In the next series of articles, I will be focusing on the subject of lesser known tools of the craft. I’ll even talk about items that potentially could have been used based from folklore and record account.
PART 1: The Moon Rake, Scourge, and Bull-roarer
The (Moon) Rake
I’ve spoken about this tool briefly before, but I feel it deserves a bit more attention. I’ll also include regular rakes as well, since they were also used in folklore.
A moon rake is described as a 6 foot wooden pole with a large horse shoe attached to the end. Described in two different rites, it is used to coax items into the light of the full moon, as it is being reflected upon a large body of water (such as a lake or pond). It is also described as being used to gather the power of the moon, which is done by raking the reflection in the water.
Both normal looking rakes and the one described above were used in water magic, specifically relating around the moon.
Then his mother went in quest of him; she questioned the trees, she questioned the pathway, she questioned the golden moon in the sky. But the trees, the pathway, the golden moon in the sky, all had their own troubles, and they would take no trouble for any woman’s son. She questioned the sun in the heavens, and the sun told her that her son was in Tuonela’s River.
Then to the smith Ilmarinen went Lemminkainen’s mother. For her Ilmarinen fashioned a rake, a rake with a copper handle and with teeth of steel–a hundred fathoms was the length of the teeth, five hundred fathoms was the length of the handle. To Tuonela’s River she went: there she chanted a Magic Song.
She prayed the sun to shine with such strength that the watchers in Manala would sleep and that the powers of Tuonela would be worn out. And the sun stooped upon a crooked birch-tree and shone in his strength so that the watchers of Manala were worn out–the young men slept upon their sword-hilts; the old men slept resting upon their staffs; the middle-aged men, the spearmen, slept resting upon the hafts of their spears. Then Lemminkainen’s mother took her rake; she raked the river against the current; once she raked it, and she raked it again. The third time she raked the river she brought up the hat and stockings of her son Lemminkainen. She went into the river, and she waded in its deepest water. She drew up the body with her rake of iron.
The rake tended to be used for healing based rites. As described by Cecil Williamson and Gemma Gary, it was used to to push a copper bowl of urine into the water, so that the light of the full moon could purify it.
Though, it could also potentially be a tool used to raise the dead and call upon spirits by the power of water and the moon. The tale above depicts a mother going out on the night of the full moon and using a rake to gather up her dead son from the river.
The same could potentially be done in rights of necromancy and raising the spirits from the waters, essentially dragging them from the underworld across the river Styx.
It could also be used to drag the waters of the moon’s reflection for such rituals as “Drawing down the moon” or various purification rites.
The materials that make the rakes vary. Specifically, the Moon rake was made with an iron horseshoe, though other rakes could be made of various materials like copper, steel, wood, and even bronze. The specific materials being dependent upon what the rake is being used for.
The Scourge
A Scourge is a whip like item multi-thong whip. It is best known for its use in Gardnerian Wicca, though it also has uses in various other neopagan religions and witchcraft practices.
It has a number of different uses. In the Gardnerian 2nd degree initiation, it is quoted as such…
Priestess or Magus: “To attain to this sublime Degree it is necessary to suffer and be purified. Art willing to suffer to learn?”
Initiate: “I am.”
Priestess or Magus: “I purify thee to take this great oath rightly”.
Strike three strokes upon the bell. Scourge 3, 7, 9, 21. “I now give thee a new name: …” [kiss]
Like above, it is used in rites of purification stating to “purify the soul.” Besides this, it is used in a number of other uses. It can be used to raise up spirits from the land, cleanse the ground for ritual work, be used like an aspergillum, chase spirits out from a possessed item/creature/person, raise the fetch, and so on.
A scourge can be made from a number of different things, though usually has the whip’s thongs be made of leather and the holder made of wood. It can also be made of horse hair. Below is an example of such use in Gemma Gary’s “The Devil’s Dozen”.
From reading folklore, the scourge could even be used to whip a person’s soul out for spirit flight. In “The Witches’ Reel”, the whips the one lagging behind. The scourge could easily be used in a similar way to assist with spirit flight during the Witches’ Sabbat.
Bull-Roarer
A rather simple item. A bull-roarer is an oval or rectangular shaped piece of wood tied to a long cord. It is twirled around to make a sound. As it is twirled, it vibrates and makes a uniquely roaring type sound.
Bull-roarers come in a variety of shapes a, sizes, and colors.
Compared to the other tools, it has been around a lot longer. Some are dated back to 17,000 BC.
