XXIV The Witches’ Tools

We have said enough already in Section IX on the charging of such things as talismans, in Section XIV on the ritual use of symbols, and in Section XIX on the life-frequencies of ‘inanimate’ objects, for it to be needless here to go into great detail about why witches use magical tools. We will just sum it up by saying that a ritual tool is a psychological aid to concentration and to synchronizing the psychic effort of a group working together; its symbolism is archetypal in nature and therefore activates the Unconscious in partnership with the purposeful Ego; and through consecration and constant use, it acquires a helpful psychic charge of its own.

Most tools belong either to an individual witch or to the coven. The sole exception is the athame or black-handled knife, which is always a personal tool belonging to one witch only. So we will start with that.

The Athame

Any knife which suits the owner can be chosen as his or her athame. Ours are both plain sheath-knives bought in shops; Janet’s had a black hilt already, and Stewart’s was brown but he enamelled it black. Obviously one should avoid knives which have evil associations, such as the Nazi daggers which are often to be found in antique shops, or ones with an unpleasant history (which a good psychometrist will be able to diagnose).

An athame is normally of steel, but we have seen beautiful bronze ones made by our craftsman friend Peter Clark (of Tintine, The Rower, Co. Kilkenny), and one of our witches uses a copper one which he made himself, with the symbols attractively etched on the blade instead of on the hilt as is usual. (See Plate 19 for both of these.)

Traditionally the hilt is black, but some witches feel the magical symbolism of horn or a deer’s foot, in its natural colour, is an acceptable alternative. Back to Rule One — ‘what feels right to you’. But if the hilt can be blackened without spoiling some other natural characteristic, do not leave it through laziness. Your athame is your personal symbol of witchhood and deserves careful choice and treatment.

An athame is a purely ritual tool and should never be used for actual cutting. It is our practice, therefore, to blunt the blade and its tip, to avoid mishaps with ritual gestures in crowded Circles, especially skyclad ones. (There is a puzzling sentence in the Book of Shadows — which suggests that the marks on some tools should be cut with the athame; yet no marks are given. The athame might also share with the sword the traditional privilege of cutting a handfasting cake.)

The athame is interchangeable with the sword for all ritual purposes, such as casting or banishing Circles. It is essentially a masculine symbol, as is seen in the Consecration of the Wine; so in the hands of a woman witch it may be said to represent her active Animus. In our usage, it and the sword both represent the element of Fire (the wand representing Air). Some traditions attribute sword and athame to Air, and the wand to Fire; but as we explained in Eight Sabbats for Witches, this attribution ‘was a deliberate “blind” perpetrated by the early Golden Dawn, which has unfortunately not yet died a natural death; it seems to us contrary to the obvious nature of the tools concerned’. Our authority for this statement about the Golden Dawn blind was Techniques of High Magic by Francis King and Stephen Skinner. Now King and Skinner are conscientious occult historians, probably the best in print today, so they must have been convinced by their evidence and their sources. Yet a puzzle remains. As Doreen Valiente points out, the earliest Golden Dawn documents which have been published, those owned by R.G. Torrens, dated 1899, give the sword/Air, wand/Fire attributions, and in 1899 ‘these documents were given out to initiates under the seal of the utmost secrecy. The very existence of the Order was not permitted to be publicly known.’ So if there was a ‘blind’, at whom was it directed? Doreen also points out that the booklet Yeats, the Tarot and the Golden Dawn by Kathleen Raine contains photographs of W.B. Yeats’ ritual tools which he made himself and which follow the same attributions; and Yeats joined the Order in March 1890.

Doreen herself prefers wand/Fire, sword/Air. However, there is one thing on which Doreen, King and Skinner and we ourselves are all agreed: you should stick to the attributions which feel right to you.

The markings on the athame hilt vary a good deal, even in Gardnerian usage. The earliest known design is to be found in The Key of Solomon (see Bibliography under Mathers), of which in turn the oldest known manuscript is sixteenth century. This does not mention the word ‘athame’ but merely calls it ‘the Knife with the Black Hilt’ which is ‘for making the Circle’. The hilt markings are given as follows:

Figure 8

The end-papers of Gardner’s High Magic’s Aid show a drawing of the athame (named as such) with hilt markings as follows:

Figure 9

As Doreen Valiente observes, these ‘certainly derive from The Key of Solomon (indeed, The Key of Solomon is mentioned in the book). This has led to the conventional explanation that Gerald merely copied them from The Key of Solomon, most probably from its modern edition translated and edited by S.L. MacGregor Mathers. I find this explanation inadequate. Because from where did The Key of Solomon derive them?’

