excess wind, urinary problems, ear pain, bruises. Magical - Purification, protection, healing, psychic powers, energy, strength, meditation. Ruled by the Sun.

BETONY Medical - liver disease, digestive problems, stomach ache, vomiting, headaches, colds, shortness of breath, excess wind, menstrual problems, kidney and gall stones, bruises. Magical - Exorcism, depression, banishing nightmares, purification, protection. Ruled by Jupiter.

BIRCH Medical - Mix leaf juices or sap with water for kidney and gall stones, and to wash sore mouths. Magical - Love, protection, new beginnings. Ruled by Venus.

BLACKTHORN (SLOE) Medical - Infusion of leaves for laxative, styptic, astringent, asthma, nosebleed. Magical - Cursing.

BURDOCK Medical - Women's problems, ulcers, sores, snake bites, bladder problems, sciatica, burns, diarrhoea, kidney and gall stones. Magical - Ruled by Venus.

CEDAR Magical - Money, protection, healing, purification, banishing, justice, peace, spirituality. Ruled by the Sun.

CHAMOMILE Medical - All pains, stitches, liver, spleen, tiredness, kidney and gall stones, colic, bladder problems, colds, menstrual problems, headaches, stomach ache, joint pain. Magical - Luck, justice, sleep, money. Ruled by the Sun.

CINNAMON Medical - Astringent, wind, gland stimulant, antacid, helps stomach upsets and diarrhoea, colds, sore throats, general tonic, sedative. Magical - Money, healing, psychic powers, energy, strength, justice, protection, strengthening love. Ruled by the Sun.

CINQUEFOIL Medical - Infection, fever, sore mouth, ulcers, cancer, open sores, fainting, toothache, coughs, shaking hands, shingles, itching, sciatica, bowel pain, bruises, bleeding wounds. Magical - Anointing, energy, power, strength, luck, justice, healing, inspiration, love. Ruled by Jupiter.

CLARY SAGE Medical - Menstrual problems, hormonal problems, PMT, broken bones, depression, aphrodisiac. Magical - Ruled by the Moon.

CLOVE Medical - Insect repellent, painkiller, especially for toothache. Magical - Exorcism, purification, love, money, protection. Ruled by Jupiter.

COMFREY Medical - Healing of cuts, rashes and broken bones, cystitis, bruises, lung problems, menstrual problems, mastitis, piles, painful joints. Magical - Protection while travelling. Ruled by Saturn.

DANDELION Medical - Diuretic, cystitis, menstrual problems, sedative, liver, gall bladder, spleen, fevers, bathing sores. Magical - Ruled by Jupiter.

ELDER/ELDERFLOWER Medical - Colds, sore throats, menstrual problems, styes, ear pain, diuretic, sunburn, headache, leg ulcers, nervousness, burns, snake bites. Magical - Blessing, Cursing, Exorcism. Ruled by Venus.

EYEBRIGHT Medical - All eye problems, weak memory. Magical - Clairvoyance. Ruled by the Sun.

FERN Medical - Kills worms, eases stomach problems, ulcers, wounds. Fern smoke drives away insects. Magical - Exorcism (indoors), to bring rain (outdoors), good luck, protection. Ruled by Mercury.

FEVERFEW Medical - Womb problems, coughs, colds, bladder problems, kidney and gall stones, depression, shortness of breath, colic. Magical - Protection when travelling. Ruled by Venus.

GALANGAL Magical - Money, prosperity. Ruled by Mars.

GERANIUM Medical - Depression, pregnancy, broken bones. Magical - Fertility, health, love, protection. Ruled by Venus

IVY Medical - Kills worms. Menstrual problems, kidney and gall stones, diuretic, stomach ache, headache, ulcers, burns, ear sores, spleen, hangovers. Magical - Protection. Ruled by Saturn.

JUNIPER BERRIES Medical - Broken bones, bites and stings, diuretic, wind, stomach problems, coughs, cramps, weak memory, weak sight, sciatica, kills worms, restores lost appetite. Magical - Protection against thieves, protection against rape, exorcism, love, scrying, healing. Ruled by the Sun.

LADIES' MANTLE Medical - Menstrual problems, PMT, to stop bleeding, vomiting, fertility, averts miscarriage, all wounds. Magical - Ruled by Venus.

LAVENDER Medical - Menstrual problems, hormonal problems, headaches, strokes, cramps, faints, stomach problems, diuretic, wind, toothache, sunburn. Magical - Protection against rape, scrying, anointing, exorcism, to see ghosts, cleansing, love. Ruled by Mercury.

