Tooth and Nail

GRIN | 34 | she/her | witch | Cernunnos devotee

[grin-the-farouche]

House Hunter Powder

• Salt

• Ground coffee

• Tobacco

• Cinnamon

• Vanilla bean

• Bay leaf

• Garlic paper

• Coreopsis

• Black-eyed susan

• Red Clover

Grind all ingredients together with a mortar and pestle. Use in spell bottles or as a sprinkle to help secure your perfect dwelling.

For extra strength, add clippings from your own hair, but take care when magically tying yourself to a location. Have a plan in place to sever that tie if necessary.

Other excellent additions are lilac and ginseng.

[grin-the-farouche]

[satsuti]

i think it’s important to understand, while working with the Otherworld, that everything that looks off-putting, scary, or even disgusting (in our eyes) isn’t necessarily evil or bad. just think of brownies or hobgoblins for example, they are said to look very strange and ugly but are still very helpful to humans if treated right.

in fact, countless stories warn us of those who’d appear as beautiful, fair and seductive because they are the most dangerous. think about it; why would a spirit without a real physical form want to appear attractive to human standards? what’s the benfit? it’s because they want something and sometimes that thing is to eat you. this can be worth keeping in mind.

[witchescollection]

in criticism of #witchblr being predominantly beginner guides (of which i am a little guilty), here's a little thread of some more advanced witchcraft ideas i've picked up.

if you can't access any of these links lmk!

please reblog with your own! and add links or book recs if you have any.

the passage of time

learn chronokinesis (x)

different philosophical theories of time (x)

pagan ideas of time (x) and nature's time (x)

the spirituality of time (x)

critical understandings of myth

defining myth (x)

modern constructions of myth (x)

what happened to myth? (x)

modern media myth (x)

modern myths and design (x)

american myth and nationalism (x)

british myth and nationalism (x)

european non-classical myth (x)

criticisms of paganism

*these are a collection of criticisms that i found interesting, and worth reflecting on. contrary to what tumblr thinks, there are negatives for (neo)paganism, and blind spots. being aware of them is useful.

is it giving ancient pagans a bad name? (x)

is it a nature religion? (x)

is it theist? (x)

does it allow space for grooming and sexualisation? (x) *note, original essay is no longer accessible, but i think the comments do a decent job explaining.

is it authentic? (x)

is there a secret global neo-pagan movement? (x) *note, probably not, but this article still offers some interesting criticisms despite being a bit... kooky?

what even is paganism? (x)

[a-page-of-cups-tarot]

Girly pop.... you just gave me so much reading to do and I'm so glad. Some of this stuff has a lot to do with what I'm currently working on in my own practice too so this is perfect!

[grin-the-farouche]

Hi there! Are you in the Knoxville, TN area? Are you free this coming Sunday? Would you like to learn how to craft your own magical sigils? If so, you’re in luck! I’m leading a sigil crafting workshop at Black Cat Folk Magic. I’ll be giving an overview of the history of modern sigils, how they can be created and used, as well as tips and tricks I’ve learned in my 10+ years of practicing sigil magic. Spots are $15 with limited space, so be sure to register soon! Hope to see you there! 🖤

[schuylerpeck]

schuylerpeck / instagram: hiitssky

[gendercents]

[Image description: a poem titled Maybe If I Rip A Few Things Apart With My Teeth, I’ll Feel Better. It’s by Schuyler Peck. The title is in all caps, and the poem is in all lowercase. The poem reads:

to snarl and gnaw, bite and bark from the back of my throat; claw with the grip of all ten fingers.

I dress the altar with offerings, a pomegranate, the crusted rind of sourdough, a lover’s bloodied shoulder; take every book in the house by either side of its jaw, and crack the knuckle of its binding,

but oh, I am nothing if not insatiable.

won’t you trust me? my canted smile in the dark, my promise to protect what’s precious. yes, what sparkling porcelain; what clean white walls. how thick are the windows? how close are the neighbors? hand me your tender. I’m craving to ruin.

