The Witch's Rune - Doreen Valiente

Darksome night and shining moon

 East and South, West and North

 Hearken to the Witches' Rune

 For here I come to call thee forth.

Earth and Water, Air and Fire

 Wand and Pentacle and Sword

 Work ye unto my desire

 Hearken ye unto my word.

Cord and Censer, Scourge and Knife

 Powers of the Witches' blade

 Waken all ye unto life.

 Come ye as the spell is made.

Queen of Heaven, Queen of Hell

 Horned Hunter of the Night

 Lend thy power unto my spell

 Work my will by magick rite.

By all the powers of Land and Sea

 By all the might of Moon and Sun

 As I will, so mote it be.

 Chant the spell and be it done.

© Copyright The Doreen Valiente Foundation

The Witches' Chant

Darksome night and shining Moon,

Hell’s dark mistress Heaven’s Queen

Harken to the Witches’ rune,

Diana, Lilith, Melusine!

Queen of witchdom and of night,

Work my will by magic rite.

Earth and water, air and fire,

Conjured by the witch’s blade,

Move you unto my desire,

Aid ye as the charm is made!

Queen of witchdom and of night,

Work my will by magic rite.

In the earth and air and sea,

By the light of moon or sun,

As I pray, so mote it be.

Chant the spell, and be it done!

Queen of witchdom and of night,

Work my will by magic rite.

© Copyright Doreen Valiente Foundation

New Year Poem

To leave the old with a burst of song;

 To recall the right and forgive the wrong;

 To forget the things that bind you fast

 To the vain regrets of the year that's past;

 To have the strength to let go your hold

 Of the not worthwhile of the days grown old;

 To dare go forth with a purpose true,

 To the unknown task of the year that's new;

 To help your brother along the road,

 To do his work and lift his load;

 To add your gift to the world's good cheer,

 Is to have and to give a Happy New Year.

- Author Unknown

Trick or Treat

Dionysus

By Aleister Crowley

I bring ye wine from above,

From the vats of the storied sun;

For every one of yer love,

And life for every one.

Ye shall dance on hill and level;

Ye shall sing in hollow and height

In the festal mystical revel,

The rapurous Bacchanal rite!

The rocks and trees are yours,

And the waters under the hill,

By the might of that which endures,

The holy heaven of will!

I kindle a flame like a torrent

To rush from star to star;

Your hair as a comet’s horrent,

Ye shall see things as they are!

I lift the mask of matter;

I open the heart of man;

For I am of force to shatter

The cast that hideth -Pan!

Your loves shall lap up slaughter,

And dabbled with roses of blood

Each desperate darling daughter

Shall swim in the fervid flood.

I bring ye laughter and tears,

The kisses that foam and bleed,

The joys of a million years,

The flowers that bear no seed.

My life is bitter and sterile,

Its flame is a wandering star.

Ye shall pass in pleasure and peril

Across the mystic bar

That is set for wrath and weeping

Against the children of earth;

But ye in singing and sleeping

Shall pass in measure and mirth!

I lift my wand and wave you

Through hill to hill of delight :

My rosy rivers lave you

In innermost lustral light..

I lead you, lord of the maze,

In the darkness free of the sun;

In spite of the spite that is day’s

We are wed, we are wild, we are one.

At Shigar Baltistan. 

Invocation of the Horned God

By the flame that burneth bright 

O Horned One!

 

We call thy name into the night 

O Horned One!

 

Thee we invoke by the moon led sea

By the standing stone and the twisted tree

Thee we invoke where gather thine own

By the nameless shrine forgotten and lone

 

Come where the round of the dance is trod

Horn and hoof of the goat-foot God

By moonlit meadow on dusky hill

When the haunted wood is hushed and still

 

Come to the charm of the chanted prayer

As the moon bewitches the midnight air

Evoke thy powers, that potent bide

In shining stream and secret tide

 

In fiery flame by starlight pale

In shadowy host that ride the gale

And by the fern-brakes fairy-haunted

Of forests wild and wood enchanted

 

Come! O Come!

To the heartbeats drum!