In Text B of Gardner’s Book of Shadows, the symbols are divided into two sequences, one on each side of the hilt, as follows:

Figure 10

Gardner annotates these symbols with the following interpretations (top diagram, left to right): ‘Horned God; Initial of his name; Kiss and Scourge; Waxing and Waning Moon; Initial of many of her names in Hebrew script’; (bottom diagram, left to right) ‘Eight Ritual Occasions, Eight Weapons, etc.; the Power flowing from the Horned God; the Sickle, symbol of Death; the Serpent, symbol of Life and Rebirth.’

(On the two ‘initials’: that given for the God is like the letter F in the magicians’ Theban Alphabet, though it might also be a corruption of the H or the C; and that given for the Goddess is the Hebrew Aleph or A.)

Doreen Valiente finds some of these accepted explanations, too, inadequate. She writes to us that, by comparing the various magical weapons in The Key of Solomon and their markings, she has arrived at the following conclusions, which she stresses are simply her personal suggestions.

‘The markings show some variation from one weapon to another, the most notable of which is the appearance quite unmistakably of the Ankh Cross as the second sigil after the symbol of the Horned God (which is also the astrological sigil of Taurus). Also, there appears the astrological sigil of Scorpio instead of the supposed “first letter” of the Goddess’s name in Hebrew.

‘Now, Taurus and Scorpio are opposites in the Zodiac. When the Sun is in Taurus, May Eve occurs, the commencement of the summer half of the year; and when the Sun is in Scorpio, Hallowe’en occurs, the commencement of the winter half of the year, according to our Celtic ancestors. I would therefore like to suggest this version of the signs on the athame as being possibly the original and correct one:

‘First Side:

Figure 11(a)

‘Second Side:

Figure 11(b)

‘Their meanings, briefly, are as follows:

‘The Horned God. Also the powers of fertility, May Eve, the “light” half of the year.

‘The Ankh Cross, a very ancient symbol of life.

‘The Salute and the Scourge – probably shown in this plain form (i.e., not as as we sometimes depict it) so as not to be too revealing of a magical secret.

‘The Goddess as the waxing and waning Moon.

‘Scorpio, sign of Death and the Beyond, the “other side” of the God as Lord of the Underworld. Hallowe’en and the “dark” half of the year.

‘The perfect couple.

‘Power going forth, either from the Horned God or from the “conjunction of the Sun and Moon”, i.e., male and female.

‘The Eight Ritual Occasions, Eight Ways of Making Magic, etc.

‘I suggest that this interpretation contains more meaning than the one generally given. Moreover, the meaning is specifically significant to witches, although it derives from The Key of Solomon in MacGregor Mathers’ version. Mathers tells us in his preface that he worked from seven manuscripts in the British Museum, the oldest of which dated from “about the end of the sixteenth century”. Unfortunately, he does not say if the illustrations of the sigils come from this MS or a later one. So the question of the age and ultimate derivation of these sigils remains; but I hope these notes may shed some light on it.’

We feel that they do, and we are glad to pass them on to our readers.

We would add one little footnote of our own, which may be an Alexandrian innovation, but we find it a pleasant custom. We were taught that after one’s third degree initiation with one’s working partner, the ‘perfect couple’ sigil (or, as it was described to us, the ‘kneeling man and woman’) should be joined together on one’s athame hilt, thus:

First and Second Degree

Third Degree

Figure 12

Two final notes on the athame as a personal tool. It is considered good manners not to handle another witch’s athame without the owner’s permission, unless it is your working partner’s. And since a normal-sized athame is, to all appearances, a weapon, it may not always be convenient or discreet to carry it about with you — indeed, there may be times and places when it would bring you under reasonable suspicion. So a miniature second athame, which is unlikely to be regarded as more than a gadget, is a useful spare; in fact, we can see no magical objection to a black-handled folding penknife — so long as it has been duly consecrated and you resist the temptation to use it for anything else.

