Strawberry Magick: 20 Fruity Correspondences

Apart from their antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties, strawberries are commonly used in magick for their association with abundance, fertility, love and luck.

They have been used as a love food and in love spells for centuries. The leaves have been carried in sachets and charms for luck, and pregnant women can carry them to prevent and ease pains. 

Strawberry infused water can be used to create potions or for rituals baths. Infuse strawberries under the moon to create strawberry moon water! 

Strawberry Magickal Associations: 

Abundance

Attraction 

Beauty 

Commitment 

Dedication
Desire

Faithfulness 

Fertility 

Fruitfulness 

Glamour spells

Healing
Health

The Heart 

Joy 

Kindness 

Love 

Loyalty 

Luck 

Success 

Sweetening

Remember that magickal associations are forged through the connections we make with our magickal tools/relationships- your correspondences may look quite different to mine.

Have you ever used strawberries in magick? If so, what do you use them for? 

NEXT - Wild Garlic Magick: 7 Bear-Related Correspondences
NEXT - Summer Solstice Blessings
NEXT - Review: Witchy Birthday Cake by Shannon Holdsworth
NEXT - Simple Magick: Power Flow For August

Fabulous Folklore: The Knockers of Cornwall

Beneath the sacred lands of Cornwall and Devon are said to be small, gnome-like creatures called Knockers. They are said to wear mining outfits, stand at roughly 2ft tall, and commit all kinds of mischief - namely stealing miners’ food.

It is said that miners’ wives would mark their husbands’ pasties with their initials, not just for identification, but for the Knockers to be able to credit the miner for giving them food. For those who don’t know what a pasty is, it’s a savoury, shortcrust, semi-circular pie traditionally filled with beef, potato and vegetables and associated mainly with the West Country. They are available all over the U.K. and come with a variety of fillings.

The Knockers got their name from the rapping and knocking noises heard by the miners. The Knockers were not viewed as negative - it was believed that they led the miners towards areas that were rich with minerals. It was also believed that the presence of Knockers meant safety; so staying on the good side of the Knockers was imperative. The miners would do this in a number of ways, including making the offering of their last bit of pasty to the Knockers by casting it into the mine.

I suspect the Doozers in the TV series Fraggle Rock were inspired by the legend of Knockers as St Anthony Lighthouse in Cornwall was the setting. My late Father-in-Law also called the house he built in Cornwall “Fraggle Rock” so as a family we have a particular love for this show and all things related.

NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: Cornish Piskies

NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: Elves

NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: The Hurlers on Bodmin Moor

NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: The Tomte

Honouring Nature: The Forager’s Code

I’m a keen forager but it’s really important to remember the responsibility that comes with foraging.

Whilst our motivation is usually to create something, it’s important to remember our place in this process. When we take something we become more than a visitor to a place, we actually become part of that place.

It’s important that our actions don’t hurt a carefully balanced system. Within any eco-system, other organisms depend on each other to survive.

Known as the Forager’s Code, it is our duty to work out how we can insert ourselves into this carefully balanced network without harming it. The Forager’s Code must be observed at all times:

• Minimise damage
• Collect from plentiful sources only 
• Leave plenty behind - remember you come second to other birds and animals
• Do not collect rare species 
• Respect Nature
  
  

To add to that, I would say:

• Don’t pick roots or bulbs
• If you’re not 100% sure what you’re picking, don’t 
• Leave no trace of your visit
  
  NEXT - Honouring Nature: Winter Foraging
  NEXT - Recipe: Wild Garlic Pesto
  NEXT - Review: The Wheel by Jennifer Lane

Recipe: Wild Garlic Pesto

For those that missed my Instagram Reel earlier in the week, here’s the recipe I used for Wild Garlic Pesto: 

WILD GARLIC PESTO

Ingredients:
150g Wild garlic

Zest of half lemon 

Juice of half lemon 

2 x Garlic cloves 

150ml Rapeseed oil 

50g Parmesan cheese 

50g Pine nuts

Glass jar with lid

Method:
Rinse and pat dry the wild garlic.
Roughly chop the wild garlic.
Prepare the other ingredients - mince the garlic cloves, zest and juice the lemon, measure out the oil, grate the cheese.
Add the ingredients to the food processor, including the lemon juice and oil.
Spoon into the jar and label and date.
Stir the pesto through cooked pasta.

The pesto will keep for up to two weeks in the fridge. Please don’t pull out the bulbs - take one leaf from each plant. 

