Waters

Hello darlings! Today I really want to talk about magical waters. I’ll start with simple waters, then one ingredient waters, and then composite waters. Waters is pretty much anything like water that is used magically, so it ranges from storm water to tobacco and damiana tincture, and other stuff. Any of these can be collected whenever is convenient, but I added the time to collect them to make them more potent.

Natural Waters

Rain Water:

Rain water can be used for any spell to make it more potent, but it is a useful tool in peace magic, to quell anger, to relax, and for dream magic. Collect whenever you want.

Storm Water:

Storm water can be either protective or offensive. Use it to wash down your doors to protect you from hexes, and wash your tools with it to amplify their power. You can use it in any hexes or curses you want. To amplify it, add rusty nails to it and let turn rusty. Collect on a waxing gibbous moon.

Swamp Water:

Can be used in works for binding, hexing, or cloaking. Use when wanting to cause illness. Annoint yourself with swamp water to make yourself unnoticeable to others. Colelct on the dark moon (second new moon of the month) or on the new moon.

Marsh Water:

Marsh water is almost the same as swamp water, but it is more suitable for cloaking than other things. It can also be used for cleansing negative energies. Colelct on waning crescent moon.

Hail Water:

Hail water is melted hailstones. Use it for protection or hexing. Similar to storm water, but more aggressive. Use when you want to break sojmeone, or when you wish to cause physical harm. Collect during a full moon for best results.

Salt Water:

Salt water can be used for cleansing and protection from negativity. Simply add salt to water.

Sea Water:

Use sea water in works involving the psyche, or in hexing. It can also be used for cleansing. I use it to work with demonic forces as well. Collect on a new moon.

Lake Water:

Lake water is amazing in works concerning emotions, love, memories, or past life regressions. Boil it and drink it to enhance attempts for past life regressions. Collect on waxing moon.

Pond Water:

Use when wanting to bind someone, or to limit their horizons. Keep a flower vase with pond water in it on a table to silence a conversation to those not sitting at it. Collect on a dark moon.

Spring Water:

Spring water is super versatile. Use it instead of tap water.

Dew:

Dew can allow the witch to cast powerful glamours for beauty and youth. It is an important ingredient in love potions. Collect at sunrise during a waxing or full moon.

Self Water:

Fancy word for spit or urine. This one is a little nasty, but it is to be used whenever a spell needs to be tied to the caster.

Simples

Sun Water:

Bask any sort of water in the sun for a full day. Use it for cleansing, to bring positivity into a space, or for glamours of youth.

Moon Water:

Used to power up any spell. Let water sit in the light of a full moon for a full night.

Tobacco Water:

Steep tobacco into water for a week in the fridge. When strained, mix with 100 proof vodka, about 1.5 parts water for 1 part vodka. Use it to cleanse or to offer to spirits when working with them. Can be used to cause addiction in a person.

Saffron Water:

Steep saffron into water and mix 1 part water with 1 part vodka. Use to raise winds by sprinkling it in the air, or rub on your lips before whistling and raising storms.

Rose Water:

Use for love, glamours, and beauty. Steep fresh rose petals in vodka for a period of 4 weeks, and then extract all the liquid from the petals by pressing them until they have lost their color. Cut with 0.5 part water.

Orange Blossom Water:

Use for joy, beauty, cleansing, and sunshine. Prepare in the same way as the rose water.

Lilac Water:

Use lilac water for sleep, dream magic, spirit work, and cleansing. Prepare in the same way you would prepare the other flower waters.

Apple Blossom Water:

Create this by the same manner as the three flower waters above. Use for protection, love, and beauty.

Holly Water:

Holly water is to be used to protect your family. It will prick at intruders, or unwelcomed guests. It will also allow you to always have knoledge of the safety of your family. Simply steep holly leaves in water and mix with vodka. Do not ingest this, as it is poisonous.

Composites

All Bite no Bark Water:

A powerful water used for protection of a space. Mix together storm water, hair of a black dog, dirt of a grave, the ashes of psalm 7, rose thorns, teeth of a canidae, and three holly berries. Pour around a room which you wish to protect, or water protective plants to give their produce an aggressive kick. This water will protect a space with the ferocity of a rabid dog, and will not warn before attacking.

Fiery Wall of Protection Water:

Mix together sun water with three hot peppers, red brick dust, pottasium nitrate (saltpeter), sulfur, and blackthorn pricks. Another like the above, but more passive. Attacker might suffer a rash after encountering it.

Pitch Water:

Use pitch water to stop someone from making any progress. Mix together water from a swamp, gum arabic or acacia, charcoal dust, and chapparal. It can also be used to dissorient. Fair warning, this water is hella sticky.

Fuck Off Water:

Mix together sumac, apple seeds, thorns of a blackberry, cloves and storm water. Use it to repel unwanted people.

Goodbye Lover Water:

Mix together sea water, sumac, cloves, poppy seeds, thorns of a cactus, petals of a hibiscus flower, and saltpeter. Use it to get rid of unwanted courters or lovers, or to make two people break up.