The Sword

As we have said, the sword is ritually exchangeable with the athame. We attribute it therefore to the element of Fire; and it, too, is essentially masculine. Hence the tradition which we mentioned that when a woman witch buckles on a sword, she is ritually assuming a male role and must be regarded and treated as masculine until she takes it off again.

The difference between the two weapons is that the sword is more formally authoritative than the athame. We normally, for example, use the sword to cast a coven Circle, to underline the group significance of the act — whereas a private Circle would be cast with one’s own athame. When Joan of Arc took the sword, it was on behalf of France, not just for her personal defence. The sword’s presence adds weight to a solemn occasion; when the High Priestess or High Priest has a particularly momentous announcement to make to the coven, she or he might well deliver it in front of the altar with the sword’s point on the ground and both hands resting on the hilt. ‘With this in thy hand,’ says the Book of Shadows, ‘thou art the ruler of the Circle.’

Like the athame, the sword is never used for actual cutting — with the happy exception of a handfasting cake.

The design of the sword is entirely a matter of choice; but a reasonably small and light one is more manageable in the Circle. We possess two — one a fairly heavy Toledo weapon with a bowl guard, and the other a gentleman’s dress sword, slim and light. Each has its suitable occasions, but it is the light one which we use for normal coven purposes.

The Key of Solomon gives markings for the blade and hilt which are entirely Hebrew lettering. High Magic’s Aid repeats these and adds two pentagrams. But Hebrew lettering is ceremonial magic rather than witchcraft, and most coven swords are unmarked.

The Wand

The Wand in our tradition represents the element of Air. Its gender is not particularly stressed, though if anything we would regard it as masculine, both because its shape is phallic (in some wands, specifically so — see below) and because Air is the element of the left-brain, linear-logical faculty.

It is a ‘quieter’ tool than the sword or athame. As the Book of Shadows says: ‘Its use is to call up and control certain angels and genii to whom it would not be meet to use the Magic Sword.’ It communicates by invitation, not by command. When it and the scourge are held in the Osiris Position (see Eight Sabbats for Witches, Plate 10), the scourge represents Severity and the wand Mercy.

The Key of Solomon says that the wand should be ‘of hazel or nut tree, in all cases the wood being virgin, that is of one year’s growth only’, and should ‘be cut from the tree at a single stroke, on the day of Mercury, at sunrise’ — the day of Mercury being Wednesday. This is the universal magical tradition, and witches follow it too. (One tradition insists that the ‘single stroke’ should be made with a golden sickle, but we hardly think that is obligatory!)

The Key of Solomon gives markings for the wand which appear to be in one of the many magical alphabets (a selection of which will be found opposite of Barrett’s The Magus, Book II). High Magic’s Aid offers none. Markings, if any, would again seem to be a matter of personal choice. We have given our own wand a male/solar and a female/lunar end, so that it may be held either way round according to the emphasis required, and marked the shaft with the planetary symbols, thus:

Figure 13

For certain rituals (such as the ‘Brid is welcome’ ceremony at Imbolg — Eight Sabbats for Witches, Section IV) a phallic wand is used. Ours is the usual nutwood shaft tipped with a pine-cone and bound with black and white ribbons interweaving like the snakes of a caduceus (ibid., Plate 6).

The traditional length of a wand is from elbow to fingertip of the owner. For a coven wand, eighteen inches is a handy average.

The Cup or Chalice

The cup represents the element of Water and is the feminine symbol par excellence. Its chief use in the Circle is to hold the wine, in which it is consecrated and passed round. It is also used to represent the woman in the symbolic Great Rite (Eight Sabbats for Witches, Section II).

Many people have been puzzled by the fact that the cup is not mentioned or presented along with the other magical tools in the first-and second-degree initiation rites. Gerald Gardner was puzzled, too, and explains in Witchcraft Today ‘The answer I get is: In the burning time this was done deliberately. Any mention of the Cup led to an orgy of torture, their persecutors saying that it was a parody of the Mass; also the riding or dancing pole (“broomstick”) was cut out. Censer and pentacle were substituted and explanations made to fit what their persecutors expected.’

The witches’ ritual use of the wine-cup is of course not a parody of the Mass. The religious blessing and sharing of food and drink is far older than Christianity, and in any case Wicca is a positive religion in its own right and has no need to parody or invert anyone else’s.