 

 Come to us who gather below

When the broad white moon is climbing slow

Through the stars to the heavens height

We hear thy hoofs on the wind of night

As black tree branches shake and sigh

By joy and terror we know thee nigh

 

We speak the spell thy power unlocks

At Solstice, Sabbat, and Equinox

Word of virtue the veil to rend

From primal dawn to the wide world's end

Since time began---

The blessing of Pan!

Blessed be all in hearth and hold

Blessed in all worth more than gold

Blessed be in strength and love

Blessed be wher'er we rove

Vision fade not from our eyes

Of the pagan paradise

Past the gates of death and birth

Our inheritance of the earth

From our soul the song of spring

Fade not in our wandering

Our life with all life is one,

By blackest night or noonday sun

Eldest of gods, on thee we call

Blessing be on thy creatures all

Invocation from Witchcraft for Tomorrow by Doreen Valiente

Illustration: Francisco de Goya y Lucientes - Witches' Sabbath

The Witches Creed

 by Doreen Valiente.

Hear now the words of the witches,

The secrets we bid in the night,

When dark was our destiny's pathway,

That now we bring forth into light.

Mysterious water and fire,

The earth and the wide-ranging air,

By hidden quintessence we know them,

and will and keep silent and dare.

The birth and rebirth of all nature,

The passing of winter and spring,

We share with the life universal,

Rejoice in the magikal ring.

Four times in the year the Great Sabbat returns,

all witches are seen,

At Lammas and Candlemas dancing,

On May Eve & Ole Holloween.

When daytime and nighttime are equal,

When the sun is at it's greatest and least,

The four Lesser Sabbats are summoned,

Again, witches gather in feast.

Thirteen silver moons in a year,

Thirteen is the Coven's array,

Thirteen times at Esbat make merry,

For each golden year and a day.

The power was passed down the ages,

Each century unto the other,

Each time the ages began.

When drawn is the magikal circle,

By sword or athame or power,

It's compass between the 2 worlds lies,

In the land of the shades for that hour.

This world then has no right to know it,

And world of beyond will tell naught,

The oldest of GODS are invoked here,

The Great Work of magik is wrought.

For two are the mystikal pillars,

That stand at the gate of the shrine,

And two are the powers of nature,

The forms and the forces divine.

The dark and the light in succession,

The opposites each unto each,

Shown forth as a GOD and a GODDESS,

of this did our ancestors teach.

By night he's the wild wind's rider,

The Horn'd One, Lord of the Shades,

By day he's the King of the Woodland's,

The dweller in green forest glades.

She is youthful or old as she pleases,

She tails the torn clouds in her barque,

The bright silver lady of midnight,

The crone who weaves the spells in the dark.

The master and mistress of magik,

They dwell in the deeps of the mind,

Immortal and ever-renewing,

With power to free or to bind.

So drink the good wine to the Old Gods,

And dance and make love in their praise,

Till Elphame's fair land shall recieve us,

In peace at the end of our days.

And do what you will be challanged,

So be it in love that harms none,

For this is the only commandment,

By magik of old be it done!

The Witches Creed appears here as it was originally written by Doreen Valiente.

The Hag ~ Robert Herrick (1648)

The Hag is astride,

This night for to ride;

The Devill and shee together:

Through thick, and through thin,

Now out, and then in,

Though ne’r so foule be the weather.

A Thorn or a Burr

She takes for a Spurre:

With a lash of a Bramble she rides now,

Through Brakes and through Bryars,

O’re Ditches, and Mires,

She followes the Spirit that guides now.

No Beast, for his food,

Dares now range the wood;

But husht in his laire he lies lurking:

While mischiefs, by these,

On Land and on Seas,

At noone of Night are working,

The storme will arise,

And trouble the skies;

This night, and more for the wonder,

The ghost from the Tomb

Affrighted shall come,

Cal’d out by the clap of the Thunder.

Illustration: Albrecht Dürer’s ‘shrieking siren’ of a witch riding backwards on a goat, c1500, with Dürer’s AD monogram reversed. Photograph: © Trustees of the British Museum

The Witch's Ballad

Oh, I have been beyond the town,
Where nightshade black and mandrake grow,      
And I have heard and I have seen
What righteous folk would fear to know!