End description.]

[grin-the-farouche]

This afternoon, my 2.5 year old daughter ran up to me and said, “Want to do magic, Mama!” (A proud moment for me, naturally!)

We’ve made a spell bottle together once before, so I asked if that’s what she wanted to do and she said, “yes yes yes!” So I let her have creative control on this one. I gave her some options for intentions (luck, happiness, safety, etc.) and she settled soundly on Good Dreams.

She picked out a little bottle and I gathered up some ingredients, all of which were subject to her approval. We ended up with jasmine petals, lavender, mugwort, sea salt, eggshell powder, clear quartz, and rock crystal sugar. She instructed me on what order to add everything, then I had her say some positive things into the bottle before we closed it up (“I LOVE YOU!! GOODNIGHT!!”). She picked out a pink candle for the wax dripping, then helped me focus positive energy around the whole thing. (I told her to think about good dreams while I used my pendulum over the bottle, and she said “okay!” very seriously.)

Now she has her very own Good Dreams spell bottle in her bedroom window! 🌙🌟

Not to get sappy, but wow this is exactly the sort of thing I daydreamed about when I thought about motherhood. 🥹💕

[breelandwalker]

Recipe Roundup in Review

In years past, I posted a two-month series of recipes suitable for the autumn season, which everyone seemed to enjoy very much. I’ve been too busy this year to make up a new queue, so I thought I’d compile a big long list of links for anyone who’s looking for recipe ideas this fall.

Update: I’ve posted more recipes since the original roundup and I’ve added those additional links to the list below. I’ve also done my best to mark which ones are vegetarian (🌿) or could be easily altered to be so. (Some could also be altered for a vegan diet using egg, milk, or butter substitutes.) Recipes which may include alcohol as an ingredient are also marked (🍷).

Some are fall-themed, others are for more wintry occasions. But all are designed to make the most of the season and keep our hearts and bellies full as we face the coming cold. Enjoy!