In these days when the witches’ use of the cup is no longer secret (and if persecution were to come, that point would be a drop in the ocean) there would seem to be no reason why the cup, which is just as important as the other tools, should not be reintroduced into the initiatory presentations; so we have done this in Section I, II and XXIII.

The Pentacle

The pentacle is the primary Earth symbol. Its gender, like that of the wand, is not usually emphasized, but as the symbol of the Earth Mother it may be taken as being feminine.

It is the centrepiece of the altar, on which objects are consecrated; the water and salt bowls, too, are placed on it for blessing — indeed, some covens do not use a salt bowl but place the salt directly on the pentacle from which, after blessing, it is tipped into the water.

In persecution days the pentacle used to be inscribed on wax for each Circle, so that it could be destroyed afterwards as a dangerous piece of evidence. Today it is a disc of metal, usually copper, and it is normally five or six inches in diameter. Its markings are as follows:

Figure 14

The central upright pentagram is the primary symbol of the Craft. Together with the upright triangle above it, it forms the symbol of third-degree initiation. The inverted pentagram, top right, is that of the second degree, and the inverted triangle, top left, that of the first degree. The Horned God symbol is bottom left, and bottom right are the waxing and waning Moon-crescents of the Goddess (also sometimes described as the breasts of the Goddess). The two SSs at the bottom represent the polarity of Mercy and Severity, in the form of the kiss (plain S) and the scourge (S with a stroke).

Being a centrepiece for the altar, the pentacle lends itself to special aesthetic treatment. We wanted a large pentacle, personal to ourselves, for particular occasions, so Stewart drew a design ringed by the signs of the Zodiac and with points for Zodiacal gems. Since we are both Cancerians, he put Cancer at the top, flanked by our initials. One of our witches is a process-engraver on a newspaper, and he took Stewart’s design and photo-etched it onto an 11½-inch heavy copper disc which we provided. We mounted the gems in their appropriate places, and we were very pleased with the result; see Plate 20.

For good measure (since in photo-etching a design can be projected to any size) our friend also made us a 5½-inch version. And because other members wanted one, he then rotated the rim of Stewart’s design to put Aries in its conventional position on top, whited out our initials and made 5½-inch ‘normal’ Zodiacal pentacles for them.

Photo-engraving is a technique well worth investigating; it should not be beyond the powers of any handy witch who owns a photographic enlarger.

Since many witches may wish to embellish tools with their Zodiacal gems, this may be a good place to discuss the subject. For our jewelled pentacle, we consulted ten different lists, ranging from Aleister Crowley to the Jewellery Advisory Centre. The variety of recommendations was bewildering; we give the voting totals below. (Some add up to more than 10, because some lists gave alternatives.)

Aries Diamond 5, sard 2, ruby 1, bloodstone 1, sapphire 1.

Taurus Emerald 6, carnelian 2, topaz 1, Chrysoprase 1, sapphire 1.

Gemini Pearl 3, agate 3, topaz 2, alexandrite 1, tourmaline 1, Iceland spar 1, chrysoprase 1.

Cancer Ruby 6, chalcedony 2, carnelian 2, amber 1, emerald 1.

Leo Sardonyx 4, peridot 3, jasper 2, cat’s eye 1, onyx 1.

Virgo Sapphire 6, peridot 2, emerald 1, olivine 1, lapis lazuli 1, carnelian 1.

Libra Opal 6, tourmaline 2, emerald 1, beryl 1, jade 1, chrysolite 1, aquamarine 1.

Scorpio Topaz 5, citrine 2, snakestone 1, turquoise 1, amethyst 1, red tourmaline 1, aquamarine 1, cat’s eye 1.

Sagittarius Turquoise 6, hyacinth 2, jacinth 1, zircon 1, topaz 1, malachite 1.

Capricorn Garnet 6, black diamond 1, chrysoprase 1, jet 1, ruby 1, jacinth 1.

Aquarius Amethyst 6, rock crystal 2, artificial glass 1, chalcedony 1, jacinth 1, garnet 1.

Pisces Bloodstone 6, aquamarine 3, pearl 1, sapphire 1, amethyst 1.