For I have heard, at still midnight,
Upon the hilltop far, forlorn,
With note that echoed through the dark,
The winding of the heathen horn.

And I have seen the fire aglow,
And glinting from the magic sword,
And with the inner eye beheld
The Horned One, the Sabbat's lord.

We drank the wine, and broke the bread,
And ate it in the Old One's name.
We linked our hands to make the ring,
And laughed and leaped the Sabbat game.

Oh, little do the townsfolk reck,
When dull they lie within their bed!
Beyond the streets, beneath the stars,
A merry round the witches tread!

And round and round the circle spun,
Until the gates swung wide ajar,
That bar the boundaries of earth
From faery realms that shine afar.

Oh, I have been and I have seen
In magic worlds of Otherwhere.
For all this world may praise or blame,
For ban or blessing naught I care.

For I have been beyond the town,
Where meadowsweet and roses grow,
And there such music did I hear
As worldly-righteous never know. 

Doreen Valiente

Autumn Song

Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf

How the heart feels a languid grief

Laid on it for a covering,

And how sleep seems a goodly thing

In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

And how the swift beat of the brain

Falters because it is in vain,

In Autumn at the fall of the leaf

Knowest thou not? and how the chief

Of joys seems—not to suffer pain?

Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf

How the soul feels like a dried sheaf

Bound up at length for harvesting,

And how death seems a comely thing

In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1883)

A Lute Song by Campion

A 16th cen. poem concerning witches.

          Thrice tosse these Oaken ashes in the ayre, 

          Thrice sit thou mute in this inchanted chayre; 

         Then thrice three times tye up this true loves knot, 

         And murmur soft, shee will, or shee will not. 

          Goe burne these poys'nous weedes in yon blew fire, 

          These Screech-owles fethers, and this prickling bryer, 

          This Cypresse gathered at a dead mans grave: 

          That all thy feares and cares an end may have. 

          Then come, you Fayries, dance with me a round, 

        Melt her hard hart with your melodious sound. 

        In vaine are all the charmes I can devise: 

        She hath an Arte to breake them with her eyes.

Campion, Thomas, 1567-1620:  XVIII.

The Harvest Moon

The flame-red moon, the harvest moon,

Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,

A vast balloon,

Till it takes off, and sinks upward

To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon.

The harvest moon has come,

Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon.

And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum.

So people can't sleep,

So they go out where elms and oak trees keep

A kneeling vigil, in a religious hush.

The harvest moon has come!

And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep

Stare up at her petrified, while she swells

Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing

Closer and closer like the end of the world.

Till the gold fields of stiff wheat

Cry `We are ripe, reap us!' and the rivers

Sweat from the melting hills. 

References:

Edward James "Ted" Hughes, OM (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet and children's writer. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.

Painting: Samuel Palmer (27 January 1805 – 24 May 1881) was a British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker. He was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and produced visionary pastoral paintings.

The Witch

I HAVE walked a great while over the snow, 

And I am not tall nor strong. 

My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set, 

And the way was hard and long. 

I have wandered over the fruitful earth, 

But I never came here before. 

Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door! 

  

The cutting wind is a cruel foe. 

I dare not stand in the blast. 

My hands are stone, and my voice a groan, 

And the worst of death is past. 

I am but a little maiden still, 

My little white feet are sore. 

Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door! 

  

Her voice was the voice that women have, 

Who plead for their heart's desire. 

She came—she came—and the quivering flame 

Sunk and died in the fire. 

It never was lit again on my hearth 

Since I hurried across the floor, 

To lift her over the threshold, and let her in at the door.

© Mary Elizabeth Coleridge. All rights reserved

Brief Bio: Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (23 September 1861 – 25 August 1907) was a British novelist and poet who also wrote essays and reviews. She taught at the London Working Women's College for twelve years from 1895 to 1907. She wrote poetry under the pseudonym Anodos, taken from George MacDonald; other influences on her were Richard Watson Dixon and Christina Rossetti. Robert Bridges, the Poet Laureate, described her poems as 'wonderously beautiful… but mystical rather and enigmatic'.

Song of the Witches

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

by William Shakespeare