Fallen Angels . . . and Spirits of the Dark

by Robert Masello

  ALL HALLOWS’ EVE

  If there was one night of the year when witches were sure to be out and about, it was All Hallows’ Eve or, as we know it today, Halloween. On this, the night before All Saints’ Day (November 1), the witches were joined by every other member of the unholy crew — goblins and ghosts, demons and fairies — in midnight revels and devilry. It was also the night when the souls of the dead reputedly walked the earth, seeking the warmth of their family hearth once more before the desolate winter set in. Food and drink were put out for the lonely ghosts, who passed by to the west always, the direction of the setting sun. For the ancient Celts, All Hallows’ Eve was the first night of the new year.

  But all over Europe, it became customary to light bonfires on October 31 to mark the passage from autumn to winter, and to signal the coming of the cold and dark. The herds of livestock, which had roamed the fields and pastures all summer, were brought in to the barns and stalls, there to weather the snow and ice. Perhaps the bonfires were meant, symbolically, to shed their heat over all living creatures during the difficult months to come.

  In many parts of the British Isles, boys would go from house to house, collecting a peat (a clump of dried sod) from every farmer and villager, with the words, “Give us a peat to burn the witches.” When they had collected enough, they would stack them up with dry wood and straw and set fire to the pile. While it burned, they danced around it, shouting and playing games. But when the last sparks died down, and the darkness once again threatened to overwhelm them, the boys would cry out, “Devil take the hindmost!” and run for their very lives. It’s possible that at one time the hindmost — the last to flee — was in fact made a human sacrifice.

  In Ireland, All Hallows’ Eve was known as the night the fairy folk moved their colonies from one hill to another, accompanied by the eerie sound of their tinkling bells and elf-horns. According to one old Irish story, a young man who stayed out late on one such night met up with a troop of the tiny people. At first they seemed like the perfect hosts, offering him a merry welcome, wine, and fairy gold. But when he took a closer look at them, he saw that they weren’t fairies at all anymore; now they were the ghosts of neighbors who had died many years before. Terrified, he tried to run, but the ghosts grabbed hold of him and forced him into their antic dance. He fought to pry their fingers loose, but soon lost his strength and fell in a faint. When he awoke the next day, he was lying inside a stone circle, his arms bruised and sore from the grip of the fairy fingers.

  FAMILIARS

  “The witches have their spirits, some hath one, some hath more, as two, three, four, or five, some in one likeness and some in another, as like cats, weasels, toads, or mice, whom they nourish with milk or a chicken, or by letting them suck now and then a drop of blood.”

  George Gifford,

  Dialogue Concerning Witches (1593)

  The spirits that Gifford, a prominent English preacher, is speaking of here were called familiars, and they were thought to be gifts from Satan to his willing followers, the witches. They were given, the way one might give a wedding present, to celebrate the consummation of the witch’s pact with the Devil.

  Lowly demons, these familiars, it was said, did their best to fit unobtrusively into the everyday world. To do so, they assumed all sorts of animal shapes, everything from dogs to spiders, though black cats were, of course, one of the most popular forms. Toads and frogs, because they were cold-blooded, were also likely familiars. So were blackbirds and crows, since they were thought to be birds of augury. But virtually any creature could do, and in witch trials everything from hedgehogs to bumblebees were cited as evidence.

  But whatever shape they took, these familiars provided the witch with a range of services, from running malicious errands to offering advice on the Black Arts. In 1662, Isobel Gowdie, a Scottish witch, declared that “each of us has a spirit to wait upon us, when we please to call upon him.” The familiars also served as a kind of social secretary, reminding the witches of the time and place for the next sabbat. Sometimes, witches were reported to ride these very familiars to the meeting place.

  The feeding of the familiar was an economical, if unappetizing, act. As with imps (with whom they are somewhat interchangeable), familiars were nursed on the witch’s milk, or blood; this they sucked from the witch’s teat — generally a supernumerary nipple, which can appear on the bodies of men or women. This teat, or pap, was called the witch’s mark.

  THE WITCH’S MARK

  In witch trials, there were two pieces of proof necessary for conviction: one was the familiar, and the other was the witch’s mark. Neither one was very hard to find. The familiar, as has been mentioned above, could be a beloved pet, or a beetle scuttling across the floor of the witch’s hovel. The witch’s mark could be anything from the supernumerary nipple — which would have been considered incontrovertible proof — to something as small as a mole, a wart, or other small physical anomaly. Only an absolutely perfect body could have withstood this scrutiny (and then the perfection would itself have been considered proof of an unholy pact).

  The Witch-Finder General

  And the scrutiny, make no mistake, was intense. Suspected witches were routinely stripped naked, shaved from head to toe, and then carefully inspected, sometimes in a public courtroom, by any number of noted witch-finders; on occasion, they were tied to a chair throughout. Since the witch’s mark was often thought to be well concealed, the examination was quite thorough, and often turned up the damning evidence in the “privy parts.” Though cloaked in moral rectitude, the witch trials, quite undeniably, fed the sadistic and prurient drives first of the prosecutors, and then of the public at large.

  TOOLS OF THE TRADE

  Like any craftsman — and after all, it wasn’t called witchcraft for nothing — the witch had her own set of tools. These she used to cast her spells, concoct her potions, and in one way or another ply her trade. Though methods and implements varied, there were certain fairly standard items which one witch, dropping in unannounced at another witch’s cottage, could reasonably expect to find there.

