The book of forgotten wi.., p.19
The Book of Forgotten Witches, page 19
We left the inn and set off back toward the forest. We were already at the edge before I realized that Erna was no longer with us. I looked back at the candlelight gleaming in the window of her hut and longed to return there but the rooster stopped me.
“Bunny, your home is the meadow. You have now learned everything you needed to. Go and reclaim what’s yours. Erna still has a lot to do among the stone-dwellers but you can be sure that she’ll always keep an eye on you and the other animals.”
I gazed sadly at the hut shining in the moonlight where I had so many fond memories but he was right. Spending the day with the forest-dwellers made me want to discover my true home. Excitedly, I ran toward the meadow covered with blue eryngos, eager to meet my own kind – and find out if we had ever been able to jump over the moon.
YOU HAVE NOW MET MANY of the most important practitioners of witchcraft – if I still had a heart, I would say I am proud of you. But do not become overconfident, for the last chapter is still to come! Before I let you back into the night, we cannot avoid speaking of the goddess, too. Yes, soon we will discuss Hecate, whose one face looks toward the past, second watches over the present and whose third gazes into the future. But let us start at the beginning, with Time.
Cronus was sitting careworn on his blood-soaked throne and threw the last bit of the infant into his mouth. In his mind, Gaea’s prophecy haunted him: his own children would be his downfall. He had therefore torn away all the newborn babies from his wife Rhea’s breast and eaten them to avoid his fate. This is how Cronus became the ruler of life, death and all-consuming Time, until Zeus, his youngest son, was born. His mother managed to hide him from his father’s bloodthirsty iron teeth and so Gaea’s prophecy was fulfilled – the tyrant was indeed overthrown by his own son.
However, with time, Zeus became just as much of a tyrant as his father and the cycle started anew. Are we also doomed to repeat our mistakes forever? We certainly are, as long as we are defined by the guilt we feel over the past and our worries for the future, rather than living in the eternal present moment.
Let’s see what we can learn from the fate-turners who feature in the tenth and final chapter!
Völvas
TYPE witch, shaman
AREA Scandinavia, Central Europe (Germanic people)
POWERS telling the future, sorcery
TALE Women who held magic powers were not always outcasts from society. In Viking communities they held important and much-respected positions, not only in spiritual roles such as seers or shamans, but also as ambassadors, army leaders or counsellors. These witches were familiar with ancient mysteries and used wands and magic sounds in a rite called seiðr, sometimes aided by hallucinogens and aphrodisiacs. These allowed them to move between this world and the otherworld, so that they could convey prophecies or influence events. Almost all völvas were women and often they travelled from village to village to help people.
Drabardi
TYPE fortune-teller
AREA Europe
POWERS cartomancy, scrying, palmistry, tasseography
TALE The Roma people were wandering nomads for many centuries, skilled in many special and useful trades. They were goldsmiths, tinkers, musicians, blacksmiths, entertainers with dancing bears, cowbell-makers and traders, among many other professions. Many women practised fortune-telling or cartomancy and were known as drabardi.
The human mind, when deprived of its intuition, always seeks knowledge to get control of the uncertain future, and therefore fortune-tellers have always been extremely popular, even though the Christian Church frowns upon such magic. Will Jack marry me? Am I in danger from someone lurking in the dark? Will we finally have a child? All these questions can be answered by consulting the tea leaves at the bottom of a cup, the cards or the lines weaving through one’s palm. And who knows? Maybe a person’s belief in a prophecy strengthens it so much that it eventually comes true more often than we think.
Queen Grimhild
TYPE witch
AREA Iceland and Burgundy
POWERS curses, poisons and potions that make people forget
TALE The Icelandic Völsunga saga writes that Queen Grimhild has a daughter called Gudrun, who wants to marry Sigurd, the great warrior, but he is already married to Brünhild. However, this does not deter Grimhild, who gets Sigurd to drink a magic potion that makes him forget he has ever been married, so she can finally make him wed her daughter.
