#grannywitch

I feel like while there's much nuance to this question, it's a valid one. Truth be told, there's much overlap between a hedge witch and other witch types. So the best I can offer is my own personal experience with this term and why I choose to wear it. In simplest of terms, hedge witches are the witches who connect the skeptical or "civilized" to the wild and unknown. In olden times, this typically manifested as the old woman who lived "on the hedge" of the forest who brewed potions for the sick when the doctor was out of town and would be for a while. Or to come run off bad spirits from someone's house when the priest wasn't available.

The traditions of a hedge witch often involve having broad knowledge of folklore and botany or herbology. Having to know offhand what spirit might have been plaguing the town and how to get rid of it had it's uses, as did having just the remedy for soothing a sore throat. They also tended to be the midwives of the village or the one who taught the up and coming midwives. They also were the ones seen having the deepest connection with the dead.

Throughout history, witches like the ones described above were cast aside as the crazy ones. The ones who had no place in society. My grandmother herself being one of them. People saw her rantings of blue ceilings to confuse malevolent spirits as crazy and covered mirrors to protect wandering souls from being trapped as old folktales. But as someone with clairaudience who could hear spirits whispering to them at night, most of her advice has stuck with me well into adulthood.

I always knew I was a witch. It wasn't until my early teenage years did I really take that fact seriously. Not because I didn't want to, but because being a young AFAB person in a pentecostal household I didn't have much choice. "Psychics are false prophets and ghosts are the devil's work". Any questions about my gifts were quickly shut down. I always found it ironic that despite all the things that are arguably extremely witchy in pentecostal culture, they always tended to be the most skeptical when it came to mediums and the like.

As for what "my gifts" entailed: growing up my grandfather who died when I was a year old would speak to me and comb his fingers through my hair. When I closed my eyes I could clearly visualize what he was doing and how he smelled and how he felt on an emotional and energetic level. I always had a green thumb, something I inherited from my grandmother, who could make roses bloom in the dead of winter. Animals who otherwise had a disdain for the people around them climbed into my lap and demanded I adore them at once. I can take one look at a person and know if the demeanor they have is genuine and benevolent or false and malevolent. I've stepped into houses and know details of the history that I had no way of knowing.

But what led me into the type of work I'm most comfortable with, divination, is that I often have dreams that come true and I've always had a knack for dream interpretation. Research into these things led into me learning about astrology, and learning about astrology led into me learning about cartomancy. It took me a while to get my hands on my first deck of tarot cards, and took me even longer to learn the common interpretations(and if I'm honest, despite years of practice I don't have them memorized, I use a cheat sheet and intuition). But once I got the basics down, it became my favorite way to connect to the craft. Communicating with spirits and entities became easier (despite my gifts, it's good to have confirmation from various sources), and confidence in myself as a practitioner increased tenfold.

I've also had a general love for folklore all my life. From a young age, I would learn about the various ghost tales of the county I live in and had a book about the cryptids that lived in Kentucky. It often got me odd looks growing up and it was looked down upon within the church but I didn't care. And I've always had an adoration for plants that arguable rivaled my adoration for animals.

In my late teen years, I discovered my grandmother had been teaching me a type of granny magic: an Appalachian folk tradition passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. I've been studying this version of the craft very closely ever since and discovered that it is one of the many hedge witch traditions that have lasted through time. Obviously, I have arrays of other types of magick under my belt: green magick, baneful magick, protection magick, love magick, necromancy, energy work, just to name a few. But I find the magick that you can incorporate into the mundane to more often than not be the most useful to me. Obviously I do rituals here and there. But not nearly as often as one might think.

I got some peaches coming in!

So for Beltane I made sure to spend my morning sipping coffee barefoot in grass, cleaned my living space, and spent the evening watching Mary and the Witch's Flower (for the first time) with my daughter. All in all i was rather pleased with my day.