Hi witchlings! I've been doing some research into English folk protections, and so! Here are the few I've compiled!
What are witch marks?
Despite their name, witch marks have very little to do with witches or witchcraft. The markings are believed to have turned away evil, providing protection to the building and those who lived or worked within it. The evil that was being ‘turned away’ may have been demons, witches or the then ever-present evil eye.
Witch marks are also referred to as ritual protection marks or apotropaic markings. The word apotropaic comes from the Greek word apotropaios which is translated as turning away (evil).
Where can you find witch marks?
Witch marks can be found in all types of buildings from barns and cottages to grand country houses to churches. The markings can also be found on furniture, gravestones and in caves such as Reynard’s Kitchen Cave in Dovedale.
Markings are usually found next to windows, doorways and fireplaces in buildings. These draughty locations were the most vulnerable and potential entrance points for demons, witches and evil spirits. The witch marks were etched into stone, plaster and woodwork.
Types of Witch Marks & protection symbols.
Daisy Wheels
One of the most common types of witch marks found in buildings is the daisy wheel, also known as the hexafoil. As the name suggests, the symbol takes the form of a six petalled flower.
The daisy wheel would have been drawn using a compass and as such looks very geometrical in design.
Daisy wheels can vary in size and complexity from a single hexafoil to a group of interlinked hexafoils.
It was thought that if demons saw a line, they would follow it, becoming trapped.
Overlapping V's (Mariam Markings)
Another common form of witch marking is overlapping Vs known as marian marks.
The overlapping Vs are believed to represent the phrase ' Virgo Virginum' (Virgin of virgins).
It is thought that these marks were invocations to the Virgin Mary to protect the site where they were found.
The Auseklis Cross
This rare protection sign more commonly found in Eastern Europe, can be seen in the stable block at Belton in Lincolnshire. It's seen as a 'sky' symbol, associated with stars and night time, and regarded as one of the most powerful symbols for driving away evil spirits. It was believed that the stars brought light to banish the darkness.
Dating protection marks
Although many of the symbols associated with witch marks date back to much earlier times, the great majority are found in buildings dating from the medieval period through to the early nineteenth century. This was a time when belief in witchcraft and the supernatural was widespread and the use of magical symbols and ritual objects was part of everyday life.
Other forms of protection from evil were charms and ritual concealments.
Often shoes, dolls, cats and witch bottles are found hidden away within buildings.
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Two screencaps of Dave Bautista in the movie "Glass Onion" wearing a snapback and a muscle tee and standing in a garage surrounded by cars. The subtitles read, "Soup is witchcraft. we put plants, spices, and dead animals into a cauldron and follow instructions from a book written by old people".
"Popish [roman catholic] Clergy make their Holy Water by Charm or Conjuration thus:
I conjure thee, thou creature of water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that thou drive the Devil out of every corner of this church and Alter, so that he remains not within our Precinks, which are just and holy"
Quoted in The British Book of Spells & Charms by Graham King.
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Historically inaccurate understanding of both who was persecuted by the witch trials and how those persecuted were typically dealt with? ✅️
Trivialising the torture and live immolation of real actual people by implying they somehow weren't strong or clever enough to avoid being burned at the stake? ✅️
Invoking a legacy that categorically does not belong to them in an attempt to claim an oppression they and their ancestors never faced? ✅️
don't forget "ignoring the complicity of people in your demographic group in the persecution of others- ie white Christian British cunning-women helping with witch hunts against Jewish people, mentally ill people, Romani people, different kinds of Christians then unpopular, indigent people, or even just people they personally didn't like"
your grimoire does not have to be full of water colors, or illustrations, or dried plants, or essential oil infused ink. your pages do not have to be pristine, you don't have to include aesthetic tapes, or pretty polaroids.
you're allowed to mess up. your grimoire can have tears, or burns, or coffee stains, or wrinkled pages from the time you spilled your tea all over the place. it can be written in .5 mechanical pencil led or crayon.
the point is, your grimoire is apart of you. and if you love it, then you're doing it right.
says “I’m not getting my diploma at graduation Myself and 3 other seniors were notified that UChicago won’t confer our degrees at graduation this weekend. Despite finishing 4 rigorous and excruciating years of undergrad This comes off the heels of the university already having me and other students arrested & criminalized. The 4 of us have been targeted for “possibly” participating in campus-wide protests which a large majority of our student body has. We assumed we’d have criminal records before degrees. And now we might not even have that We’ve done the work. We deserve our degrees. Standing on the side of justice shouldn’t negate that. Sign, call, write to tell UChicago this is not okay. We need more support.” Go to his profile and click in the link in his bio for a quick way to contact the University.