NEXT - Recipe: Apple Cake
NEXT - Wild Garlic Magick: 7 Bear-Related Correspondences
NEXT - Honouring Nature: The Forager's Code

NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: The Major Oak

Sticky Willy Magick: An Abundance of Folk Names

Sticky willy, also known as cleavers, is an edible herb found in Europe, North America, Asia, Greenland, and Australia. Its tiny, prickly hairs give it a sticky feeling when you touch it, one that is not left on the fingertips.

It has an abundance of folk names. I personally know it as “sticky willy” and “sticky Bob” ~ not to be confused with a herb robert, which is known as “stinking Bob.”

It is also called goosegrass, hayriffe, hedgeriff, catchweed, scratwees, hitchhikers, barweed, bobby buttons, whippy sticks, Velcro plant, clivers, bedstraw, hayruff, sticky weed, mutton chops, sticky bud, sticky back, sticky Jack, sticky grass, grip grass, robin-run-the-hedge, everlasting friendship, robin-run-in-the-grass, loveman, and goosebill.

It is a valuable herb that is helpful for treating inflammation, disease of the urinary organs, scurvy, psoriasis, and skin diseases. It has a soothing effect and induces a quiet, restful sleep.

Celtic folklore says that drinking a cleavers infusion for nine weeks would make you so beautiful that everyone would fall in love with you, and taking a bath infused with cleavers would make a woman successful in love. It has been used in the past to treat gonorrhoea, and as a hair tonic; it is said to help hair grow abundantly.

The plant is often infused in hot water and drunk as a tea, roughly 2-4 grams of the herb being infused to 60 to 120 milliliters of water is a good measurement, although I just grabbed a bunch and infused it. The infusion, hot or cold, is taken frequently, up to three times per day.

It is a powerful diuretic, so should be avoided when diabetes is present. Please check with a clinical herbalist before ingesting herbs of any kind.

American Beautyberry Magick: 8 Alluring Correspondences

I spotted this amazing plant in the World Peace Garden in Glastonbury, where the Chalice Well is situated. I couldn’t believe the colour of the berries, they’re so vibrant and striking!

It is an American Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana; a deciduous shrub that bears bright purple fruit throughout the autumn and winter. It has a wide array of medicinal uses and some culinary uses, too.

It was used by indigenous Americans in various methods of application for fevers, rheumatism, malaria, dysentery, digestive issues and colic. In Traditional Chinese Medicine it is used to slow down or stop bleeding internally, particularly in the stomach and lungs. These are just a few of its medicinal uses, and beautyberry is being studied for its efficacy in treating cancer and memory loss.

Beautyberry Magickal Correspondences

Alluring
Attraction
Banishing
Beauty

Enchantment
Glamour
Luring
Temptation

I found the following magickal correspondences for beautyberry online:

Element: Water
Zodiac Signs: Scorpio
Planet: Venus

Magic: An infusion can be used topically in glamours, beauty, and luring spells.

As beautyberry is used for repelling insects you could use it in magick to repel something or someone. It is helpful to the digestive system so you could also use this to help “stomach” something that is difficult to accept. It goes from being quite tasteless raw to full of flavour when cooked, so perhaps you could use it to enhance something.

Of course, magickal associations are those which you find when you form a relationship with a plant or herb; so there are no correct or incorrect answers here.

Honouring Nature: Winter Foraging

We had our first frost on Tuesday ~ time to pick sloes if you’re making gin ~ and there are loads of mushrooms on the cemetery, which got me thinking about foods that can be foraged at this time of year.

You might imagine that with the wet and cold there wouldn’t be much, but this is far from the case.

Mushrooms 

There are plenty of mushrooms available from November to February in the UK. From the Common Oyster to the Winter Chanterelle, the most important factors are knowing 100% what you are picking (you’ll only eat the wrong mushroom once), and more importantly leaving enough for animals and invertebrates, who will be looking to sustain themselves over the winter.

Sloes (Prinus spinosa) 

There has always been a bit of a debate as to when the best time to pick sloes is, but the general consensus seems to be that sloes for gin should be picked after the first frost. You can make all sorts of things with sloes; jams, jellies, chocolate, wine.

Sweet Chestnuts (Castanea sativa) 

Not to be confused with “conkers” from the horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum), sweet chestnuts are amazing cooked on an open fire. They’re high in vitamins B and C, and can be used for nutroasts, stuffings, cake fillings and more.