So we were back to Rule One, ‘what feels right’. For example, we could not understand why no list gave moonstone for Cancer, which seemed to us the obvious correspondence. And, of course, we were influenced by particular stones which we had available and which meant something to us. These included an alexandrite which we brought home from Egypt, and a jet left over from the necklace which Stewart dismantled back in 1970 to make Janet’s amber-and-jet necklace.

Our set for the pentacle, then, finished up as follows: Aries, bloodstone; Taurus, carnelian; Gemini, alexandrite; Cancer, moonstone; Leo, tiger’s eye; Virgo, sapphire; Libra, opal; Scorpio, lapis lazuli; Sagittarius, topaz; Capricorn, jet; Aquarius, amethyst; and Pisces, pearl.

Special note on pentacles: all coven tools should of course be cleaned and, if metal, polished, regularly. But it is as well at least to wash the pentacle immediately after the Circle, because it has almost certainly caught drips of the salt-and-water mixture, which corrodes metal (and especially copper) very easily; one minute’s washing tonight may save ten minutes’ polishing tomorrow. The same post-Circle attention should naturally be given to the cup which has held wine, and to the salt and water bowls if they are of metal; and athame-points which have consecrated wine, water or salt should be wiped clean and dry.

The Censer

Incense belongs to the element of Air. It can be bought at any church suppliers’; plain frankincense is a good general-purpose incense; but since the aroma is intended to help create an atmosphere suited to the particular occasion or work in hand, most covens also like to have a selection of incenses. Occult suppliers are the best source for these, because their incenses are deliberately blended for such needs, and their very titles usually indicate their nature. For example, John Lovett’s excellent shop and mail-order business Occultique (73 Kettering Road, Northampton NN1 4AW) lists about seventy varieties, including Zodiacal, elemental, seasonal, Sephirothic and Celtic tree-alphabet ranges.

Experimenting with making your own can be interesting. As an example, you might like to try our Fire of Azrael incense which is very simple. You need

  Sandalwood chips, ½ oz

  Juniper berries, ½ oz

  Cedarwood oil, ½ oz

Chop and mash the juniper berries, add them to the sandalwood chips, and mix thoroughly. Add the cedarwood oil to this mixture, and again mix thoroughly. Keep in a small screw-top jar, firmly closed.

You can extend your experiments by adding single ingredients to plain frankincense — a few drops of some oil essence, perhaps, or some chopped dried herb. When you are familiar with the results, try mixing ingredients, such as an oil and a herb, with or without the frankincense. Remember that dried herbs alone will burn away much too quickly.

Incense is burned by putting it on a charcoal ring which is already burning. These ‘rings’ are actually discs with dished tops, of charcoal impregnated with saltpetre to make them easy to ignite. They, too, can be brought in boxes from church or occult suppliers. They should be kept in a dry place, because they absorb moisture like blotting-paper. If a ring will not light easily (you know when it is lit because a row of sparks moves across it steadily), dry it for a minute or two near a fire or other source of heat — but do not pick it up with your bare fingers, because, if it has been very near a fire, for instance, it may self-ignite and already be burning merrily though it still looks black.

The censer itself may be anything from a little metal bowl on legs to a splendid ecclesiastical object hanging from chains. But if it is small or chainless, be careful again when it comes to carrying it round; they can get unexpectedly hot.

One or two drops of (say) rose oil on the burning charcoal before the Circle starts, and before you put on the incense of the evening, can create a pleasing preliminary atmosphere.

Joss-sticks are a very simple and fairly cheap alternative to incense in a censer. Such shops as Indiacraft sell little brass joss-stick holders, or they can be stuck in an eggcup full of sand or soil, a blob of plasticene or even a cut apple or potato. But to get to know your brands of joss-stick before you try them in the Circle; some of them can be cloyingly sweet. Sandalwood is always a safe bet.

The White-Handled Knife

This is literally a working tool, for any actual cutting (for example, the Measure) or inscribing (as the second-degree candle) which has to be done in the Circle; and it may only be used inside the Circle.

Both The Key of Solomon and High Magic’s Aid give markings for the hilt and blade; whether one copies them or not is again a matter of choice.

The white-handled knife, unlike the athame, should obviously be sharp, and kept so. Attractive and efficient ones can be found in kitchen hardware shops. On the other hand, the idea of a matching pair of athame and white-handled knife may appeal to you, and that would involve rather more searching.