Begin ID: Youssef Hasweh, a Palestinian student from the Univeristy of Chicago was notified that they would not be granting him his degree. Youssef and three other students have been stripped from their diplomas for "possibly" being at the encampments.
Photo of a student shouting, wearing a keffiyeh on their head and a sign clipped to the front of their shirt, reading, "Palestinian children deserve life". Two people in uniform are holding the student's arms back. End ID
In English folklore Black Dogs are (usually) solitary spectral dogs that often appear during or before storms, sometimes at the same time as a flash of lightning, and at night. They can be differentiated from normal dogs by their looks and behaviour. Usually, they are large with shaggy fur and large, unnaturally red- or yellow-coloured eyes, or sometimes eye, that may glow. There are also cases in which the dog has no head, or even rare still, two. Some are shape-changers with the ability to change their size or even turn into another animal. They often act oddly, walking on their hind legs, or backwards, talking, etc.
Black Dogs are usually either creatures in their own right, a manifestation of the (Christian) Devil or, on occasion, a ghost. Black Dogs are most often seen as malicious and as omens of death. There are even some accounts of them killing people. But, on the other hand, they are also reported to be harmless or even helpful and protective, such as the Black Dogs of Lincolnshire. The sound of chains sometimes accompanies the Black Dog.
The Black Dogs’ Habitat
Black Dogs seem to commonly appear at roads, rivers and other bodies of water, bridges, and fields, they also commonly appear near older sites, such as ruins, standing stones, and burial mounds. Black Dogs are also commonly reported in places associated with death such as graveyards (see Church Grim), lone burial sites, and places of violent death, i.e. sites of execution; there are multiple reports of Black Dogs haunting the places where accused witches were put to death. They seem to patrol these places or haunt them. Sometimes they will haunt a person or group of people, often being an omen of their death or other misfortune.
Black Dogs as an Omen
Black Dogs are often seen as an omen of bad luck, death, and crime. If a Black Dog sits on the front step of a home or howls below a window it means one of the home’s occupants will soon die.
Black Dogs can also be an omen for less dreadful things. If a black dog is seen by a pregnant person, it means their child will be a boy.
Striker
Striker, also known as Trash, is a Black Dog and shape-changer seen in northern England. He most often takes the form of a large Blak Dog with large paws, ears, and eyes and shaggy fur. Striker also sometimes appears as a white cow or horse. Like many other black dogs Striker if often appears to a person as a death omen.
Citations:
Simpson, J., & Roud, S. (2003). A Dictionary of English Folklore. In Oxford University Press eBooks. https://doi.org/10.1093/acref/9780198607663.001.0001
Sherwood, Simon J. 2006. Black Dogs of England. Australian Folklore.
Theo Brown (1958) The Black Dog, Folklore, 69:3, 175-192, DOI: 10.1080/0015587X.1958.9717142
Harland, J. H., & Wilkinson, T. T. (1972). Lancashire folk-lore. http://gutenberg.org/ebooks/41148
Photo source:
Paget, Sidney. “The Coal-Black Hound (Hound of Baskervilles),” WikiMedia Commons, Aug. 1901, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Houn-53_-_The_coal-black_Hound_(Hound_of_Baskervilles).jpg. Accessed 24 June 2024.
Wind Chimes, Witch Ladders / the Evil in Stillness
A folk grimoire of destagnation.