Today, it is used in rituals for calling up spirits. It could also potentially be used to magically charge a space or to place spirit wards upon ritual areas (in order to keep them hidden).
hi! i’m willow, a death witch who’s been practicing magic for about as long as i can remember, with active participation for ten years and the claiming of the name witch for three-ish years. i can never remember dates accurately, but suffice to say magic has been imbued in my life since day one.
i wanted to give y’all an introduction to what i practice as a folk witch/christian descendant. i’m not claiming to be a christian witch or christopagan, but i’m trying to illustrate the folk christianity my family handed down to me.
in particular, i received this tradition from both sides of grandparents. my paternal grandfather came from the hills of west virginia, while my maternal grandparents came from ohio, and all of their families were deep in appalachia. my grandfather was more of a loose christian, while my maternal grandparents were heavily spiritual and involved in their own syncretic magic (although they’d never call it that.)
what is syncretic folk religion?
syncreticism refers to the blending of multiple practices. my grandmother (who i’ll be talking about most) was catholic in name, but believed in spirits, ghosts, spooks, and magic. think of your family superstitions – that’s your own form of magic, in my experience.
folk religion refers to the practices of small groups which form their own culture and religion in the name of other religions. my grandmother may have been called a christian, but she had to live in harmony with the desperation of urban poverty in the great depression as a child, and had to make her own way through the world without the help of anyone else. her religion naturally grew from that. she was not adherent to any form of christianity but her own.
why are you not a christian?
simply, i don’t follow christianity – i follow a folk version of christianity. i can go further in depth about my relationship to Christ and the other christian figures, but suffice to say for now i am not a christian.
what do you do as part of this practice?
a lot of what i consider to be magic in this tradition is the practice of life. for example, have you ever spit on a broom that hit you? that’s supposed to protect you from going to prison. have you twisted an apple stem until it broke, telling you who you’ll marry some day? have you taken food to your neighbors when they’re in need, fed your loved ones after loss, or visited graves and tended to the ones that aren’t connected to you by family but lived and died in the same place? these are all folk superstitions and practices that have survived from my converted ancestors.
here is a list of ways my catholic/christian ancestors have steeped me in magic:
superstition. appalachian folk magic has a lot of superstitions, like beating a rock with a wet rag to bring rain or the aforementioned spitting on the broom.
guidance. my family has always turned to spirits, and in some cases angels, for help.
folk healing. this is a big part of why i am studying herbalism – from tobacco on bee stings to whiskey for toothaches, doctors were too expensive so we found our own remedies, and i am reclaiming that knowledge.
bible inspired magic. from ezekiel 16:5 healing wounds to the lord’s prayer healing alcoholism, a built-in religious framework provides me with guidance when i need it and help when i seek it.
relationship mores. there are a set of norms that go along with folk christianity about how you treat others. this ties heavily into death, relating to how you express condolences (casseroles and baked goods, sitting with the deceased, comforting loved ones), how you treat the dead (my uncle carried my grandfather’s body to the transport for the morgue, you can ease the passage of the dead with your eulogy by tying up unfinished matters), and how you relate to those who have passed (sitting on the grave, speaking to them through prayer).
spiritual knowledge. even if i don’t follow the bible’s teaching or believe in Christ, i get the robust text of the bible to base my practice in.
this is just my experience with folk christianity! i hope it’s illuminating!
Oh
There’s a term for this
Oh
*swirls on in* Yooo can anyone give me some GREAT traditional/folk magic book recommendations? That are somewhat easily accessible?
“Black book” is the traditional regional name used in Denmark and Norway, and occasionally found also in the parts of Sweden that used to be part of Denmark. It is part of the regional heritage, and not found any other place. It is only marginally related to classical continental “grimoires”, and has no relationship whatsoever with modern “books of shadows” and similar.
Both the “black books” and the more “grimoire”-like magic books in Norway and Denmark (particularly in Denmark) are sometimes called “cyprianus”, without the contents necessarily being related to the so-called cyprianic magic.
In Sweden, the parallel to the term “black book” is “black arts book”, but this term is a more generic one, as the books more often have individual titles such as “Solomonic Arts”, “The Old Apotechary”, “Sympathetic Sciences” and so on if indeed they are found to have titles at all.
“Black Book” appears in witch trial records outside of Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
A short google search to substitute for me going through my library of history books about this topic and writing a term paper regarding returns historical results from Scotland, Venice, Romania, Czech, Russia, Salem, and Iceland.
My google foo seems to fail me today, all I can find is a reference to the folkloric “black book” (the one you got after graduating the equally folkloric “black school” at the University of Wittenberg) from Scotland – nothing on an actual tradition of actual books. Except from Scandinavia and in particular Norway. Could you be so kind and give me the search string you used?
Aye! I cannot help but be super interested in this topic. Hope you two don’t mind :’)
From my own research, I have found references of the following:
Barbara Napier deposed that ‘the devil wess with them in likeness of ane black man … the devil start up in the pulpit, like a mickle blak man, with ane black beard sticking out like ane goat’s beard, clad in ane blak tatie [tattered] gown and ane ewill favoured scull bonnet on his heid; hauing ane black book in his hand’.
From ‘Witch Cult in Western Europe’
Its a quote from one of the witch trials, but I cannot find the source of which trial it was taken from specifically.
Seventh, they pray the devil to strike them out of the book of life, and to inscribe them in the book of death. So we can read written in a black book the names of the witches of Avignon.
Compendium Maleficarum, The Montague Summers Edition
Supposedly there is also a famous lost “black book” that Nigel Jackson based one of his books from, but I can’t really find a source for that. (I believe its talked about in this interview?)