Appetizers, Sides, & Snacks

A Pair of Stuffing Recipes 🌿

Asparagus Salad 🌿

Baked Apples 🌿

Beets with Cloves and Cinnamon 🌿

Bree’s Cheddar-Garlic Mashed Potatoes 🌿

Bree’s Homemade Colcannon 🌿

Carrot Fritters 🌿

Cheese & Bacon Pinwheels

Cheese Toasties 🌿

Cranberry-Orange Sauce 🌿

Fish Cakes

Irish Stout Apple Fritters 🌿🍷

Oatmeal & Potato Bread 🌿

Parsnip & Apples 🌿

Pumpkin Seeds 🌿

Sprouts au Gratin 🌿

Soups

Butternut Squash and Pear Pottage 🌿

Cheese Soup & Dumplings 🌿

Chestnut Soup 🌿

Garlic Soup 🌿

Gingered Pumpkin Soup with Molasses Cream 🌿

King’s Arms Tavern Cream of Peanut Soup 🌿

Mashed Potato Soup 🌿

Mushroom Soup 🌿

Entrees

Acorn Squash with Cinnamon and Honey 🌿

Bree’s Baked Ziti

Bree’s Cream-of-Mushroom Chicken with Rosemary

Bree’s Crockpot/One-pot Chili 🍷

Bree’s Fried Chicken Parmesan

Bree’s Honey Baked Salmon

Bree’s Lemon Chicken Lentil Stew  🍷 🌿

Bree’s Poppy Seed Chicken Casserole 🍷

Bree’s Roast Chicken with Apples and Potatoes 🍷

Bree’s Sesame Ginger Chicken

Bree’s Turkey Hash Casserole

Dill-Crusted Salmon

Irish Stew 🍷

Meat Patties in Crust

Michaelmas Goose with Sage & Onion Stuffing 🍷

Pan Haggerty

Pumpkin Plenty 🌿

Roast Pork Tenderloin with Orange & Onion Sauce

Rosemary-Orange Beef

Savory Yuletide Pie 🌿

Spiced Pot Roast 🍷

Stuffed Acorn Squash 🌿

Stuffed Braised Beef

Surry Sausage, Squash, & Apple Bake with Savory Streusel Topping

Xanodrian Beef Stew 🍷

Welsh Potato Pie 🌿

Welsh Trout in Bacon

Baked Goods

Applesauce Buttermilk Biscuits 🌿

Barm Brack 🌿

Beer-Bacon-Onion Muffins

Caerphilly Scones 🌿

Christiana Campbell’s Tavern Sweet Potato Muffins 🌿

Drop Scones 🌿

Gingered Pumpkin Muffins 🌿

King’s Arms Tavern Apple Cheddar Muffins 🌿

Tea Table Goodies

Apple & Potato Cake 🌿

Apple Raisin Cider Teabread 🌿

Bree’s Cranberry Pumpkin Bread 🌿

Faerie Cakes 🌿

Irish Apple Cake 🌿

Irish Apple Teabread 🌿

Irish Whiskey Cake 🌿🍷

Isle of Wight Farmhouse Cake 

Marmalade Loaf 🌿

Porter Cake 🌿🍷

Seed Cake 🌿

Shortbread 🌿

Welsh Crumpets 🌿

Desserts

Apple Fritters 🌿

Baked Apples 🌿

Bramble Dessert 🌿

Bree’s Easy-Peasy Molten Chocolate Cake 🌿

Bree’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Chocolate Liquer Glaze 🌿🍷

Chranachan 🌿

Christmas Plum Pudding 

Beverages, Jams, and Sauces

Eggnog 🍷

Hot Buttered Rum 🌿🍷

Mulled Cider 🌿🍷

Samhain Wine Cup 🌿🍷

Wassail 🌿🍷

Blackberry & Apple Jam 🌿

Irish Whiskey Marmalade 🌿🍷

Bree’s Dad’s Sauce Recipes 🍷

Delectable Dressings 🌿

Sources

Celtic Folklore Cooking (Asala)

A Kitchen Witch’s Cookbook (Telesco)

A Witch’s Brew (Telesco)

Kitchen WItch’s Guide to Brews and Potions (Telesco)

The Kitchen Witch (Soraya)

Witch in the Kitchen (Johnson)

The Colonial Williamsburg Tavern Cookbook (Gonzalez)

Favorite Meals from Williamsburg (Turgeon)

Holiday Fare: Favorite Williamsburg Meals (Gonzalez)

The Very Best of Irish Traditional Cooking (Lennon and Campbell)

An Irish Country Cookbook (Taylor)

And of course, a selection of family recipes, shared with all of you for the joy of the season.

Happy Cooking!

Image Credit

[elodieunderglass]

there are actually many evidence-based gods, but they’re moments not entities. we are too used to everything being material or spiritual and too unused to capturing the temporal, which why it’s so difficult to notice them. however everyone bears witness to their presence.

for example one god is when the garlic and ginger hit the frying pan.

[fixomnia-scribble]

Oh.

OH.

[elodieunderglass]

Yes! We don’t all believe in their beliefs but we’ve met that guy

[secondbeatsongs]

just realized that if kids today trying to do witchcraft at sleepovers go online to look for love spells or curses or w/e, they're just gonna find 1000000 listicles about crystal healing and essential oils plastered with AI-generated cottagecore pictures instead of—the way the gods intended—neon purple-pink geocities pages with tiled star backgrounds covered in near-unreadable gothic text and enough blinkies to blind the average man

tragic, honestly. we're failing our children

[breelandwalker]

Witch Tip For The Day - Small Magics

Once you advance beyond the basics (pretty much when you start moving from What and When to How and Why and feel a decreased need for peer review alongside a greater trust in your own judgment), a goodly part of your witchcraft will be made up of things that you will never be able to explain to other people. Little personal rituals, intuitive understandings, flashes of insight, spur-of-the-moment spells, the use of unorthodox items and components that suit your needs and purposes.