Those of us with European parents are undoubtedly familiar with the feeling of coming home from some trip, where your parents urge you to run through the house and open all the windows: "air out the house!" You speed around, kicking up dust, moving the air, slowly washing away the strange feeling of stillness that has contaminated your home. Air out the house. "Don't catch the draft," your parent yells up the stairs at you. The draft, of course, is never explicitly acknowledged to contain some ill-wishing spirit that will give you the flu, but everybody knows it does. And the same can be said for that stagnant air in the house, the silence permeating the walls.
The Evil in Stillness
Stillness is not good. Stillness has never been good - we have feared it since before we knew how to make fire. The land going silent, going motionless, going truly still; that spells disaster. Even now, with flashlights and the safety of our home, we are not spared the fear of stillness. None of us are comfortable in quiet forests. But even under our own roof we are not safe: when all is dark and everybody is motionless in their beds, ill-wishes, scary spirits and night-mares roam. And it would seem we can invite them into our homes, purely by leaving it unattended for long enough.
The stillness that comes about a home when it has been without inhabitants for long enough can only be solved by one thing: the return of the living. Whether that is people or animals coming by, or the house falling into decay and plants finding their way in. This seems inherent human knowledge - we feel more comfortable in houses that are or were recently occupied. Abandoned houses covered in ivy or inhabited by rodents are far less eerie than abandoned urban structures still perfectly as they were when they were left. Horror movies show little creatures scuttling about in still places when they want to give us a break from the terror.
So, it seems we all know the terrible feeling of stuffy air, stagnant energy, stillness, however you may know it. We all know the vulnerability of being motionless in the dark. To some of us it may seem more relevant than others: those of us who get goosebumps from silence, those of us who experience the fear of stillness in our cultures every day. But we all feel it. To those who fear it as much as I, I dedicate the following magic to alleviate and prevent stillness.
Preventing Stillness / Keeping the Evil at Bay
The universal key to life in a house seems to be moving air. Airing out the house is a great remedy, but it can also be your preventative measure - if safe, keep a window cracked and let the air flow through your house while you are gone. However, sometimes the air moving is just not possible. Sometimes you have to close up the whole house, and trap all the air inside of it. What then?
A popular method that appears across cultures is to have charms in and around the house that are very prone to moving. The movement would scare off the evils and spirits, because it would disrupt the stillness they are trying to inhabit. And the kicker about these charms is that they do not need air to move when they're being used against stillness, because the spirits who come to inhabit the stillness will also make the charms move as they invite themselves in. Silly trolls.
One charm I personally very much enjoy is an adaptation of the Cornish witch ladder. I like to make them as is traditional, but with only feathers going in opposite directions, no stones.
In my home region of Low Saxony it was also common to use both snail shells and egg shells, which are light but associated with magic and protection, in charms. Whether you used them on a string, made a garland, or any other type of charm that moves easy and can be suspended from the ceiling.
Other materials that would lend themselves incredibly well to such charms, the type you hang from the ceiling and let sway in the wind, would be sea shells, small twigs, hollowed sticks and straw, origami pieces, paper spirit crafts, sea sponge, dried flowers, etc.
Houseplants and flowers are another excellent method to keep some of the living present. Especially plants that move throughout the day: those that follow the sun, or whose flowers open and close depending on the light. But any living plants will really do. They will not completely spare you from the stuffy air, but they will certainly lessen the effects of stillness.
A different way to cut through stagnant air is sound. Something that is always producing sound (or only silent when you're not there to see it being silent... supposedly...) is a great way to stop the spirits of silence creeping into your dwelling. That is where a wind chime of any sort may often come in, but there are different ways to do this, such as pipes fastened to catch the wind, so that they howl, or even always leaving the radio softly playing in the background, set to a classical station, like was often done by the richer families I knew in my childhood. This sort of precaution, an auditory one, lends itself extremely well to being outside the house, where the wind enables them to be in near perpetual function. A house that has music coming from it, that appears almost as though it were truly fully alive of its own right, independent of having residents, will always scare away the stillness.
Remedying the Stillness / Scaring Away the Evil
For the most part, chasing away the scary things in the stillness comes naturally to us. We even chase it away, though less effectively, purely by coming home and making our house our own again. But if you are sensitive to it, you don't like it, and you want to get rid of that stagnant feeling as fast as possible, here's some effective methods, to combine or use separately.