Unaware that the evil fate-turner is the cause of her husband’s unfaithfulness, Brünhild swears revenge and eventually dies a tragic death with Sigurd.
The Illuga saga Gríðarfóstra describes Grimhild as a witch who even poisoned her own husband to be able to rule the kingdom by herself and turned her stepdaughter into a troll.
Raven Mocker
TYPE witch-like being
AREA Southeastern United States (Cherokee people)
POWERS stealing the lives of the sick
TALE Raven Mockers are witch-like beings and harbingers of death in Cherokee folklore. They appear as withered old men or women but at night they turn into a ball of fire and search for a house where someone is sick. Only seasoned healers can see them; others notice nothing but the cry of ravens, which signals the inevitable death of the person who is ill. Raven Mockers steal the heart of their victim and eat it, robbing them of the rest of their life and adding their lost years on to their own. They are only afraid of healers who can recognize them, because when they do, the Raven Mockers die within seven days.
Merlin
TYPE prophet, wizard
AREA Britain
POWERS wisdom
TALE Merlin was originally a wild man of the woods with prophetic abilities. In early legends he is also known as Myrddin or Ambrosius, and later the prophet of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. As counsel to King Uther Pendragon, he suggests founding the Order of the Knights of the Round Table in Camelot, which leads to many a heroic deed and much suffering. The fates of Lancelot, Gawain, Parsifal and Galahad are inextricably intertwined with that of Merlin, but nobody’s destiny is more connected to him than Arthur’s.
Merlin’s prophecy says that whoever is able to draw the magic sword from the stone will be Uther Pendragon’s successor. Arthur completes the trial at a very young age and rules the country for many years. Later Merlin warns Arthur that the birth of a boy will bring doom on the kingdom, and his prophecy is fulfilled when Mordred, the illegitimate son of the king and Morgan le Fay, grows up to be an arrogant and power-hungry young man who claims his father’s throne. Ultimately, they decide to settle their dispute on the battlefield, but neither can defeat the other and both die. Merlin also meets his fate, but even as a ghost he continues to deliver prophecies to those who ask him.
Sheela Na Gig
TYPE witch on the wall
AREA Western and Central Europe
POWERS fertility, warding off evil
CRAFTED 1000–1200
TALE Sheela Na Gig, the female figure exposing her genitals and laughing widely, hides nothing at all, and yet these carvings decorating Romanesque churches are veiled in mystery. So far, nobody has proven their origin and purpose decisively. One would think that an openly depicted female sexual organ could only be connected to Christianity in another universe but one theory suggests that these figures were created in the Middle Ages simply to warn illiterate believers against the sin of lechery. Others claim the very opposite – that Sheela Na Gig is a fertility goddess remaining from pagan times, whose carved figure is still touched by people who want children. A third theory proposes these images are connected to an ancient worldwide practice – women can ward off evil and provide protection against demonic forces by flashing their vagina.
But more important than the past is what Sheela Na Gig teaches us in the present. It is time to recover our rights over our own bodies!
Mother Shipton
TYPE soothsayer
AREA England, North Yorkshire
LIVED c.1488–1561
TALE Ursula Southeil, later called Mother Shipton, was the daughter of a 15-year-old orphan. She was born in a cave near Knaresborough, in North Yorkshire, England. The townspeople believed her mother had been impregnated by the Devil himself because she was hunchbacked and had bulging eyes, which made people avoid her all her life.
As a child, she was once mocked by a group of men because of her looks. Ursula appeared to ignore them but a while later, the ruff of one of the men turned into a toilet seat and another’s hat changed into a chamber pot. After this, nobody dared mock her.
At a young age she learned the secrets of herbs and made potions from them, increasingly gaining respect. However, when she married the local carpenter, she was suspected of having seduced him with a magic potion because the locals did not believe that anyone would marry a woman who looked like she did. When her husband died two years later, rumours circulated that she had poisoned him and she was ostracized from the village.