Hawthorn Berries 

Hawthorn berries ~ “haws” ~ are at their most ripe in November. Surprisingly you can make quite a few things with haws - gin, ketchup, syrup fruit leather, and jellies.

Bullace (Prunus domestica) 

Bullaces are a type of plum that are a lot like damsons. I’ve not managed to find any around here yet! They can be used for all the usual plummy things - jams, chutneys, crumbles, wine and liqueurs.

Green and leafy things 

Chickweed, navelwort and dandelion can all be harvested for their leaves, which can be used in salads, sandwiches and stews.

Please follow the following foraging guidelines:

• Please take only what you need, or even better: less. The animals and local ecology come first. I actually took a break from foraging this year.
• Don’t eat anything you haven’t ID’d yourself.
• If you’re not 100% sure of what you’re picking: don’t pick, don’t eat.
• Don’t take unless you fully intend to use.
  
  NEXT - Honouring Nature: Hedgehog Health & Pumpkins
  NEXT - Simple Magick: 12 Tips For New Witches
  NEXT - Recipe: Apple Cake 

Fabulous Folklore: Mince Pies

A favourite food of Father Christmas, mince pies are a sweet pie of English origin.

First served in the Middle Ages, and appearing in English cookbooks A Forme of Cury (1390) and The English Huswife (1615), mince pies were bigger, oblong shaped, and the “mincemeat” was actually meat; mutton, pork, beef, rabbit or game.

Having been around for so many years, the humble mince pie has gone by many different names; Christmas pyes, crib cakes, mutton pies, wayfarer’s pies, and shrid pies.

English tradition states that when making mice pies the mincemeat should always be stirred clockwise for fear of provoking 12 months’ bad luck, and every member of the family should stir, making a wish.

The first mince pie of the season should also be wished upon, and mince pies should always be eaten in silence; the taster risks heaping several curses upon himself if he doesn’t comply.

It is said that a mince pie should be eaten every day for the Twelve Days of Christmas; from Christmas Eve until the 5th January for good health and happiness. Anyone who refuses one of their twelve pies will suffer a year of misfortune.

Do you like mince pies? Do you have them in your country? Do you follow the 12 pie rule?

NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: The Yule Tree

Review: Traditional Jams & Preserves by Eve Parker

At this time of year ~ when I am waking up and coming out of hibernation! ~ I start to think about the gifts of Mother Nature throughout the year, which ones I will use, and what I will do with them.

Elderflowers, Elderberries, Blackberries, Ramsons, Rosehips, Nettles, Apples, Chestnuts, Cherries - so many lovely things!

I love this simple book; it is full of tasty recipes for Jams, Conserves, Chutneys and Butters.

Apple & Elderflower Jam

Ingredients:
1kg Cooking Apples
500g Elderflower heads
400ml water
500g preserving sugar

Method:
Rinse the Elderflowers, shake dry. Pull the flowers from the stalks and tie in a square of muslin.
Placed the peeled, cored, diced apples into the pan with the Elderflower bag.
Add water, bring to a simmer. Cool for 20 minutes, or until the Apple is pulped.
Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Bring to the boil and cook for 20 minutes, making sure the jam is bubbling on the surface, stirring occasionally to stop it sticking to the pan.

Test for set. When ready pour into sterilised jars, add wax disc, and screw lids on tightly. Leave to cool.

NEXT - Review: The House Witchy by Arin Murphy-Hiscock

Recipe: Wren's Autumn Apple Cake

It’s cold, dark and wet outside, so we’re inside enjoying a slice of my Autumn Apple Cake. It’s moist and stodgy, perfect for those times when you need a bit of comfort.

I thought you guys might like the recipe.

WREN'S AUTUMN APPLE CAKE

Ingredients:
225g Self Raising Flour
110g Light Brown Sugar
170g Chopped Bramley apples (I like to put more in!)
85g Butter, melted
150ml Milk
1 x egg
1/2 tsp Cinammon

Method:
1. Line an 8 inch tin, preheat the oven to 200 degrees C
2. Sift flour, spice, sugar
3. Beat egg, add to milk and melted butter. Mix well, and add to the sifted flour mixture
4. Add the fruit
5. Spoon into the tin, and sprinkle some sugar on top.
6. Bake until golden colour, and check with a knife (it should come out clean).
7. Enjoy.

Obviously you can swap out some of the items for gluten free and/or vegan alternatives. 

NEXT - Recipe: Wren's Faery Berry Jam
NEXT - Word Magick: The Season of The Witch
NEXT - Review: Sunflower Journal (Autumn 2022)