LEMON Medical - To relieve tiredness, grinding of teeth. Magical - Psychic powers. Ruled by the Moon.

LILY OF THE VALLEY Medical - Weak memory, sore eyes, palsy, stroke. Magical - Anointing, happiness, peace, healing, love, knowledge, protection. Ruled by Mercury.

LOOSESTRIFE Medical - Sight problems, sore eyes, sores, ulcers, spots and scabs, sore throat. Magical - Harmony, the home, peace. Ruled by the Moon.

LUNGWORT Medical - Lung or chest problems, coughs, pneumonia, venereal diseases. Magical - Ruled by Jupiter.

MARIGOLD Medical - General tonic, chicken pox, measles. Magical - Clairvoyance, divination, love. Ruled by the Sun.

MARJORAM Medical - Headaches, acid stomach, restores appetite, coughs, lung problems, expels poison, bites and stings, diuretic, menstrual problems, itching, tinnitus, earache. Magical - Love, protection, purification, cleansing. Ruled by Mercury.

MELISSA (LEMON BALM) Medical - General Tonic. Relaxation, insomnia, fever, vomiting. Magical - Ruled by Jupiter.

MINT Medical - Colds, sore throats, bleeding, aphrodisiac, vomiting, mastitis, earache, lessens menstruation, headache, sores and scabs, digestion, kidney and gall stones, sore mouth, bad breath, wind, bites and stings. Magical - Money, love, luck, justice, cleansing, healing. Ruled by Venus.

MISTLETOE Medical - Spleen, ulcers, sores, fainting, strokes, earache. Magical - Love, protection. Ruled by the Sun.

MOONWORT Medical - Menstrual problems, bleeding, vomiting, bruises, broken bones. Magical - Clairvoyance, divination, love. Ruled by the Moon.

MUGWORT Medical - Menstrual problems, kidney and gall stones, diuretic, neck pain, sciatica, cramps. Magical - Crystal scrying, clairvoyance, divination, banishing, releasing, protection, psychic centres (opening). Ruled by Venus.

MULLEIN Medical - stomach problems, cramps, coughs, toothache, piles, diuretic, warts, sore throats, boils, joint inflammation. Magical - Determination, courage, exorcism, protection. Ruled by Saturn.

NUTMEG Medical - Wind, vomiting, digestion, diarrhoea. Magical - Scrying, luck, the home, gambling, justice, psychic centres (opening).

OAK Medical - Bleeding, diarrhoea, vomiting, diuretic, antidote to poison, inflammation, fever, lessens menstruation. Magical - Energy, fertility, divination, power, strength, protection, purification. Ruled by Jupiter.

PASSION FLOWER Magical - (Leaves and flowers). Love, scrying. Ruled by Venus.

ROSEMARY Medical - Depression, broken bones, colds, headaches, stomach problems, liver, conjunctivitis, drowsiness, nervousness, fainting, hangover, gum and toothache, bad breath, wind, sight problems, heart problems, coughs, joint problems, grief, skin problems. Magical - Can be used as a substitute for any other herb. Healing, insomnia, to restore youth, exorcism, love, intellectual powers, purification, protection. Ruled by the Sun.

SAGE Medical - Liver disease, diuretic, menstrual problems, bleeding, ulcers, sores, infertility, vomiting, headaches, joint pain. Magical - Spirituality, healing, prosperity. Ruled by Jupiter.

SELF-HEAL Medical - Broken bones, ulcers, bruises, inflammation, bleeding, headaches. Magical - Ruled by Venus.

ST. JOHN'S WORT Medical - Depression, wounds, bruises, swellings, vomiting, bites and stings, stomach problems, fits, sciatica, fainting. Magical - Invincibility, banishing, exorcism. Ruled by the Sun.

SWEET BASIL Medical - General tonic, bites and stings, childbirth. Magical - Love, healing, prophecy, purification, scrying, peace. Ruled by Venus.

THYME Medical - Whooping cough, shortness of breath, kills worms, childbirth, warts, sciatica, wind, stomach problems. Magical - Healing, purification, cleansing, banishing nightmares, grief. Ruled by Venus.

VALERIAN Medical - Diuretic, menstrual problems, poison antidote, coughs, bites and stings, wind, sight problems, sores and wounds. Magical - Love, sleep. Ruled by Mercury.

