How to Detect Witches

Early in the morning, on the first Monday of each of the four quarters of the year, the smoke from a witch's house goes against the wind. This may be seen by any one who takes the trouble of rising early and going to an eminence, whence the witch's house can be seen.   (Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands & Islands of Scotland, J.G. Campbell)

Just in case you're trying to find some witches. They can be tricky to locate these days.

A Highland Witch's Powers

Unlike modern Wiccans, classic witches are not bound by the command of harming none; on the contrary, s/he would be fully capable of cursing and curing, with equal facility. Isabel Cameron, in her A Highland Chapbook, describes the powers of such a witch thusly:

(She) could o'ercast the night, and cloud the moon
And mak' the de'ils obedient to her crune,
At midnight hours o'er the kirkyards she raves
And howks unchristened weans out of their graves;
Boils up their livers in a warlock's pow;
And seven times does her prayers backwards pray;
Then mix't with venom of black toads and snakes.
Of this unsousy pictures aft she makes
Of ony she hates;--and gars expire
With shaw and racking pains afore a fire;
Stuck full of pins the devilish pictures melt;
The pain by fowk they represent is felt
Whilst she and cat sit beeking in her yard...

You'll note that the witch in question is credited with doing more than just casting the evil eye; she's also commanding demons, speaking incantations, and stealing unbaptized infants from their graves and using their organs in the making of poppets of her enemies. No "bright blessings" to be found here; these witches of auld were expected to throw down when the need arose! (Please note that the proprietress of the Classic Witchcraft blog does not condone or recommend grave-robbing or demon-summoning, and reports the above for entertainment purposes only!)

Of course, there were available countermeasures, should one find him- or herself on the receiving end of such attentions. Should you believe yourself to be "o'erlooked," pronounce the following countercharm immediately:

The eye that goes over me and through me,
The eye that pierces to the bone and the marrow,
I will overthrow and the elements will help me.

(The snippet of verse detailing the witch's powers appears to have been taken from the 1808 printing of the Scots pastoral play The Gentle Shepherd, by Allan Ramsay, albeit in a slightly edited form. The astute Googler will easily locate the work in its entirety.)

Churchyard Yews

There are yews, and there are yews. Most of us in the US are familiar with the ornamental shrubbery Taxus canadensis, the ubiquitous straggling evergreen beloved of landscapers. We had them at our last property; they can grow quite tall under the right conditions, and produce abundant red berries. They also require a lot of attention to keep them looking nice in a landscape. Their nature is to sprawl and shoot out random branches.

Fortingall Yew

The yew commonly found in Europe and the British Isles is Taxus baccata, a quite different species. T. baccata is a proper tree, rather than a shrub, and can reach rather dramatic proportions. They are known for achieving rather dramatic ages, as well, with known specimens thought to be thousands of years old. The Fortingall yew, for example, is thought to be between 2,000 and 5,000 years old. It can be found in a churchyard in Perthshire. Other famous specimens can be found in Wales, Belgium, and Ireland; and notably, all are found in churchyards.

Knowlson, writing in The Origins of Popular Superstitions and Customs, has this to say about yew trees in churchyards:

Some authorities ascribe it to the adoption of ancient funeral rites; others to the prosaic notion of keeping the wind off the church; others, again, to the warlike need of bows and arrows--yew being especially serviceable. A large body of writers believe the use of the yew was symbolic--it typified by its unchanging verdure the doctrine of the resurrection. A few cynically assert that yews, being gloomy and poisonous, are rightly used for churchyard decoration; and there are not wanting writers who see in the practice a tribute to the superstitious regard men have always paid to trees. We may examine one or two of these suggestions, although no definite conclusion may be possible. We know that the ancient Britons planted yews near their temples long before Christianity was introduced into England, and this would suggest a custom on the island not necessarily Roman or Christian.

Knife with yew hilt

One of my personal tools, my curfane or harvesting knife, has a grip of churchyard yew. (I even have a photo of the churchyard and yew involved!) Given the yew's associations with death, this seems an appropriate usage.  (Note: The knife did not "harvest" the fellow next to it.) Because of the poisonous nature of even the wood itself, it is a powerful-feeling tool and one that I use with great care and respect. It is eminently suited to "sacrificing" a purposefully baked loaf, for example. In the past, I've used it on the altar in a Wican "white handled knife" context, but it felt frankly dissatisfied with the role; some tools have their own agendas, and this one clearly felt constrained by the rules that bound the WHK in that system. Now wild again, it awaits its next task--most likely, the carving of the bread I'll bake at the autumnal equinox. The harvest season is upon us, after all.

The Company of Witches

Cottage in Blaise Castle estate. Photo by Angi Nelson.

In some of the British wiccan traditions descended from Gerald Gardner, you may come across the saying "You cannot be a witch alone;" but this of course is not always the case. When imagining the classic figure of the witch, the image is often that of a very solitary figure: the herb-wife or cunning man of the village, living alone and plying their trade unobtrusively, set apart by talent and temperament if nothing else, separate from village life but an inextricable part of it as well. Certainly the witch of fairytale lore is a lonely soul, hidden away in the dark forest in her slightly sinister but oh-so-very-attractive cottage. The soul brave enough to seek out and enter the witch's cottage may find therein the answer to her wildest dreams...or the loss of her very soul or sanity. In legend, of course, that cottage may symbolize the deepest part of our unconscious, the place where the demons dwell, and the witch residing therein the keeper of the mysteries of ourselves that we have yet to uncover; to seek then to enter that cottage, and to learn from that witch (or, even better, to become such a being) is to seek our own soul-knowledge and mastery.

But that's the inner working; at the external level, there is also the very concrete reality of the witch's work, whether it be done alone in a cottage at the edge of town, or amongst compatriots in a coven. One certainly can be a witch alone, but sometimes one wants or needs the company of like-minded persons; hence the coven, where witches may meet for esbat or sabbat to work magick, dance, feast, or get up to other varieties of No Good. The woodcuts that so many of us find so evocative often portray what could be considered a coven: rings of witches dancing in a circle, often around a sinister horned figure. The modern reality tends to look a bit different, as it's difficult to fit a 20-foot-tall goat-man into a suburban living room; and many modern covens are more celebratory and, dare I say, religious in nature, gathering more for social purposes than magickal ones. (I frankly am less concerned about what the local coven may be getting up to than what's going on at the megachurch down the way, but in terms of actual impact it's easy to see which of those entities has the advantage.) There are benefits to having a support structure like a coven, like the sense of belonging and connection that can arise from being a part of a group, of a lineage, of a tradition with a real history about it; but such connections are not strictly necessary for one to be a witch.

The ideal situation for many would be to have a coven to meet with for certain occasions or purposes, while maintaining a vigorous personal practice on an as-needed basis. I have always found this model to be most effective for me. Having a network of trustworthy fellow practitioners with whom to discuss the art is highly desirable and, in the modern age, perhaps easier than ever to come by thanks to the internet; and having others with whom to gather and do the work of the witch can be extremely satisfying and enlivening. But even covened witches should remember that their work is sometimes best done alone, free of distraction, in that secluded cottage or forest glade or living room. You can be a witch alone, or witches all together; the work, and the wisdom, are the final determinants.