The Scourge

The scourge has two uses: (1) purely symbolic and (2) for gentle, monotonous, semi-hypnotic application to affect the blood circulation as an aid to ‘gaining the Sight’. Use (2) is described in detail, with all the precautions, in a passage in the Book of Shadows which we gave in full, with comments. The Book also says that it should have eight tails with five knots in each tail, presumably for the numerological reasons given elsewhere. We still have our original one, with a nutwood handle and cords of embroidery silk. But we are even fonder of one which we made when we were living in Co. Mayo; the ‘cords’ are of black horse-tail hair, collected during the grooming of one of our ponies, and the handle is a piece of bog deal — the perfectly preserved wood, thousands of years old, which is uncovered a few feet down when a peat-bog is cut for fuel.

Neither The Key of Solomon nor High Magic’s Aid gives markings for the scourge.

The Cords

Every witch should have his or her own set of at least three different-coloured cords (red, blue and white seem to be the usual), and most covens have a communal set as well. Each cord should be nine feet long, with the ends either knotted or bound with thread to prevent fraying. The only exceptions to the nine-foot standard are the two four foot six inch cords for the initiation binding.

The most practical cords are about as thick as a pencil; they are sold in most fabric shops for such purposes as upholstery trimming. Silk is ideal because it is a natural organic substance — but man-made fibres are easier to find, and since the cords are mainly used as aids to dramatization and concentration, the disadvantage is slight.

Colour symbolism is very complex and will vary according to the context of the work being done. But here is a summary of some of the main colour associations (the Tree of Life ones given being those of the Queen Scale):

White Purity; innocence; work for small children; Kether on the Tree of Life.

Black Restriction; limitation; binding; Saturn; Binah on the Tree.

Gold, Yellow Solar magic; the Sun God; Tiphareth on the Tree. In some systems, the Earth colour.

Silver Moon magic; the Moon Goddess; the Goddess in her winter, Life-in-Death aspect.

Red Life; Fire; vigour; organic healing; Mars; Geburah on the Tree; the male, electric principle.

Orange Intellect; communication; travel; Mercury; Hod on the Tree.

Green Nature; the Goddess in her summer, Death-in-Life aspect; Water; emotion, instinct, intuition; Venus/Aphrodite; Netzach on the Tree.

Blue The Sky Goddess; Air; functional healing; Jupiter; justice; organization, administration; Chesed on the Tree; the female, magnetic principle.

Violet The Akashic Principle; the astral plane; Yesod on the Tree. In some systems, the Spirit colour.

Brown Preferred by some to yellow as the Earth colour.

The Broomstick

This is the only witch’s tool, except perhaps for the cauldron, which is identified with the popular image of the witch; so quite apart from its ritual uses, many witches regard it affectionately as a symbol of the Craft and keep one even if it is never used.

It was originally a riding- and dancing-pole, disguised as an ordinary household besom for security reasons. Stories about witches riding through the air on broomsticks doubtless arose from their use in crop fertility rites. Women would ride them around the fields, leaping as high as they could. This was sympathetic magic in two ways. The higher the leap, the higher the crop would grow. And the fertility theme would be dramatized, in those less prudish days, by the way in which the women used their phallic poles during their ‘riding’.

After which it is hardly necessary to add that the broomstick is a masculine symbol.

Its chief ritual uses today are for jumping over (as in the handfasting rite — Eight Sabbats for Witches and for symbolically sweeping the Circle clean of all evil influence (same page, and also the Imbolg ritual).

The Cauldron

This would originally have been identified with the witch because of her mysterious brewing of potions and herbal remedies, though for untold centuries it was simply the family cooking-pot, as it remained in Ireland (where it is called a skillet) until fairly recently. (We have seen the traditional skilletful of potatoes simmering away over an Irish farmworker’s fire, a few feet away from his colour television.) Its association with witches in the popular mind probably arose from pictures of witches at work, which would be about the only situation which would prompt an artist to dramatize the use of a rural cooking-pot, and of course from the witch scenes in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Like the cup, of which it is a larger version, the cauldron is a feminine symbol — ‘the cauldron of Cerridwen, which is the Holy Grail of immortality’. Even when it is associated with a God (as for example the Cauldron of the Dagda, one of the Four Treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann in Irish mythology), it always remains a symbol of renewal, rebirth and inexhaustible plenty.