VERVAIN Medical - Womb problems, kills worms, stomach problems, coughs, kidney and gall stones, mouth ulcers, piles, headaches, skin problems. Magical - Love, lust, purification, wealth, warding off psychic attack. Ruled by Venus.

WHITE WILLOW BARK Medical - Nose bleeds, mouth wounds, vomiting, lung problems, colic, sore eyes, sight problems, diuretic, spots, warts, dandruff, fever. Magical - The home, wishes. Ruled by the Moon.

WORMWOOD Medical - Diuretic, swellings, jaundice, bruises, sore throat, eye problems, bites and stings, itching, colic, kills worms. Magical - Binding, clairvoyance, divination, exorcism, love, protection, prophecy. Ruled by Mars.

YARROW Medical - Colds and flu, sore throats, women's problems, wounds, ulcers, baldness, stomach problems, incontinence, toothache, cramps. Magical - Banishing, releasing, clairvoyance, divination, exorcism, love, marriage, protection. Ruled by Venus.

Dartmoor

I have harped on about Wistmans Woods previously on this site, as well as my other site. This is a picture (or two, if blogger allows me to update more than one) of what this magical place looks like in Winter. The copse of trees, seen from afar, doesn't look like anything much. Yet, the closer you get, the larger they become, the more ominous and hoary. People react differently to the actual place - some hate it on sight and refuse to enter the woods, clambering over huge rocks and convoluted roots. Some love it. Some come here to pray and do small rituals. The day we went we found quite a few offerings of late winter flowers, colourful ribbons and a small candle which had been used.

There are many legends about Dartmoor and about Wistmans Woods. Friend John has this article which he had written on these woods and the Wish Hounds on his website.

Dartmoor has been inhabited for the past four thousand years, so it can lay claim to the most interesting folklore, legends and myths. One of my favourite websites - www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk - has made light work of these and put them down for the public to view. Do go visit and read up more. And if you ever have the chance to go and visit this beautiful and magical piece of UK Countryside, do so, without hesitation.

Kits Coty, Kent

We visited Kits Coty on the recommendation of a friend I had made on the old CoA website, called Oriondruid. He tends this site and many others, when he can. We visited on a beautiful warm clear Sunday. We didn't know much about the site, or what to expect. Needless to say the path leading up to the site really set the scene for the encounter.

Some call it simply Kit's Coty, because 'coty' means the same as 'house'. The story explaining the name tells us that Kit is Catigern, who, together with his brother Vortimer fought Hengist and his brother Horsa here around 455. Both Horsa and he were killed. We don't know who won, but Catigern was supposedly buried here. Indeed, this site is just a few miles north of Aylesford, which is usually identified with the Episford of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. That a battle once raged here may be supported by another reference to this place as the battle of 'Cit Coit'. This battle is also a legendary Celtic battle ('Battle of the Woods'), but not connected with any specific site. A possibility therefore remains that both are the same thing, as 'Cit' (or 'Kit') is in fact the same as 'Cat', the Celtic word for 'battle', which is of course the first part of Catigern's name. We could imagine a stand-off between two bloodied armies on either side of the river, the ford having been the contested object.

I have found an interesting link about the site here

Jack in the Green - Hastings

We were fortunate enough to visit the Jack in the Green festival which had been held last year in Hastings. These are some pictures we took on the day. I felt especially moved by this parade of Jacks, their attendants, pucks and morris dancers. Eventhough most of them, no doubt, did it for fun, the mere fact that something so very ancient (in my mind, at least) still existed and took place for all the public to join in on, really blew me away. We had a brilliant time and everyone got "greened" on the day. It is a pity that for some reason this year - 2005 - it had not been held.

Shamnism in the Altai Mountains

Altai Mountains - Siberia


I was doing a search on the Ice Maiden of Siberia and this article from The Times popped up and I felt compelled to post it here. It amazes me completely how attitudes towards Shamanism, Witchcraft and Wicca is on the change, even in such places as Russia. Admittedly, it is a slow change but the sheer fact that there are young people with the talent for shamanism being trained in tiny Siberian villages by existing Shamans who had survived the purges inflicted on them during the troubled times, not so long ago, is amazing. It gives us hope.

In an idyllic Siberian valley, seated on a low stool in a wooden yurt, the old witch doctor donned a fox-fur hat and a scarlet velvet robe and began to chant in her ancient language.
First she summoned the spirits of the surrounding mountains, lakes and gorges. Then she mixed milk, flour and butter and scooped it on to the small roaring fire built from faggots of juniper.

