Traditional Witchcraft a Cornish Book of Ways

248 Pages·2008·17.268 MB·English

by  Gemma Gary

TRADITIONAL
WITCHCRAFT
Л Q>rtiish Ъоо1^о/Wiys
Gemma Gary
TRADITIONAL
WITCHCRAFT
by
Gemma Gary
with line illustrations by
the author and photography
by Jane Cox
© 2008 Gemma Gary
The Paperback Editions:
First Edition first printed October 2008
Revised Second Edition first printed November 2011
Revised Second Edition with new preface first printed August 2015
ISBN 978-0-9561043-4-2
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored within a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of the author and the publisher.
Any practices or substances within this publication are presented as items
of interest. The author and the publisher accept no
responsibility for any results arising from their enactment or use.
Readers are self responsible for their actions.
Published by Troy Books
www.troybooks.co.uk
Troy Books Publishing
BM Box 8003
London WC1N 3XX
A cknow ledgem ents
With grateful thanks to;
Jane Cox, Christine Gary,JackDaw, Jo Maquettes, Graham
Kang and the team at the Museum of Witchcraft, Steve
Patterson, Nigel Pearson, Michael Howard, Martin Duffy,
Kelvin I. Jones, Mardn Cleaver, and the work of Cecil H.
Williamson.
With acknowledgement also to those who have walked
the Ways with me, but would prefer not to be named.
C ontents
Preface 11
Introduction 17
The Cunning Path 35
The Dead and the Otherworld 43
The Bucca 50
Places of Power 61
The Tools of Cunning 73
The Witches’ Compass 93
The Hearthside Kite 98
The Compass Kite 100
The Troyl Hood 106
Л Kitual of Closing 107
The Trade 111
The Hand of the Wise 115
Planetary Virtues 116
Magical Substances 119
Charm Bags 129
Workings of Protection 132
Workings of Healing 139
Workings of Hove 144
Workings of Good Fortune 147
Workings of Spirit Magic 148
Workings of the Weather 157
Versatile Ways 158
Kites of the Moon 165
The Furry Nights 171
Candlemas 172
May’s Eve 175
Go Iowan 180
Guldisy 185
Allan tide 188
Montol 193
Initiations on the Cunning Way 199
A Rite of Dedication 204
Glossary 210
Bibliography 215
Index 218
List of Line Illustrations and Figures
by the Author
Tammy В lee 16
Boskenna Cross 34
Spirit House in the Landscape 42
The Bucca Dark and Fair 50
Where A ll Conjoin 60
Pellar Tools 72
The Compass Found 92
Witch Charms 110
The Hand of the Wise 114
Planetary Squares 130, 131
Written Protection Charm 132
Written Healing Charm 140
Written Love Charm 145
Witch Mirror 156
The Moon and Troy Stone 164
Obsidian Moon stone 169
The Furry Nights 170
The Nine Knots and Thirteen Witch’s Points 198
List of Photographs
By Jane Cox
Between Pages 48 and 49
1 The home of Tammy В lee, 56 Coinagehall St, He Is ton.
2 Granny Boswell - image courtesy of the Museum of
Witchcraft
3 Museum of Witchcraft Wise-woman tableaux
4 The Rocky Valley, North Cornwall
5 The Rocky Valley Labyrinths
6 Chun Quoit
7 The Merry Maidens stone Circle
8 Skull used to represent the Bucca in outdoor rites
9 Bucca figure carved by Bel Bucca
10 The author’s hearth
11 Cam Euny Fogou passage
12 Alsia Holy Well, near St Bury an
13 Boscawen Un stone circle
14 ‘Birthing’ at the Men-an tol
Between Pages 96 and 97
15 Threshing fork and working staves
16 Spirit whip and hook wand
17 Mysterious goat headed knife
18 Wise-woman knives in the Museum of Witchcraft
19 Wind roarer, sweeping tools, switch and ‘witch’s whisk’
20 Working stones
21 Snake vertebrae and garnet witch necklace
22 Лп indoor altar and working surface
23 The author lighting the switch
24 The author drawing the spirits in by use of the switch
25 The stone, bone, staff and flame
26 The skull
Between Pages 144 and 145
27 The author working at her hearth
28, 29, and 30 The author working in the circle
31 and 32, Л collection of household charms
33 The contents of a protective witch-bottle
34 Mnimal bone and chain charms
35 Л charm bag
36 The ‘witch’s lump figure’ in the Museum of Witchcraft
37 Tead body parts for ‘stroking magic’
38 Snake skin and box for healing
39 House dolls on the hearth
40 Mandrake in coffin-box
Between Pages 192 and 193
41 Л very fine thread-work spirit house
42 Mntler tine ‘prickers’ for weather magic
43 The author working candle and pin magic
44 Л ‘Get-Tost-Box’ in the Museum of Witchcraft
45 Л mirror bottomed copper basin - Museum of
Witchcraft
46 Padstow ‘Old’ or ‘Red’ ‘Obby ‘Oss
47 Л midsummer fire - Madron
48 The Penzance Guldi^e Neck
49 Crying the Neck - Madron
50 The nine knotted cord