You will find ways of working and feeling and connecting and casting that will be unique to you and your life experience. And you may not feel much like sharing the finer details. If you had to write it all out, it probably either wouldn't make much sense to anyone but you or it would be difficult to put into words. Many things will boil down to, "I just do the thing because of reasons."

You'll also find that a great deal of your craft will be made up of small magics that you do reflexively or out of habit or when the opportunity arises, as opposed to large-scale highly intricate castings which require lots of planning and preparation. And in a broader sense, without getting into the whether-to's and the why-for's of various traditions, that is how it should be.

Everyday personal magic is just as important to know and understand and practice as any full moon ritual or choreographed group casting. Because those small magics will be the heart of what makes your craft yours.

It does not particularly matter if your spells are powerful. What matters is that they are EFFECTIVE.

Happy Witching!

[grin-the-farouche]

Witchy Jewelry from Duskhopper Art

[breelandwalker]

Witchcraft Exercises

Just a quick compilation of the posts I've made about exercises to help improve your craft. These can be used as journaling prompts, inspiration for activities, or as methods for pulling yourself out of a slump and recharging your witchy inspiration.

Witchcraft Exercise - Quantifying Your Craft

Witchcraft Exercise - Dig Through The Ditches

Witchcraft Exercise - The Book of Lessons

Witchcraft Exercise - Home Brews

Witchcraft Exercise - Witchy Inspo Journal

Witchcraft Exercise - Spring Cleaning

Witchcraft Exercise - Creating Correspondences

Witchcraft Exercise - Creating Your Own Runes

Witchcraft Exercise - How to Write Your Own Spells

Witchcraft Exercise - Shakespearean Witchcraft

Witchcraft Exercise - Music To Witch By

Related Prompt - Music to Witch By

Witchcraft Exercise - Annual Review

Most of these are also available in the May 2021 bonus episode of Hex Positive (check your favorite podcatcher).

Happy Witching!

(If you’re enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar, tune in to my monthly show Hex Positive on your favorite podcast app, or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊)

[workingonwitchcraft]

reblog if you are a witch and you are tired

[ioqayin]

A Call to the Faery Hounds

A hunting horn is sounded three times in the direction of the North. 

I call up the Faery Hounds, the Cu Sith, the Grims, the Hellhounds of the North! Black Dogs who are the hunters of our Lady of the Nightways,  Come forth now upon a wind, upon the ground, from deep below the earth. By horn and horned hand, I call you forth!  Great Queen of the Void, send forth your hounds! Send them now to guard and protect the Water Protectors,  Send them now keep their children safe, as you did in Somerset,  Send them now too watch over their cars and horses.  And send them, too, against those who oppress the Land.  Send them against the militarized police,  Send them against their guns, and vehicles, and oil, and death,  Send them against the Black Snake which would destroy the World.  O, Black Furious Hounds of Hell,  I call you now against those oppressors,  Bite and snatch, claw and growl, stalk and hunt them down.  Silent as shadows you move through the moonlight,  Nary a sound you make as you creep close to your prey,  Their souls shall shiver and flee from their bodies.  By horn and horned hand, I deem it so! I SEND YOU FORTH BY WITCH’S RITE!  GO YOU FORTH, YOU HOUNDS OF HELL!  GO YOU FORTH INTO THE NIGHT!  KA! KA! KA!

A ferocious dance begins. A clawing, biting, bristling, howling dance. Run, run, run! Into the wilds of the night you run. Eyes of fire, with ears of white and ears of red, to eat the souls of the oppressors of the this Land. GO!  

[ioqayin]

Might be time to bring this back against ICE members to protect the children of immigrants.

[spiralthorn]

One can call the hounds to patrol and protect a space, but they can also be called to rend your enemies to the bone. 

[grin-the-farouche]

midsummer 2025: an effigy to carry away that which no longer served us

[sailermoon]

huge shout out to this little kid for writing my favorite poem