#witch language

Verbal inflection for Inha verbs actually wasn't anything very special. There were four tenses and the imperative. The four tenses had different conjugations for element, but the imperative was invariant. Here's a summary:

PRESENT

Fire: -iis

Stone: -(i)nis

Wind: -(i)his

Water: -aias

PAST

Fire: -iu

Stone: -(n)un

Wind: -(u)hu

Water: -aua

FUTURE

Fire: -iar

Stone: -(a)nar

Wind: -(a)har

Water: -aar

GNOMIC

Fire: -eish

Stone: -(e)nesh

Wind: -(e)hesh

Water: -eash

IMPERATIVE

-(s)ó

Recall that the accent mark was used to indicate irregular stress.

Shakespearian Witchcraft - Old World Plants

We’ve all heard the famous spell from Macbeth, and while some of you may know it’s meaning for the ingredients, most may not!

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and caldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the caldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,

Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and caldron bubble.

Cool it with a baboon's blood,

Then the charm is firm and good.

If you go through each ingredient, you can find out what the spell ingredients actually are:

Fillet if Fenny Snake: fillet (slice of) Bistort (snake) found in the fens (marshlands in eastern England)

Eye of newt: Wild/black mustard (newt) seeds (eyes of)

Toe of frog: leaves (toes) of Bulbous Buttercup (frog)

Wool of bat/bat’s wool: moss

Tongue of dog/dog’s tongue: Hounds tongue plant/cynoglossum officinalae

Adder’s Fork: Adder’s tongue plant

Blindworm’s sting: worms are stringy roots of a local tree, and blind means the first tree you come across that has thorns. So either the thorns, or the roots of a local thorned tree.

Lizard’s leg: this one I don’t have a set answer for. Lizard leg could be leaves of the breastweed plant, or the leaves of calumniate (though I can’t find calumniate herb.)

Howlet’s Wing: howlet means either owl, or noisy dirty person. So this could mean a branch from the house of said person, or something else like juniper branch.

Baboon’s Blood: I couldn’t figure out baboon, but blood is usually a tree resin like from elder tree, and since it’s used to cook the tree, birch water/sap was the first to come to mind

Now some of you may be wondering “what the hell? Where the hell did you find those names?” And the answer is [http://www .tryskelion.com/herbs_old_world_names_for_herbs. html ] (Edited due to tumblr change to links in posts 11.19.18) It’s a handy website that lists plants alphabetically by their folk/witch name and the actual plant next to it.

It also has this handy table for parts of plants^

So if you’re witchy and you know it, clap your hands, and try your hand at translating a spell of yours into an old world recipe.

🦇Cheers, Barberwitch

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