"I can cure trauma, paralysis, eczema, toothache and a host of other maladies," she said. "People come to me from far around. Even the doctors from this area come here to be cured."

In this remote region of southern Siberia, near the borders of China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, Tamara Klesheva, 59, is a practitioner of the ancient art of shamanism.

After decades of suppression when these traditional healers were almost wiped out, they are enjoying a renaissance not seen since the Russian colonists arrived nearly 400 years ago. Fuelled by a new spirit in Russia since the fall of communism, dozens of would-be shamans are being trained in tiny Siberian communities.

Tamara said: "Young people with special powers come to me and I tell them how to study. Our numbers are growing again. The knowledge and experience are spreading. We're not oppressed any more."

As the word of their powers spreads, thousands flock to their fires for cures they say modern medicine cannot bring. Tamara receives up to 50 patients a day, some with aches and pains, others with life-threatening wounds.

Rooted in the mists of time, shamanism is an ancient belief that disease and illness can be cured through communing between the real and spiritual world by means of a series of rituals and meditation.

Under the Soviet Union, this and other beliefs deemed unorthodox or superstitious were banned. In the early years of communism, dozens of shamans were shot. Later they were imprisoned. Now the state has abandoned its opposition and the Siberian peoples are seeking out the ways of their forefathers.

Tamara practises in a yurt in the village of Kyrlyk. The tools of her trade are sprigs of herbs and urns of wheat mash, cheese, bread and butter. "I was a girl when I realised I had special powers," she said. "I consulted an older shaman and we discovered I had inherited them from a relative on my mother's side seven generations back."

The setting could hardly be more conducive to Tamara's pursuit. More than 2,500 miles east of Moscow and 700 miles from the nearest airport, it is a scarcely inhabited paradise of rolling hills, jagged mountains and fast-flowing rivers. In the forests, wolves, deer, bear and snow leopards roam.

"I work every month," Tamara said, "from the new moon until the full moon. But then I rest and gather my materials. I know that sometimes an operation is the best cure for a person. But there is much that modern medicine doesn't cover. There are things only I can cure."

A neighbour, Pyotr, a horse-herder, said: "She's an extraordinary woman. It's impossible not to believe in her. When I was in hospital with broken ribs, she visited me three times. On the third day the pain just evaporated."

Even the hard-bitten, vodka-swigging descendants of Russian colonists are drawn by the shamans' reputation as faith healers.

"I believe absolutely in her powers," said Alexander Zatayev, the Russian director of the Katun National Park.

"Not only the Altai people believe in the shamans, but we Russians too. They are close to nature and happy with what God has given them. That's more than can be said for other religions."

Growing up in Dublin on Halloween

I was visiting the Llewelyn Publishers website and found this journal entry and had to grin and giggle as it brought home how loved this holiday was and still is:-

*****

Hallowe'en Growing up in Dublin - Jennifer Meier (the link is through to the actual article)

What comes into your mind when you think of Samhain? No matter what pictures or memories you have, I can imagine none are quite like mine. Maybe I'm being naive, maybe Hallowe'en is the same around the world, or at least everywhere, where hoards of Irish emigrated. Here in Switzerland it's not like back home, it doesn't actually really exist, nobody takes much notice, except the Irish pubs scattered around the country ( but they're only using it as a commercial scam!), even my "family" of hallowed out pumpkins get rather strange looks.

Hallowe'en is one of those times of the year when I get homesick, when I yearn for those images etched into my mind, the memories of my childhood and my life before I went abroad. Back home Hallowe'en hasn't changed much over the past few hundreds of years, and the church never managed to stamp it out, it's still as magical as ever, and as popular as it was during the times of the Druids, and I miss it like hell. I don't arrange dozens of bowls of goodies on my dining room table, because nobody calls dressed up as a ghoul, so I only have a small feast for me and my children. I dress up an old wooden fork (that thing must be at least a hundred years old), normally in orange and black ribbons with dried corncobs and sunflowers tied to the prongs. At the foot of this, I place a few little pumpkins and sawdust. And all my window sills are decorated with similar items. I'm the only house ever decorated but I don't care.