Its ritual use in Wicca also relates to these concepts. It is more adaptable than the cup, since it may contain water, fire, incense or flowers as occasion demands. Leaping over the cauldron, like leaping over the broomstick or the bonfire, is a fertility rite.

Cauldrons or skillets, usually of cast iron, may be found in antique or junk shops with a little searching; and the old three-legged household cooking-pot is the most satisfactory. But a similarly shaped brass or copper coal-scuttle is a suitable alternative, and probably more easily acquired.

The Necklace

It is customary for women witches always to wear necklaces of some kind in the Circle. In our coven the men, too, wear talismans or pendants round their necks. These represent ‘the circle of rebirth’.

The traditional priestess’s necklace in the Craft is made of alternate beads of amber and jet. These symbolize the solar/lunar, light/dark, male/female polarity in perfect balance. They have to be made up, of course, by buying an amber necklace and a jet one, dismantling them and carefully grading and threading a new necklace from the alternate beads. You may well find that you have enough beads for two necklaces — unless the beads of the two originals vary considerably in size, in which case you may need the largest from one and the smallest from the other to make a satisfactory finished necklace.

Both antique and modern amber necklaces can be bought, but jet necklaces, which were very popular in Victorian times, are usually more easily found in antique jewellers’ shops.

A woman witch’s amber-and-jet necklace is a very appropriate present from her working partner. He should of course assemble it for her himself. (A tip here: a sheet of paper, pleated concertinawise and laid on the table, makes the grading of beads in order of size very much easier.)

Apart from the amber-and-jet, the necklace or pendant can be anything that is felt to be suitable; for a woman, any favourite necklace, particularly if it is of a colour fitting to the work in hand, or perhaps a Moon-pendant or other Goddess symbol; for a man, a solar or Horned God symbol; and for man or woman, a pentagram, ankh, Eye of Horus, birth-sign pendant, yin-yang symbol and so on. As always — ‘what feels right’.

The Garter

The magical significance of the garter seems to go back to Palaeolithic times; one cave-painting shows a male figure in the centre of a ritual dance wearing a garter on each leg. Margaret Murray (The God of the Witches) says: ‘The garter has long been credited with magical properties, especially when belonging to a woman. The bride’s garters were fought for at a wedding, and the Mettye Belt was always a man-witch’s belt or a woman-witch’s garter. The Mettye Belt was the recognised magical means of ascertaining whether a sick person would recover or not’ — and Murray cites other magical uses. She also makes out a very convincing case for the Order of the Garter having witchcraft origins (ibid). She suggests that the garter which the Countess of Salisbury dropped was no ordinary garter (which would not have embarrassed a fourteenth-century lady in the least) but her badge of rank as a High Priestess; and that in putting it on his own leg, Edward III was putting her under his protection. It is significant that the Order he immediately founded consisted of twenty-six knights — i.e., a double coven, one for the Sovereign and one for the Prince of Wales.

The garter, then, is both a magical object and a badge of rank — and both usages are to be found in the modern Craft. In some covens, all the women members wear one; in others, only the High Priestess. Erica Jong (Witches) says: ‘Some writers on witchcraft specify that the garter be green leather, buckled in silver, and lined with blue silk.’ We have also met the tradition that it should be of snakeskin. The oldest ritual garter which either of us has seen (which was very old indeed, in the possession of a hereditary family) was of blue velvet, with an intricate silver buckle based on a horseshoe design.

When a High Priestess has had another coven hive off from her original one, she is entitled to add a second buckle to her garter — and an additional buckle for each new hiving-off coven. When her garter has at least three buckles, she is a Witch Queen.

A final note on magical tools. Make them yourself if you possibly can. It should not be necessary, at this stage of our book, to explain why.

Of course, personal craftsmanship can and should extend beyond the tools themselves. Embroidered altarcloths, ritual jewellery, ritual robes, candlesticks, altarpiece paintings, elemental paintings for the Watchtower quarters, and so on, all offer plenty of scope for individual skills. We are not suggesting that your Temple ought to look like an overcrowded museum; how much, or how little, embellishment you are happy with depends on Rule One. But the more that is made by the hands of the witches who work and worship there, the more you will find that the requirements of Rule One are satisfied.