Fabulous Folklore: Ashwell Sacred Spring

I’ve been searching for holy wells and sacred springs in my area, of which there are quite a few. I have been unable to find the one at nearby Ladywell, but my husband accidentally found the Ashwell spring on his travels. We went to see it and it is one of those sites that is tantalisingly close to the road, but easily missed! 

Ash trees are often associated with wells, and at the top left hand side of the picture you can see the trunk and leaves of the ash tree situated next to the site of the spring. It’s possible that the village is named literally after this spot, “Ash-well,” although it started off as “Exwell” in the 11th century. 

Ash trees have long been associated with Yggdrasil, the immense sacred tree in Norse mythology that is central to the cosmos, with all else existing around it. At the base of Yggdrasil was a spring where the Norns (Fate, Being, Necessity) lived. The ash was considered sacred in Britain as well as Scandinavia. 

The spring arises in a stone well house, not dissimilar to the one at nearby Greetham, and bearing an inscription that is nearly the same:

“All ye who hither come to drink. Rest not your thoughts below. Look at the sacred sign and think. Whence living waters flow.”

It was really dry when we had a look, but I’m hoping that as we edge toward the winter and have a bit more rain we’ll be able to see the small pool the spring is said to create, and perhaps I can take some sacred water.

Do you have any sacred springs or holy wells near you?

NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: Sheela-na-Gig

NEXT - Pagan Holidays: Imbolc

Winter is Still Here

Hey everyone, 

Just a little reminder that we’re still in the depths of winter. It’s ok to need to go at a slower pace. This is a time of regeneration, recuperation and rest. As you take the time to look after yourself with sleep, good food, and all the lovely things that comfort you; your body and soul responds with growth. 

As we travel the Wheel, and get nearer to spring, we will pick up more energy. The Sun will soon melt away, not only the literal ice of the winter; but also our troubles. For it’s easier to tackle things when we have the energy. Work on personal protection, and leave everything else free to evolve in its own sweet way. The spring is a new beginning for everyone, and as we approach it, it will be easier to make the changes we need to.

Have faith in yourself, and your abilities, you’ll feel much better soon! 

Runes:

ᛒ - Berkana 

ᛁ - Isa 

ᛖ - Ehwaz

ᛉ - Elhaz

ᚱ - Raidho

Sacred Symbols: Elhaz of the Elder Futhark

We have a rune in the floor of our hallway. As I sit on the stairs, and put my boots on, my gaze always lands on this shape. It appears to be Elhaz of the Elder futhark, also known as Algiz, Eoih, Elgr. ᛉ

You can’t see it very well in this photograph but the bottom branch of the stave is more - or less - visible depending on the light.

Elhaz is the rune of defence and protection, and I think it is fitting, as the mark is right by our front door. My eyes trace over the symbol each time I sit it in front of it, or pass by it; and in my mind’s eye I imagine protective energy emanating from it. Each time I do this the feeling gets stronger and stronger. I ask it to protect all that dwell in this house.

This symbol asks us not to take this protection for granted (I won’t), but to remain alert and level headed; using intuition where possible and when needed. Your intuition is your protection with this rune.

Do you have any markings in your home that were already there when you arrived? Have you placed runes, or other symbols, in or around your home for protection or other reasons? 

NEXT - Sacred Symbols: Thor's Hammer
NEXT - Simple Magick: Using Eggshells
NEXT - Simple Magick: Magickal Attitudes & Personal Protection 

Simple Magick: Is It A Sign?

It’s important to remember that not everything you see is a sign.

Sure, it’s good to be open to receiving signs, and keeping an eye out for them; but it’s important to maintain a level of objectivity, too.

I have four crows that regularly frequent the cemetery, so I can’t depend on crows to be a sign in this location. Unless I choose to interpret their behaviour as divinatory; a method known as augury.

But on walking through the middle of a neat, cut grass field, with no trees nearby, I saw this. The only sticks around, they almost seemed deliberately placed. Do you think this is a sign?

It reminds me of the Nauthiz rune in the Elder Futhark, which represents Need (naudh).

“Need makes for a difficult plight; 

the naked freeze in the frost.

Need is the pain of the bondmaid,

and a hard plight,

and toilsome work.”

Taken from Northern Magic: Rune Mysteries & Shamanism by Edred Thorsonn.

This stave represents the resistance or friction that can be found in all parts of the world; in nature, in society, and in ourselves. Whilst this resistance or friction may come from an outside source, it is up to us to utilise the energy of this resistance, on the understanding that we have the power and the control to do so.