I grew up in Dublin city, I'm a native Irish and the blood in my veins is green, I'm probably not your typical picture of an Irish cailín, a little too delicately built, but the temperament is there and the freckles. I went to France some years ago and met my husband there, and as he is Swiss, I then came to Switzerland. It's a beautiful country here, the people are a little strange, so serious and strict, but it's a country full of history and ghastly stories, but still it's not Dublin, I'm not saying I hate it here, I don't really, I just get home sick every now and then.

Growing up, Hallowe'en was one of the most favourite holidays among most of the children (and adults), it was eagerly awaited for many reasons. In Ireland there are two weeks holidays especially for the festival, or was it one? Anyhow, it's hard to pinpoint where the preparations began, for the under 15 years of age in anyway, the adults could actually do it all in the week before Hallowe'en, or so they said.

In the housing estate where I lived, the houses were built in squares, making a quadratic area for the children to play, and the children of one square rarely played with the children of another square, altogether, in our estate were about six of these squares. In our square, we started collecting wood for the bonfire around the end of July, or the beginning of August. Every square had it's own bonfire, so wood was a cause for fighting. Every tiny scrap of any flammable material was collected and stored away in a secret place, ours was under the basement of the "flats." The flats were cheap apartment blocks with unused basements, where only the rats dared to go, and us of course, making it the safest place for our treasure. Evenings where spent walking around the housing estates, even the ones further away, risking fights with rival gangs, to find wood for our bonfire. It was really well organised by the older children and teenagers, they sent out "squads," and told them were to look. So from August until the end of October, the city was filled with little squads of children walking around, trying their best to look innocent, and searching for wood in the area they were told to check out.

Our Fire had to be bigger than all the rest, especially than the "Kalls." They were on the field next to us and every year it was a big thing to see which gang had the biggest fire. It was like being patriotic: generations of "Squares" had competed against one another to be the pride of the estate, the square with the biggest bonfire. The Kalls had one advantage over us--"Caesar." He was a bull with no front teeth, the stories of how he lost his teeth were famous, the one that stuck in my head was something about him biting his owner, and his owner who was on crutches at that time, hit him in the mouth with a crutch. I never found out if was true, most probably not, most probably they were removed to avoid him ever biting a child and being put down. But anyway, they were the biggest threat to our bonfire, The Kalls.

After months of collecting firewood, the day finally comes, we're all on holidays and everyone got up early and waited at the kitchen window for the first of the older boys to come out. We started at about ten o' clock in the morning bringing the wood out of our hiding places and arranging it in the middle of the square, we looked in awe as it lay there in all it's glory, the result of many months worry and struggle, even the small children had been collecting and gleefully placed their little bundles at the side of the pile, the older children where always so proud of the little ones. Some of the wood had always been found by others and stolen, and the risk of last minute raids were fairly high, so older boys escorted the girls to secret places to obtain the hidden treasure, and many more prowled around making sure nobody was spying on us, this was a great moment and no-one was going to ruin it. I remember one year we had a particularly bad time with the Kalls, they had stolen a lot of our wood, we looked upon the smaller than usual pile in the square, some of us ready to cry, some of us just plain angry,and all of us disappointed. They had raided one of our hideouts just a few nights before, and some of the boys still had bruised eyes.

At about three o' clock in the afternoon, after we had finished piling the wood, my dad came out of his garage grinning like a Cheshire cat. He made a comment on how small the bonfire would be and laughed as the boys went into a frenzy recalling the struggle only nights before, of course exaggerating about how many Kalls had actually participated in the raid, and then they fell quiet, because just then we caught site of something behind my dad on the ground...
My dear dad who kept every tiny scrap of wood ever to fall into his hands, all neatly stored on top of the rafters in his almost house like garage (which he had built himself mind you!), had felt sorry for us and decided to donate us some of his precious wood. We could have cried for joy, we had eyed this lot up for years and never got so much as a match stick, and now we were being handed it for the best use ever imagined for wood--our Hallowe'en Bonfire. I was so proud in that moment, I nearly cried I was so proud, that was my Dad who had saved us the humility of a less than the size of a garden shed bonfire. I couldn't wait to see the look on the faces of those Kalls, to see all their jaws drop, because they were expecting an easy victory, and weren't going to get it.

It was late before we had finished hauling sheets of chipboard and timber from my dad's garage, and some of the boys had already started bringing wood up to our traditional fire place, some of the boys stayed chatting to my dad, thanking him over and over, until he finally reminded them of the time, time to get the fire ready. Every year it was placed in the exact same place, and throughout the whole year the five meter in diameter charred circle was to be seen. Carefully the wood would be piled up, only experienced children where allowed to help, and now there were parents around to supervise and also to make sure no thieves would pop up anywhere. Standing around the site like soldiers, they too were proud of this moment, it was, after all, their children who had spent months making sure this would be possible.