The human skull is the symbol of death. For the witch
death holds a strange fascination. Each and every one of
us is born to die, but is death a final end to life? The witch
says no. For she knows that: “there are other places and
other things”. Her whole life and being is devoted to the
ever present but unseen world of spirit. To the witch the
spirit world is a reality, a living thing. To her everything
has a spirit, a soul, a personality, be it animal, mineral,
vegetable. That is why to us in the south west we know
and believe in the little people, oh,you may laugh, my fine
up countryfolk, but beware for indeedyou are in the land
where ghoulies and ghosties, and long legged beasties still
romp, stomp and go bump in the night. Come, let us show
you what the witches and their spirits do...’
Cecil H. Williamson 1909 — 1999
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2014 Preface
IN 2008, ‘Traditional Witchcraft Л Cornish Book of Ways'
first became manifest as a small paperback, each copy
individually printed and hand bound by Jane Cox in our
little home in the West of Cornwall. My intentions for the
book back then were simply to place copies in a few local
shops, and to make it available online, in the hopes of stirring
a little interest locally in ‘modern traditional witchcraft’ with
a Cornish slant, or even discovering and making contact
with other traditional witches in the area. Believing that such
interests might possibly be found within the local pagan
community, the book was written, as far as possible, with a
neo-pagan audience in mind.
However, I quickly grew out of my naive enthusiasm to
uncover plenty of traditional witches on my doorstep and
began to accept that such a thing is a rarity. Whilst a few copies
were sold locally, we were amazed to find the book taken up
enthusiastically far and wide to the point that thousands of
copies have now gone out to many parts of the world.
Of course, the home binding of the books became an
impossibility; the printing and binding was outsourced and a
revised edition produced in paperback and hardback.
So what exactly is this little book about that has gone to
so many far-flung places and where does its content come
from?
My own experiences of the Craft began as a solitary,
instinctual and self motivated affair. I dove headfirst at an
early age into the reading, and practice, of all things witchcraft
and folk-magical, absorbing all I could from as much time as
I could spend in school and later college libraries rather than
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Traditional Witchcraft — Л Cornish book of Ways
getting any ‘proper’ work done! It felt natural to explore the
folklore and magic of Cornwall, to adapt and incorporate
these into my practice and ponderings in the West Cornish
landscape. Brief involvement within Gardnerian and
Alexandrian covens proved valuable, yet not entirely my ‘cup
of tea’ and it was not until entering into correspondence and
friendship with certain witches outside of Cornwall that I
discovered the existence of ‘traditional witchcraft’, allowing
me to realise that there were others practicing in a similar
way. This was to be most dramatically illustrated to me when
a friendship began with JackDaw, whose Craft, built upon
a magical inheritance from his Devonshire Grandmother,
tallied with my own so uncannily in a number of ways.
It was around the time of this important contact that
I became aware of the existence of a loose network of
individuals and a couple of small groups in West Cornwall,
most, if not all, it now seems had some connection or
lineage, initiatory or experiential, to what claimed to
be an ‘Old Craft’ tradition that arrived at some point
in Cornwall, rather circuitously, from another area of
England. Interestingly, this lineage, into which I was also
to be initiated, seems to have had a habit of identifying
local god forms and loci of power to incorporate into
its ways. The witches I encountered and worked with
in West Cornwall revered the Bucca and incorporated
Cornish folklore into their rites, and Cornish Charms
and magic into the operative side of their Craft. It is the
friendship, group working and initiatory experience with
the West Cornwall witches, the formation of my own
working group and my own early and ongoing personal
Craft practice which all coalesced to give rise to the ideas
presented within this book.
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