#nigel pennick

[vargamormusings]

Don't support the union? Get wrecked.

[haremask]

An account from Knowle Hill, Somerset in 1894 tells how a young woman who was behaving strangely. Her brother visited a man “who was a real witch” who told him that she had been overlooked by the evil eye of a neighbour. He told the brother to go to a blacksmith and buy a new nail, and not to let the nail out of his hand until he saw the neighbour “make a track”; then he was to get the nail and hammer it into his footprint to “nail down his track”. He did so, and the man then developed a limp, and the sister went back to normal. When the man died, a mark was found on the sole of his foot where the track had been nailed (Elworthy 1895, 84-85). Perhaps as a counter-measure against this magical practice, bootmakers made protective patterns of hobnails on the soles of boots. The most common patterns were the heart, the cross, the quincunx and the tau cross.

Nigel Pennick, Operative Witchcraft

[unfetteredwood]

Pyewacket played by Russell Paddon & Nigel Pennick {yes, the same one who is an author}

[haremask]

Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), otherwise known as green ginger or wormseed, is a source of the glucoside absinthin, used to flavour absinthe, ‘the Green Fairy’, a drink much favoured by artists and writers. In his July’s Husbandry (1577) Thomas Tusser wrote, “While Wormwood hath seed to get a handful or twaine To save against March, to make flea to refraine; Where chamber is sweeped and Wormwood is strowne, What saver the better (if Physick be true) For places infected than Wormwood and Rue? It is a comfort for hart and the braine And therefore to have it is not in vaine” The active component of wormwood, absinthin, is an emetic hallucinogen. Habitual use of absinthe affects one’s visual colour perception, emphasising yellow, which often predominates in the work of artists who favour the drink. It was very popular amongst artists and writers in the Symbolist period towards the end of the nineteenth century. In its use to drive away fleas, it is associated with Foe-ing Out Day, March 1, the traditional day of spring cleaning, when patterns are chalked upon the threshhold to ward off vermin and evil sprites. Wormwood was said to counteract the effects of poisoning by toadstools, hemlock and being bitten by a sea-dragon (Grieve 1931, 858). It was also used on St Luke’s Day as a love-charm in combination with marigold, marjoram sand thyme.

Nigel Pennick, Operative Witchcraft

[haremask]

The numerical magic square that, taken each way, adds to 72 in each line: 28 35 2 76 3 32 31 34 29 8 1 4 5 30 33 is, according to Elworthy, “a veritable amulet, and if your enemy’s name be written underneath it, and you wear this as a charm, his envy will be baffled and his eye will be powerless against you"

Nigel Pennick, Operative Witchcraft

[haremask]

Catmint (Nepeta cataria), catnep or catnip ‘tea’ was prepared as an infusion for drinking in the era before the importation of tea began, “quite as pleasant and a good deal more wholesome”. It should be infused, boiling will drive off its volatile active components. “The root when chewed is said to make the most gentle person quarrelsome, and there is a legend of a certain hangman who could never screw up his courage to the point of hanging anybody till he had partaken of it”

Nigel Pennick, Operative Witchcraft

[haremask]

The greater periwinkle (Vinca major), otherwisevknown as parwynke and sorcerer’s violet, is an astringent and tonic that was used to ward off all kinds of sickness, especially bleeding and the cramp, and was used as aphrodisiac. The active ingredient lowers the blood pressure, which in large doses can be extremely harmful, but country practitioners found it useful in cases of haemorrhage. Magically, it was used to ward off serious afflictions, and there was a ritual for collecting parwynke. Ritual taking of herbs was once an integral part of herbalism, but, like the rites once associated with cutting divining rods, now ignored by dowsers, official medicine dispensed with the rituals when the chemical-pharmaceutical world-view overtook the old magical one. Apuleius’s Herbarium of 1480 tells us “This wort is good of advantage for many purposes, that is to say, first against devil sickness and demoniacal possessions and against snakes and wild beasts and against poisons and for various wishes and for envy and for terror and that thou mayst have grace, and if thou hast the wort with thee thou shalt be prosperous and ever acceptable. This wort shalt though pluck thus, saying, “I pray thee vinca pervinca, thee that art to be had for many useful qualities, that though come to me glad blossming with they mainfulness, that thou outfit me so that I be shielded and ever prosperous and undamaged by poisons and by water”; when thou shalt pluck this wort, though shalt be clean of any uncleanness, and thou shalt pick it when the moon is nine nights old and eleven nights and thirteen nights and thirty nights and when it is one night old”.

Nigel Pennick, Operative Magic

[haremask]

"On St Luke’s Day, take marigold flowers, a sprig of marjoram, thyme and a little wormwood; dry them before a fire, rub them to powder; then sift it through a fine piece of lawn, and simmer it over a slow fire, adding a small quantity of virgin honey, and vinegar. Anoint yourself with this when you go to bed, saying the following lines three times, and you will dream of your partner “that is to be”: St Luke, St Luke, be kind to me,In dreams let me my true-love see.

Nigel Pennick, Operative Witchcraft

(pro tip for americans: when the author says marigold here, he almost certainly means calendula (pic), not tagetes (pic), which is the garden flower commonly called marigold)