Ursula returned to her cave, but soon people started visiting her again. This is when her power of soothsaying came to light. She foretold that Henry VIII would create the Church of England, and some even say she foresaw the Great Fire of London in 1666. She became such a legendary figure that even a moth was named after her – because it has hag-like markings on its wings.
Lilith and Eve
TYPE night demon and human
AREA outside the Garden of Eden
POWERS independence
TALE Lilith and Eve, the two major female figures of Jewish mythology, are like fire and water. Lilith was created from the same soil as the first man, Adam. She sees them as equals but Adam believes himself to be superior and wants to dominate his first wife. Lilith will have none of this and leaves the Garden of Eden forever. She is said to be the mother of demons, but for us she is a symbol of independence and liberation from oppressive power. After Lilith goes, Eve emerges from Adam’s rib to be an obedient wife and submissive companion. All goes according to plan until Eve takes a bite of the forbidden fruit and the couple are cast out of the garden.
Lilith stands up for herself and becomes an outcast of the system. Eve remains in it but as a perpetual scapegoat. She suffers a similar fate to her predecessor, trying in vain to conform to a system that sees women as natural sinners. If Lilith and Eve could join forces, we would be one step closer to a more equal world.
Moirai, Parcae and Norns
TYPE goddesses of destiny
AREA Hellas, the Roman Empire and Scandinavia
POWERS controlled the destinies of gods and humans
TALE Clotho the Spinner, Lachesis the Allotter and Atropos the Inexorable are the three moirai, respected and feared in ancient Greece, who measure the thread of life not only for humans but also for the gods. After the Greek era, Europeans imagined Clotho spinning the thread of life with Lachesis measuring its length and Atropos waiting with scissors in her hand to cut the length of a new baby’s life. The Romans knew them as the parcae, and in Scandinavia, the norns fulfilled a similar role: Urðr is Fate, Verðandi is Creation and Skuld is Need. In Norse mythology, the hall of the norns is found next to a spring under the roots of Yggdrasil, the World Tree.
Hecate
TYPE goddess
AREA Hellas and Anatolia
POWERS guidance, power over the ghosts of the night
TALE Hecate is the goddess of magic, witchcraft and boundaries in Greek mythology, whose worship probably took over from an earlier goddess in Anatolia. Her statues were placed at crossroads and gates, where various offerings were left to ask for her protection and guidance. She is also depicted as a triple goddess – she holds a torch in one hand, a key in the other and a dagger or a serpent in the third. The torch shows the right way even in the darkest night when all hope seems to be lost. The key might open the gates of Tartarus. As for the serpent and the dagger … well, along with the dogs who accompany her, they leave no doubt about her unquestionable power over heaven, earth and sea. She is known by many names: Adonaia, Khthonia, Nyssa, Daeira and Brimo. In my last story you can find out why she was called merciful and wrathful at the same time.
Uringye
TYPE fate-teller
AREA South-Eastern Europe (Boyash people)
POWERS judging over the fate of the newborn
TALE Hearing the baby’s cry, three sisters fly onto the roof of a hut to foretell what future awaits the child and how it will die. If someone looks up at the roof, they will see three raven-bodied women with beautiful faces and barred (finely striped) wings. But almost nobody notices the Uringyes, nor do people hear what judgments they pass over the newborn.
The youngest sister suggests the baby boy should drown in his grandmother’s well at the age of seven. The middle one would rather he grows rich and has many children until lightning strikes him or a tree falls on him. However, the eldest takes charge and decides that he will grow up to be handsome but will go blind in his old age and die a natural death. It does not matter if he’s attacked by wolves or gets poisoned, he will die the way the eldest Uringye decrees.
CONGRATULATIONS! Together, you and I have now completed the Great Work. We have reached the summit of the mountain and this is the point where we fall silent and simply glow in the light of the stars. The last step of rubedo is projection. When we have absorbed the wondrous sight of Nut’s veil, we should not forget to look back at the landscape beneath us where our journey began. It is our faces that will now reflect the rising sun onto the valley, guiding those who still walk the path.