Book of Shadows is a term coined by Gerald Gardner, it’s newer term for an older concept. A Wiccan coven or traditions book of shadows contains liturgy for rituals, spells, and songs as well as any of the groups history. The personal book of shadows is much the same, but also may include personal magical diary material as well. Older terms for the same are Black Book and Grimoire. Some family traditions use common place books, recipe books, psalters, and herbal notes in their heritage as books of shadows, even if they weren’t originally called that. Feel free to use any term that suits you. In my opinion they are all reasonable terms even if they have different ages of use.
A particularly robust motif in the lore of witchcraft is the importance of the grimoire,or magic book, an essential tool for occultists to cast spells. Evidence presented in witchcraft trials regularly mentioned two such volumes: One was a “large black book” owned by the devil or by the head of the witches’ coven, in which the names of witches were signed, often in blood. Another was a “Black Bible” or “Devil’s Missal,” from which the devil or his servants read during their rituals.
Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular CultureBill Ellis
This one doesn’t /really/ specify where the term ‘black book’ comes from, but it also references the black bibles we were talking about earlier. Perhaps some of this comes from their rise to popularity? Though, I could see folks just tacking on “black” to anything deemed diabolic or not Christian enough. The Church liked to do that a lot back in the day.
In my research, I also found something called the Black Book of Taymouth, but couldn’t find a lot about it.
1) by casting flint stones behind your back towards the west – I’ve never used this method but I have seen others use this method of clicking stones together to bring rain.
2) by flinging a little sand into the air – I’ve actually used this method at one of the local beaches in the area. You can feel the sea breeze pick up the sand and carry it. Then you feel the wind shift and you can smell the briny salt of the ocean as the wind whips up the waves. Dark storm clouds form in the distance and you can watch as it rolls towards shore.
3) by striking a river with a broom – this is meant to send the water from the river into the sky thus bringing rain. Splashing river water works just as well. Swinging a broom in circles above your head in the air is also said to bring great winds and even storms.
4) bystirring water with the finger in a hole in the ground – my family’s method of bringing rain and storms uses an adapted version of this method however we tend to use water in a bowl instead of water in the ground though both methods work.
5) by burning rain bringing incense – My aunt uses this method when Melbourne really needs some rain. She buys an incense called ‘rain drops’ made of herbs known for bringing rain and then burns it while standing out in her yard while looking to the sky. Burning ‘rain bringing’ herbs also works.
6) by dancing, singing and playing musical instruments – while this may not seem very ‘witchy’ this method has been used by multiple cultures around the world to bring rain. Stomping your feet on the ground represents raindrops falling. Singing and the music of instruments represent the wind and the sound of rain.
7. Striking a wet rag against the steps of your home.
8. Burning fern and henbane outside.
9. Pointing a dagger at a certain magical square.
Draw the sixth pentacle of the Moon in silver ink (pencil is fine) and submerge it in water. As long as it’s underwater it will rain
The famous knotting of the wind spell from Cornwall, where witches “sold the wind” to sailors. I took a piece of hemp rope, tied the first knot focusing on a light breeze. After I tied the knot, I breathed into it, visualising a breeze. The second knot, a gail. The third knot a tempest. The words I used: “Knot number one, a breeze sealed. Knot number two, a gail concealed. Knot number three, a tempest unrevealed. One knot undone will release a breeze. Two knots undone, a gail. Three knots, the tempest untamed.” Make sure to put a charm on one end to know where the first know was done. I worked upwards from the charm. You don’t want to release a tempest by accident. Keep the rope/cord/string in a box, unseen and protected. Leave the cord out when you’ve unknotted it, so the wind can be “free.” Make sure you focus and visualise as you knot the cord. You could even craft it outdoors facing the direction of the wind.
For rain-making, Compendium Maleficarum mentions throwing crucifixes into water, for the more Satanically inclined witches out there.
Also, lots of pissing in holes and beating the resulting pee-pond with sticks. May well work. May also get pee everywhere. Haven’t tried and don’t necessarily recommend. XD
Når et barn har slått seg – Norwegian charms (one from HKH Queen Sonja of Norway’s mother) – and one Swedish – for when a child has a bruise (only in Norw. and Swed.)
When you are spellbound – traditional Norwegian unbinding when you have been rendered motionless
Trollkatt’s English version of a charm against the night-mare from Nes in Hedmark county, Norway.
Night-mare, night-mare!
If you’re about,
you shall out!
That you shall, that you shall, that you shall.
Run up the hills you shall,
run down the valleys you shall.
That you shall, that you shall, that you shall.
To crook all the straight birches,
to straighten all the crooked birches.
That you shall, that you shall, that you shall.
This you recite as you go to bed. It works against both sleep-paralysis and disturbing dreams.
In addition, you can place your slippers in front of your bed so they shape a T. That’s the protective shape of the god’s hammer. The “handle” should point towards the bed, and the “head” towards the door.
Another Norwegian apotropaic custom against the night-mare, is to draw a “mare cross” on a piece of paper, roll it up and stuff it in the keyhole to your bedroom. “Mare cross” – marekors – is another word for the pentagram. It is drawn from the left to the right. A night-mare cannot slip past it.
There are more ways, but it is bed time, so I’ll save them for another day.
fair--y backup 