At last it was ready, the smaller children were already dressed up and doing their rounds under the escort of older siblings. Darkness was nearing and one of the fathers stood ready with a can of petrol. I normally had to go home around now for dinner, as with a lot of the kids, but about ten people stood watch over the fire. And funny enough, I guess it was always at this time the mascot was placed at the top of the fire, I never actually witnessed this, and I always wondered how they got it up there! Every year without fail, a large stuffed animal was found somewhere and was adopted as mascot, it was never a really important thing, but where else were we to put a great big stuffed animal? So each year it landed on the peek.

For dinner we always got Witches dinner, also called Call-cannon or curly kail, I loved it, it was made of mashed potato with chopped raw onions and kail (frizzy or curly cabbage), there were always coins hidden in it, and we shovelled it down in the hope of finding them. Then my mother arranged the large bowls of fruit and sweets and Bairm Breac on the table, these were for the children who knocked on the door dressed up, and my mam loved the kids, she would ask them all silly questions, and she was always very generous with what she gave, she then reminded them that Mrs. Broe had made little bags of goodies so they better hurry before they're all gone. The idea was that the kids frightened whoever opened the door, but I loved Hallowe'en and always got in the mood of the evening, normally this meant keeping watch out the window so I could frighten whoever knocked, one favourite was opening the door so they couldn't see me while they were still coming down the path, I would then jump out dressed up as some horrific being, but they loved it! The Breac was a traditional cake with a ring hidden in it, this ring was also the only reason why a child would ever touch this fruit loaf served with a thick coat of butter, and although back then I also only ate until the ring was found, I now years on, bake tons of these cakes at Hallowe'en, I eat most myself, but a few are given to close friends, I guess this is one of those foods that grow on you over the years.

It's dark now and the smaller children will be going to bed soon, as I make my way back up to the fire amid the scurry of tiny ghouls and witches, a wonderful feeling always comes over me at this time, after months of hard work the time had come to set it all ablaze. This great ceremony was always done by a parent, and I guess he or she was always honoured to do it (no need to say this was also the start of many an argument). Petrol was poured over the wood and slowly a single match was held up to it, the crowd gave great cheers, bottles of beer popped and the odd illegal banger went off, and now for most started the fun part.

After the smaller children went home, and most mothers, - yea someone has to open the door to all those ghouls!- the older children gathered around to listen to some teenager tell tales of ghostly encounters, I must admit, I've also told the odd tale on this night! Stories were told and bravery was tried, it was said, and still is, that whoever walks counter clockwise around the bonfire six times, would see the devil. I never tried it myself, I didn't fancy seeing old Nick himself, then again I can't remember anybody trying it, although the odd boy boasted that he did it the year before and had told the devil he was a stupid looking so and so.. but if taunted to prove he wasn't scared...

If you walked around the Dublin suburbs now, you could see thousands of fires, big as houses, literally. I only ever once drove around Dublin on this night, with a friend of mine, he was seventeen, so was I. But I can still see it clearly, it was beautiful, the whole city was ablaze, hundreds and thousands of ghastly figures, walked the street, some playing pranks on friends, and others on their way to a fancy dress ball. All who were wearing a costume got into every disco free of charge tonight, and all who were not wearing a costume were not looked upon with a friendly manner, and the best costume always got a prize. And we drove around silently, watching the best loved celtic holiday in all it's glory.

It's summer now, every year I think about going home for Hallowe'en, but every year I end up staying in Switzerland, baking tons of Breac, and cooking Witches dinner. Pity really, it's always because of some little thing that pops up out of nowhere, like a last minute business trip for my husband. Well at least I'll be spending it with other witches, even if our fire is not big as a house, and even if it's the only one in the whole country at the time, my memories still make it a special night for me, and it comforts me to know that not too far away, at this very moment, thousands of fires, big as houses, are burning brightly, in a country where you don't have to be pagan to take part in this wonderful festival, and I will be there in my mind, beside the fire, throwing nuts into it, nuts that Mrs. O'Brien had, as always, given me, listening to the stories and singing with friends. And one of these days I'll tell my husbands boss to "Sod off, we're going to Dublin next week, so my hubby can't pop down to Geneva, mate!"