I hope you guys find this useful! Make sure to be careful with any of the potentially dangerous ingredients listed, and put these to good use! Good luck my darlings.

Appalachian Folklore, Wives Tales, and Superstitions

Brought to you mostly by my grandparents, but also by my family at large. These are all things I heard growing up in the northern region of Appalachia and wanted to share with y'all. The lore and sayings may vary based on location, family tradition, and other factors, but this is just what I’m sharing from my experiences!

• Give the first pinch of a freshly baked loaf of bread to the Good Men to keep them happy. • Deaths and births always come in threes. • Spin around in a circle three times before you walk in the front door to confuse any spirits that are following you. • Don’t throw your hair out! If a bird builds a nest with it, you’ll have migraines. • “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailor’s warning.” • If the leaves on trees are flipped over with their backsides showing, rain’s coming. • If you hear a dog howl at night, death is coming. • If you’re giving someone a wallet or purse as a present, put money in it to ensure they’ll never financially struggle. • Spirits can’t cross running water. • Cats and dogs won’t enter a room where spirits are present. • Carry an acorn in your pocket for good luck, a penny for prosperity, and a nail for protection. • If you’re having nightmares, put a Bible under your pillow. They’ll go away. • Take a spoonful of honey to keep your words sweet. • Keeping a pot of coffee on ensures a happy home. • It’s bad luck to walk over a grave. • A horseshoe hung above a door ensures good luck. • A horseshoe in the bedroom staves away nightmares. • If your right hand itches, you’ll soon be receiving money. If the left itches, you’ll be paying it. • Wishing on a star works. “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.” • When you have a random shiver, someone just walked over your grave. • If smoke from a fire rises, expect clear skies. If it rolls along the ground, expect storms. • Rosemary near the door provides protection. Lavender provides peace. • “A ring around the sun or moon, rain or snow is coming soon.” • Wind chimes and bells keep spirits away. • Seeing a cardinal means unexpected company. • For that matter, so does dropping silverware. • Rubbing a bit of potato on a wart helps it to go away. • If the soles of your feet itch, you will soon walk on strange grounds. • Black eyed peas, greens, and/or pork and sauerkraut should be eaten on New Year’s Day to welcome good luck and good fortune. • Driving a nail into a bedframe or crib will drive away curses. • If your ears are burning, someone’s talking about you. • If you dream of fish, you are or will soon be pregnant. • Listen to the wisdom of children, they see and know more than we think. • To dream of death means birth, to dream of birth means death. • To cure a headache, crush some mint leaves in your hands, cup them over your mouth and nose, and breathe in a few times. It should help. • Placing a fern or ivy on the front porch protects against curses. • In a vegetable garden, never plant the same plants in the same spot two years in a row. Rotate where they are, and you’ll save your soil. (Note: this is a real thing called crop rotation, and is actually kind of important) • A black bird (Raven or crow, doesn’t matter) on the roof or a windowsill is an omen for death. To avoid it, you have to scare it away without using your voice before it caws. • Say a prayer when you pass a coal mine for the lost souls still in the mine. • Thank the land and the Lord with every successful hunt or harvest you have, for nothing is guaranteed.

These are a few of the folklores, wives’ tales, superstitions, and sayings that I’ve heard growing up (and still living in) in Appalachia! I encourage other Appalachian witches, cunning folk, and general inhabitants of the Appalachian region (and just the mountain range at large) to share whatever bits you’ve heard over the years! I just wanted to share a bit with y'all to give you an insight into some Appalachian lore, my own practice, and maybe give you some things to research and incorporate into your own practice! 🌿✨

Historical Witchcraft 101: Shapeshifting

A shapeshifter typically refers to a person who puts on the body of an animal, although it can sometimes be a human, through magic. The term can also technically refer to animals who turn into humans, such as the Irish selkie and the Japanese kitsune, although we’ll only be discussing human transformation here. Warning: Really fucking long post ahead. 

[Image description: German woodcut of a werewolf, half transformed.] [Image Source]

Witches were often said to transform into cats or hares, but mice, deer and even birds such as ravens or owls were also common. One telltale sign that the animal was a transformed witch was that it would be entirely black or entirely white, as in this tale about a witch called Auntie Greenleaf. Other witches were also said to be able to recognise witches in disguise.

Cats would be chosen because they were a common household animal that would not arouse suspicion. Hares, more so in Britain than in the New World, are associated with witchcraft due to the fact that hares jump and box during mating season, which is said to resemble a coven of witches dancing at a sabbat.

Advantages:

It is important to note that in most shapeshifting rituals, an item connected with the animal that the witch wants to shapeshift into is required, such as an animal pelt or feather. For example, folkloric werewolf transformations often involve wearing either a wolf pelt or a 7-tongued belt made of wolf skin, and sometimes also include a salve of wolf fat infused with (most likely trance-inducing) herbs.