Magickally, this stave can be used to overcome distress ~ or even stress ~ so perhaps that’s the message for me in this sign. I need to employ Nauthiz.

Do you look out for signs often? Do you get answers to your questions? What’s the biggest sign you have ever received?

NEXT - Simple Magick: Storing Tarot Decks
NEXT - Simple Magick: The Shadow
NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: The Black Annis 

Sacred Symbols: Runes

Jumping on the @witch.with.me train for Week two of their Divination Month, and we’re talking runes!

Runes are letters that were used to write Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet.

The three best known runic alphabets are the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the Elder Futhark and the Younger Futhark, a reduced form of the Elder Futhark.

The word “rune” comes from the Germanic root run- meaning “secret” or “whisper” and can also be found in Baltic languages, meaning “speech”.

In Norse mythology the runes are seen as having a divine origin; the poem Hávamál explains that they came from Odin, as a result of self-sacrifice:

“I know that I hung on a windy tree nine long nights, wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin, myself to myself, on that tree of which no man knows from where its roots run.”

I absolutely adore the runes, but my relationship with them is in its infancy. Our resident expert is @marget.inglis_witchcraft - check out her page for lots of information on them.

Do you use runes in your craft?

NEXT - Sacred Symbols: The Witch's Foot
NEXT - Winter Is Still Here
NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: Storm Callers 

Fabulous Folklore: Yule Evergreens

Bringing evergreens into the home at Midwinter goes back to a time when people were more connected to the cycles of nature, way before the arrival of Christmas. Evergreens represented everlasting life in the darkest part of the year, and therefore brought the hope of returning light. Each European country, and each British county, had their own specific customs related to evergreens, but many involved hanging them around windows and over doorways.

Holly was hung over entrances to peoples’ homes, and was used to make wreaths. It brought good luck and protection, and was still beautiful in the middle of winter, giving the poor a means of decorating their homes at a time of celebration. The Druids revered holly and believed its evergreen nature was sacred; it kept the earth beautiful at a time when other trees shed their leaves.

Evergreen conifers (pine, fir, cedar, juniper, or spruce) became the Yule Tree, which evolved into the Christmas Tree. The Christmas Tree custom flourished in Germany and over time it spread to other European regions, eventually reaching North America. Traditionally the brightly colored decorations and lights symbolised stellar objects, spirits, religious figures, and religious events.

The ancient Greeks, Druids, Celts, and Norse revered mistletoe as sacred, and it was used for protection, blessing, and medicine. The 23rd December is known as The Nameless Day, and is represented by Mistletoe. This day falls outside the lunar calendar and represents the unshaped potential of all things. This is the extra day in a “year and a day” represented by so many folk tales.

This gorgeous display of evergreens is over a doorway in nearby Stamford, Lincolnshire.

NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: Robin Redbreast

Simple Magick: Magickal Beliefs & Attitudes

Following on from another post, I want to discuss the attitudes and beliefs I believe crucial for spell casting and ritual.

Integrity:

I believe having integrity is very important as a magickal person. If we do not keep our word and follow through in our ordinary lives, how are we to believe in our words and actions during workings; and follow them through to spellcasting success, in our magickal lives? I believe that if we behave poorly, and without honour, we risk straying into dangerous territory with our magick.

Language:

Our words are magick, which is why it’s called ‘spelling.’ If our words mean nothing - that is, we don’t do the things we promise, or we are careless with them - then how can we successfully apply words and language to our spellcasting, especially in the form of incantations and chants? If there is no truth in the words we speak, and they have a low vibration energetically, then how can we expect to use those words to do our bidding and manifest energetically in our spellwork? Words have their own vibration; pick them, and use them, carefully.

Belief: 

Following on from the Magician’s rule ‘to will’. As well as our intention and determination to create, there has to be absolute belief in ourselves. When I set my mind to something, whether it be magickal or mundane, I have absolute belief in myself, and my ability. There is no space for anything else. If I do fail at something I simply acknowledge the reason why, and believe that next time I will succeed.

Love & Acceptance:

It is important to love ourselves. We are as we are meant to be. We have to embrace the darker half and the lighter half, if indeed we are to be whole. If we understand there’s magick, and we can create it, then we must be magickal, too! Which is surely worthy of love? We are each our own priest or priestess; and to hold ourselves in a divine and sacred way when we are expressing ourselves magickally - ie spellcasting - means we need to love ourselves. Hold your head high, and work your magic.