Open all the windows, or enough windows/doors to allow air to flow through your house effectively. Both doors on opposite ends of the house are a great option, but so are more-or-less opposite windows, or windows that are directly connected through hallways and open doors.
Play sounds, out loud. Not necessarily loudly, but loud enough that it carries through the house and makes it feel alive again. Music from a speaker, the TV, a laptop with a YouTube video. Even just your own voice singing or talking. If you have no neighbors to annoy you can even bang pots or play an instrument.
Run around, dance, frolic. Visit every room, see how it's doing, move some things around. Shake up pillows and duvets. Fill all the spaces with your presence again.
Make a meal. Cooking will fill the air with the busyness of food preparation and the smell of inhabitants and labor.
Light incense or smoke cleanse your house. Smoke always moves through the air and gives it life back. Smoke is also a great indicator of stagnant air, as in rooms with stagnant air, smoke hangs around, suspended almost motionlessly.
Clean. Sweeping, especially, is a very effective manner of removing stagnation. Some people also like to sprinkle salt and then sweep that from the furthest point of the door, going toward the door, until they have swept all the salt out. A common folk spell to chase spirits off and not have them come back is to sweep toward the door, making sure to get every room, and when you have swept a room and are in the door, say: 'shoo! I'm cleaning here, out of my way! And you had better not track dirt in here!'
There are also those things that you may want to do for safety. Some houses with less modern running water should have the faucets on for a while so the stagnant water is out of the system before you consume it. Things like that often also double as great ways to bring some life back.
However you do it, the life will always come back to a place as long as there are people there. And let us never learn to loathe the stillness: as scary as it is, we can also learn a lot from the spirits contained in it. For some people, a completely still space may be just what they need to talk to spirits, to do divination, to decompress for just a bit. Eerie does not mean inherently bad; 'eerie' is only a symptom of our survival instinct.
I hope you feel inspired to think about the spirits around you, and the role they play both when you can sense them and when you cannot.
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tawfik's campaign has also been vetted by operation olive branch (proof + excerpt from tawfik's p*yp*l below cut)
"Tawfik was an engineering student with a happy family before the unimaginable happened. The war has destroyed their home and they have been forced to live in a tent. Tawfik’s father is very sick and needs medical assistance for his heart as soon as possible. Unfortunately, evacuating Tawfik’s father and family is a great cost. This money will be allocated to evacuate his family of 5 members. Each person needs $5,000 to cross the Egyptian border through Ya Hala Company. The value of the money paid for coordination is 25,000$. 5000$ passport issuance fees and a week in a hotel. After that, there is 20,000$ remaining. Every month, they need 400$-500$ for renting an apartment in Egypt, and need food expenses of 600$-800$. Anything you can give to help Tawfik and his family to safety is greatly appreciated. Tawfik and his family deserve to live safe and healthy lives."
If your in need of bones, a heart, etc. check out an Asian super market. the one where i live has loads of different types of bones as well as a variety of organs. you can also get stuff like that from a butcher's.
love reading old spell books/religious instructions like "pour in the blood of a person who died a violent death" okay girlie ^^ should i get that at tescos??
What's your favorite "unusual" cleansing method? (i.e., not smoke, bells/chimes, water, sun/moon light, other commonly-recommended actions)
Mine is the "time out" method. I picked it up from playing D&D where it's a common practice to put D20s in dice jail for rolling badly or "misbehaving." I genuinely find it really effective. Sometimes, a thing just needs to be set aside to settle down and go back to neutral.
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BDS added this section to their boycott page and I think people really need to read it:
please remember, pushing unorganized boycotts without carefully fact-checking every company in the list can be actively HARMFUL to the boycott movement.
[Image description: Text that reads: Many of the prohibitively long lists going viral on social media do the exact opposite of this strategic and impactful approach. They include hundreds of companies, many without credible evidence of their connection to Israel’s regime of oppression against Palestinians. Many do not have clear demands to the companies as to what we expect them to do to end the boycott, making them ineffective. \End description]
[Plain text: Please remember, pushing unorganized boycotts without carefully fact-checking every company in the list can be actively harmful to the boycott movement. \End PT]
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