The tenth card of the tarot, The Wheel of Fortune, marks a turning point. We have completed the first half of The Fool’s Journey and we should be proud of the challenges we have overcome. But before we can continue, we need to understand the wisdom of the Wheel: what’s at the top must descend again before it can reach an even higher summit. Think of it as a spiral. We have completed a full circle but to go further we must repeat the cycle on a higher level.
We have already discovered much about the world. We know that it is veiled by many illusions – the routine of our daily lives, the material sphere and perhaps even time itself. One day we shall look behind Nut’s veil too and see what the stars can reveal about the true nature of the world we live in. Until then, let us enjoy the fruits of our arduous work and admire the beauty of the rocks on the mountain slope!
One thing is sure: you must return among the living before you can continue your journey. What awaits you when you leave the hall of the Corpus Corvorum and you find yourself back on Raven Hill? Only Hecate knows the answer. There is no use asking me. I am long gone and this library has been my grave since time immemorial. Should you persevere, you might be able to hear the goddess’s voice and she will answer your questions. Let the ever-changing candle flames guide you. Make sure you never forget my final tale … And, with that, I bid you farewell.
Crossroads
THE INTERSTELLAR CRUISER continued its journey toward Saturn, leaving Frank and Madelyn behind in their small space shuttle. The cruiser was soon swallowed up in the black void of space they had been calling home since birth. They had started their vacation three weeks earlier to get away from the city of capsules drifting in the middle of nothingness. The exciting programmes on the cruiser almost made them forget how boring their lives had become but now they were sitting in that cramped, two-person shuttle because Madelyn had the crazy idea of visiting another planet instead of Saturn.
Frank regretted letting her convince him to make this detour. After all, they were on vacation and soon the other passengers would be watching the amazing rings of the gas giant from their massage chairs. But no, his wife was more interested in that ruin of a planet, Earth.
Madelyn set their destination on the star map with a smile. It’s a mystery what attracts her so much to that planet, Frank thought and looked toward the sun, which was still hardly bigger than the other stars. The last time he had traveled into this system was when the miners on Pluto went on strike. Fortunately, the constant whining of the workers was no longer his problem. He’d thought he would finally have time to relax, but then Madelyn decided her new hobby was disaster tourism. She probably wanted to tell her friends back home that she had been to the First Planet and the radiation really was as lethal as they had been taught in childhood. They would be as jealous as hell and Madelyn would feel she had at last got one up on them.
Frank looked toward the Earth. I wonder what it was like to live there, he mused and fleetingly regarded the planet as a long-forgotten home. But this feeling quickly passed, like a dream that would never come true. At least they had their own capsule in the drifting city and didn’t have to live in the darkness of a mine.
“You’re not listening to me again,” Madelyn said, interrupting his thoughts. “We agreed that this is my day, that I get to choose where we are going and for once you would pretend to enjoy yourself with me,” Madelyn snapped.
“All right, all right,” Frank sighed.
“I’ve been waiting for ten years for you to take me somewhere. Now we are going to land on Earth and see what the radiation has done to that planet.”
“I hope you’re not planning to visit those ragged barbarians we saw in that sci-fi movie the other day.”
“Of course not, you know that nobody can survive there,” she answered.
Frank raised his eyebrow. Once again, his wife did not understand that he was joking. “So where exactly are we going?” he asked.
“I don’t care as long as there’s a palace. And a garden! That’s very important. Finally, I’ll get to see wildflowers, perhaps even a forest. Do you think we’ll see a forest?” Madelyn asked excitedly as she selected those choices from the options menu and the shuttle started searching for suitable destinations. “I’ve read that they planted parks around the palaces full of flowers that they watered with drinking water every day! What a waste! But it must have been beautiful, don’t you think?” Madelyn looked down longingly at Earth.