Runes

Clockwise from Top:

Wunjo - joy, happiness, wellbeing, success

Jera - harvest, reward, natural cycles, fruition, fertility, growth

Mannaz - the self, intelligence, support, humanity

Elhaz - (on its side) divination, health and healing, foster spiritual awareness,  clarity

Middle:

Nauthiz - need, necessity, have patience

NEXT - Simple Magick: The Mind

Fabulous Folklore: Storm Callers

Seidr, a form of pre-Christian Norse magic, was concerned with discerning the course of fate, to bring about change or to alter the path of destiny. Amongst other things, there were Seidr rituals for controlling the weather.

In medieval lore, Tempestarii were weather-making magicians. These people lived amongst the commoners in a village, but they were adept at raising or preventing storms. Some held the belief that the Tempestarii were in league with a mythical race of cloud-dwellers, who could sail the skies in storm clouds, whipping up storms over farmland, so that they could sweep down under the cover of cloud to cause trouble and to steal corn and other crops.

During the witch hunts, there was a strong belief that witches could cause all sorts of harm using the weather, but others argued that anyone who had control over the weather and could ‘raise a gale’ must have a belief in God to be able to do such things.

Today, Storm Magic is a favourite of many witches. It allows the practitioner to access thunderstorms using the storm as a battery from which to take energy, or to manipulate the air of blizzards and hurricanes. Clouds and cosmological events are used as divination tools, in a type of scrying known as Aeromancy. Under this umbrella, you have cloud divination (nephomancy), thunder and lightning divination (ceraunoscopy), meteor and shooting star divination (meteromancy), amongst others.

Any form of Air Magic is potent because Air is the element of movement, making it perfect for Seidr rituals and other forms of magic where change is sought. Air can be gentle or raging, it can extinguish fire or ignite it, give life (oxygen) or destroy; offering many nuances and possibilities for spell work. Divination of clouds is a great skill - they’re always at hand (especially if you live in the UK!), they’re free, and you just have to look up! 

NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: Lesser Celandine

NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: Salt

Fabulous Folklore: Norse Magick

For the ancient Norse peoples magic and ritual were a normal part of everyday life. The Vikings’ beliefs were largely polytheistic, and magic was traditionally seen as a feminine practice. Seeresses and priestesses were highly revered people; they cared for the spiritual and physical needs of the community using herbalism, and they could foretell the future using prophecy, which was especially helpful before a battle.

Seiðr is an old Norse term for sorcery or witchcraft. Seiðr involve spoken incantations or ‘spell-songs’ known as galdr. These were chanted to reach higher states of consciousness; which were used to commune with spirits. One would be seated on a ‘high-seat’ whilst communing with ancestral spirits and the deceased. Trance work was occasionally used to receive messages, as was ‘mound-sitting’; sitting on a burial mound or chamber to communicate directly with the dead.

Freya and other Norse goddesses practised seiðr; it was Freya who taught the art to Odin, who was later admonished by Loki for doing so, as it was considered unmanly. It was uncommon to find men carrying out these practices; male roles were focused on politics, and hunting, farming and trading, and the practice of seiðr by men had connotations of unmanliness or effeminacy.

Various scholars have debated the nature of seiðr, some arguing that it was shamanic in context, involving visionary journeys by its practitioners. Accounts of seiðr made it into sagas and other literary sources, and further evidence has been unearthed by archaeologists and historians. 

NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: The Yule Tree

NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: The Evergreens of Yule

NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: The Land & People 

Witchy Quotes: Gudrun of Mimirsbrunnur - Prayer for Receiving Stewardship of Land

O Great Landvættir beneath my feet,
I call you, I awaken you, I offer you friendship!
In the name of Jord, Green Mother,
I swear I will not exploit this land out of greed.
In the name of Frey, Lord of the Grain,
I swear I will plant each seed with thought and reverence.
In the name of Freya, Lady of Spring,
I swear I will see the beauty of my land as a source of soul’s comfort.
In the name of Nerthus, Mother of the Vanir,
I swear that I will keep the secrets of this land as jewels.
In the name of Skadi, Winter Queen,
I swear I will leave wild places for your children.
In the name of Ullr, Hunter of the Wild,
I swear I will not take too many of your children, even to feed my own.
In the name of Iduna, Orchard-Grower,
I swear I will be grateful for every mouthful this land gives me,
And that I will give back what is given with all due respect and joy.

~ Gudrun of Mimirsbrunnr 

NEXT - Witchy Quotes: Hermann Hesse - Wandering
NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: Norse Magick
NEXT - Sacred Symbols: Runes