If you want a piece of an animal for a shapeshifting ritual, please check the laws in your area first! The ownership of animal parts of many predators, such as wolves and coyotes, and feathers of many kinds of birds, is restricted. Check that these things are legal to own in your area, and if you’re buying, make sure the seller is also acting legally and humanely in their collection of animal parts.  

Methods of shapeshifting: familiars

Okay so this is kind of cheating, but one way witches were said to shapeshift was to take advantage of the close bond between themselves and their familiar. The witch would go into a trance state send out their soul (think of it like astral projection) in spirit flight, and lay their consciousness over that of their familiar’s, and possess it. They would then be able to sense everything the animal was sensing, as well as control its movement.

This practice, also known as ‘borrowing’ after Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, is described in further detail here.

Methods of shapeshifting: the witch’s fetch

Shapeshifting using the witch’s fetch is a slightly more complex idea that is linked to the ideas of ‘the sidereal body’ and is also kind of comparable with the practice of astral projection.

The ‘sidereal body’ is an idea taken from Eliphas Levi’s ‘Transcendental Magic’, otherwise known as part one of ‘Dogme et Ritual de la Haute Magie’. He also refers to it as the ‘animal soul’ of a person, and the ‘intermediary between the soul and the physical envelope’. Think of the ‘sidereal body’ as a part of your soul that you can project ethereally into the world around you, kind of like an aura. This ‘sidereal body’, this part of your soul, can also detach from your body in sleep and in trance states. In its detached state, the ‘sidereal body’ can be referred to as the witch’s ‘fetch’, or ‘fetch-beast’. Here is a post on a possible ritual for practising raising the fetch.

With the aid of an animal talisman to act as a focus, the witch can mould their sidereal or astral body in two different ways in order to shapeshift:

An example of the witch’s fetch in folklore are the tales in which a witch falls asleep or into a trance state and an observer sees an animal, their fetch-beast, crawl out of their mouth, often a mouse or toad.

Methods of shapeshifting: rituals and charms

In ‘Call of the Horned Piper’, Nigel Jackson gives an example of how a ritual transformation may have been performed. The initiate would undergo a symbolic death, undressing and crossing a lake or a river to symbolise passing to the other side. They would then put on the wolf skin or belt, and perhaps apply a wolf fat salve. In an altered state of consciousness, the initiate’s soul would then ‘be projected forth in the form of a wolf’.

Another means of transformation would be a charm, most famously that recited by Scottish witch Isobel Gowdie. She would say the transformation charm below three times to turn into an animal:

And to change back, she would say (once):

Less well known are the other charms that Gowdie provided for shapeshifting into a cat and a crow:

Isobel Gowdie’s charm was incorporated into a longer charm known as a fath-fith, which stems from ‘deer form’, and was used by hunters, warriors and travellers for stealth.

An example of a possible shapeshifting ritual you can try can be found here. Lizzie of visardistofelphame also writes on how you could create a ritual mask for shapeshifting here.

Warning:

Shapeshifting was often seen as dangerous for the witch: if the possessed animal or projection was harmed, typically by fire or silver, then this damage would be reflected on the body of the witch. For example, if someone kicked the leg of a shapeshifted cat, the witch would have a corresponding leg injury.  

Other dangers include not being able to return to your body because you’ve forgotten you were human, have got lost, or travelled too far from your real body. You could also be captured or injured by malevolent spirits while travelling.

This post is already ridiculously long, so sources are under the cut (sorry mobile users)

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To stop gossip

Some pictures of a witch’s ladder I made for my friend’s birthday gift

My boyfriend is doing something awesome.

He’s making an online spell maker/ witch encyclopedia

Basically you can type in an intent or keywords and get ideas for spells

Or you can type out everything you want and it is also color coded (key words like love are red, courage is orange, etc.) and do cyber spells

It’s not done yet but once it is I’ll for sure be sharing on here!

gotta look this up to see if they ever finished this.

We plan on releasing it soon, the only thing is that not every ingredient has been added and after its out we may still be in the process of adding

Look forward to it! Android?

Certainly it works on all phones since it’ll be a web app, but it can be added to your home screen for convenience :)

I’m dying waiting for this

It’s out !!! @the-witch-in-wonderland

Can you say what the link is?!?!? Id totally buy this from the app store

It’s free pinecone.pub

This is pretty amazing. Can’t wait to see where you take this. Check this out folks.

This is my favourite witchy app EVER. I use it every day and highly recommend it!!

Wow thank you!! @caffeine-and-crystals

🔮Boosting this cause it’s amazing,and everyone should know about it!🔮

I forgot I made an account.

I LOVE THIS. I’d highly recommend to all witches, beginner to master, it is a PHENOMENAL tool, thank you to you who made it!!

@magyk-soul Thanks so much for saying so! I always show Ian the developer the nice messages from this post (sorry I don’t reply to every one!) And it always makes us smile to see people enjoying our site!

Since I haven’t reblogged this in a while and it turned up on my dash again today. Reminder that OP changed urls and is ash-verity above, and totally worth a follow. And if you haven’t yet checked out this site, do it NOW.

This is absolutely fantastic, I’m so excited to start using it.