#folklore witchcraft

[fool-witch]

cryptids in witchcraft

so this may be a strange and semi idiotic question but cryptids have been a big interest of mine since I was a kid and I was wondering how some cryptids can be incorporated into certain practices? if they’re real and able to be worked are cryptids (mothman, nessie, jersey devil, etc) from urban legends considered to be on the spectrum of pop culture witchcraft or even spiritwork? has anyone here ever worked with them and what are your experiences with them?

[gravemire]

💫 what death witchcraft taught me 💫

inspired by @todayinmagicalgirlhistory 's post about solar & lunar witchcraft.

👁 death is not to be feared . accepting things is a big part of life, especially death. accepting that there is death; accepting we all meet it; accepting that spirits walk among us. as someone to whom death of a loved one used to be my biggest fear... it's comforted me. knowing that the cycle is inevitable and not to be feared has immensely helped. knowing that there is something after death, of which i have proof, is a relief. plus, the thought of encountering & helping a death witch once i've passed is exciting!

👁 serenity is invaluable . i have always been a very anxious person, & that anxious energy has always consumed me. don't get me wrong, i still suffer from it & struggle. but that said... scrying / divining & communing with spirits takes a certain amount of spiritual & emotional control, as well as the ability to remain calm. it's sort of come into the rest of my life; i have noticed since really buckling down & getting involved in death witchcraft, that that calmness & coping mechanisms have helped in the daily mundane.

👁 there is beauty in all things . a few things have added to this revelation i've come to. firstly, as someone fascinated by history (it does help in the craft), reading about past beauty standards being so wildly different sort of opened my eyes. i have always had low self esteem, never cared for the way i look for a myriad of reasons. this, & becoming excited by dead flowers & herbs, moss-covered stones, twisted old trees, grubby yellow bones before they're cleaned, thick rich dirt that smells of mushrooms... things that aren't traditionally pretty, i now value above others. its easy to then apply that to me. i may not love the way i look, but now... i do like the way i look. & that's a lovely change. if i can see the beauty in a dirt-covered bone or a half-decomposed mouse, why can't i find the beauty in me?

👁 i am not alone . i am married very happily with a lovely wife, but even then my mind plays cruel tricks on me & loneliness drips in. but when i clean a gravestone & chatter away about the fall weather, & i feel something standing over me... how can i feel alone? when i know that there are spirits wandering this earth, how could i be alone? when there is always the cycle of life going on around me, from munching worms in the rich dirt, to the new stray kittens in the bushes, to the coffin under my feet, to the baby birds chirping in the nest above my head... there is so much wonder & life in this world, & i am but a small part of all of it.

death witchcraft, spiritwork, et cetera, are not for everyone. but you don't have to be afraid of the dark, & you don't have to be afraid of death. death witchcraft has saved my life, as ironic as that may sound.

[horseandhare-blog]

Konie /ˈkɔ.ɲɛ/ - Horses

In Slavic folklore, the horse is everything and nothing at all. It’s a spectre stepping out of a grave, carrying the underworld and the very concept of death on its back. It’s the pierce of lightning through bruised clouds heavy with sleet. It’s a thunderstorm, a sacrifice, a beast of divination, the wisest companion and the very concept of life itself.

Folktales of the horse are always told around the transmutable times of the year. They’re whispered during the longest night, while ember sparks float through the black of frigid, winter air. When the sun hangs in the sky for what feels like infinity, tales of the horse gallop between groups celebrating the summer solstice. Words curl around your ears during the equinoxes as the russet, bronze and ecru leaves finally fall from the trees, and as fields wake in a menagerie of life and colour. The foal is born, it lives and dies with the year, as the world turns on.

A horse will give you sage advice, bring messages from the underworld and divine from the net of fate what the future heralds and what course to take. Listen, and heed, what words it brings.

Resource 1 Resource 2

[horseandhare-blog]

Śmierć i Ptaki - Death and Birds

When I die, as people make a habit of doing, my soul will escape this heavy, cumbersome bag of bones as the bird that it veritably is. I will fly above brooks and valleys, brushed by tendrils of fog and cloud. The wind will caress my body, spilling secrets to me and I to it. I will be free in this world in ways that I have never been. In ways that until then, I will never know, never fathom, never be able to perceive.

In Slavic folklore the bird and the soul have always been interlinked, crying and keening together as one, existing as two forms of a singular entity. Death, the greatest author of change, transfigures the soul from ephemeral, intangible whisps seated deep within us to cuckoos, sparrows, nightjars and woodlarks. To swallows and pipets and waxwings and wrens. To feathered, flying, flitting things.

A song of a daughter being wed against her will, of her death and finally her return home in her final, bird, form.

Resource 1

[horseandhare-blog]

In West Slavic and Bulgarian folklore, the killing of a snake can cause it to rain

Andrew James Kier

[horseandhare-blog]

Divination - Tarot

The tarot was born to a time of famine, bloodshed and morbid obsession with death, painted for a younger brother: a man of dark hair amongst a clan of the radiant fair. 

He was sallow, quiet, superstitious and strange, only ruling Milan after his squanderous brother’s rather violent and premature demise. He was cold and ruthless in regaining what his brother had lost but always from the confines of his walls. A hermit, obsessed with the stars, however they may have looked six centuries ago. He craved their wisdom, and maybe they even ceded it to him. 

The cards were used as a contest, a game, a diversion for the shrewd and brutally intelligent. Like life, they still subjected their players to “the vagaries of chance” (1).

As the sun rose and set, as the unrelenting march of time continued, the one fact of life that can be counted on came into play: change. The meaning and practice shifted from mundane diversion to esoteric divination. Fingers cradled the future in paper form. The seers, fortune tellers and diviners turned to augur with card and image, to untangle choices, burdens and desires. The Tarot as we know it was somehow, along the way, born. 

1. Farley H. A Cultural History of Tarot : From Entertainment to Esotericism. London: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited; 2009.