  There was, of course, the broomstick, or bune wand (as it was known to Scottish witches), which she employed for her nocturnal flights. In the earliest accounts of witchcraft, it was usually just a forked wand, or a wooden staff. Long-stalked plants, such as yellow ragwort and beanstalks, also came into use, though the broomstick eventually became the acknowledged mode of transport. In Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft, published in 1584, Scot wrote that “at these magicall assemblies [the sabbats], the witches never fail to danse . . . and whiles they sing and danse, everie one hath a broome in hir hand, and holdeth it up aloft.” What went into the brooms was important too: in the Wrye Forest area of Worcestershire, for instance, oak twigs were used for the brush part, hazel for the shaft, and birch for the binding, because all three of these trees were invested with magical meaning. (The oak was the king of the forest, the hazel symbolized wisdom, and the birch purification.)

  Perhaps the second most essential and recognizable tool in the witch’s kit was her cauldron. Even in ancient Greece, the witches were already putting the cauldron to use. When Medea, the witch of Colchis and priestess of Hecate, plotted the murder of King Pelias, it was her magic cauldron she used to complete the deed. When Macbeth approaches the three Weird Sisters in their dark cave, they are gathered around their boiling cauldron: “Double, double toil and trouble, Fire burn and cauldron bubble,” they chant in unison. And into the pot they toss such potent ingredients as eye of newt, tongue of dog, lizard’s leg, and tooth of wolf. Then they give Macbeth the good and the bad news about his future prospects.

  The Druidic moon goddess, Cerridwen, used magical herbs to brew her Cauldron of Inspiration. The stew had to simmer for a year and a day, and at the end of that time it produced the Three Drops of Wisdom (or divine inspiration), the mystical Awen. Ever after, the cauldron was adopted by witches as their unofficial symbol. Its capacity to transform what it rece
ived (turning assorted ingredients into food, or medicine) made it representative of the feminine principle; the three legs it was supported on symbolized the triple moon goddess; and the four elements of life — water, fire, earth, and air — all went into or out of it. (Water filled the cauldron, fire boiled it, the herbs of the earth cooked inside it, and steam arose from the bubbling brew.)

  The third necessary tool in any witch’s toolbox was her witch ball, or speculum. Sometimes the speculum was a crystal ball, sometimes it was a magic mirror. A witch short of funds could fashion one from a black bowl filled with water. Whatever she made it from, her witch ball was what she used for scrying, or divining things. Gazing into its reflective depths, she could see beyond the borders of time and space. She could predict future events, envision far-off places, and get answers to questions that continued to plague her (“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Who’s the fairest of them all?”).

  In seacoast towns, witches were known to employ the glass globes that fishermen used to keep their nets afloat. These were generally made of dark green or blue glass, and had the added advantage of appearing to be quite innocent objects. The well-known Irish witch, Biddy Early, had a favorite blue glass bottle.

  Specula of any sort had to be consecrated before they were put to use, and this had to be done by exposing them to the light of a full moon. When not in use, they were generally kept in a closed box, or under a black velvet cloth. No matter what, they were kept out of the sun.

  Exposing them to candlelight, however, was fine, and sometimes recommended. Some witches liked a candle to provide a fine pinpoint of light in the speculum while others preferred only a dimly diffused light in the room. Burning incense was a nice added touch. If all went well, the witch ball would eventually cloud over, and then the scryer would see misty pictures emerge. If she looked even harder, the pictures would become clearer and more brightly lit, and show her what she wanted to know. Sometimes this message could be quite literal — the face of the fairest person in the land — and sometimes it could be figurative, a sign or symbol that had to be interpreted. But for most witches, this was no problem; they were very good at deciphering puzzles.

  Finally, no witch’s arsenal was complete without a special knife. It wasn’t used for such mundane purposes as chopping herbs. This dagger — black-handled, and inscribed on the blade with magical symbols — was called her Athame. Traditionally given to a new witch on the night of her initiation, kind of like a sorority pin, the Athame was used for such mystical purposes as drawing the magic circle, mixing the sacred salt and water at the Esbat (the monthly meeting of a witches’ coven), and controlling spirits that had been called down to Earth. A woodcut in a 1555 edition of a book called History of the Northern Peoples shows a witch acting like a ringmaster to a horde of boisterous demons. In one hand she holds aloft a sheaf of magical herbs, and in the other her gleaming Athame.

  THE ELEMENTALS

  Whenever a coven of witches met, the high priestess, stretching out her arms, stood at each of the four points of the compass in turn. At each point, with her Athame drawn, she invoked the “Mighty One,” or Elemental, that corresponded to that particular direction: earth for the north, air for the east, fire for the south, and water for the west. It was once thought that the universe had been created of these four Elementals, and by harnessing their powers the witches hoped to give power to their charms.

  The Elementals themselves were thought to be neither human nor strictly spirit, but something in between. And there were untold numbers of each category. They could be conjured, they moved with the rapidity of spirits, but they were composed of flesh and blood and bone. They were not immortal — they could fall victim to disease and die — but they could never be imprisoned. In some ways they behaved like mortals — walking, talking, sleeping — but they could exist only in their own element. And there was a name and a distinct character profile ascribed to each one.

  According to the alchemist Paracelsus, who systematized much of the Elemental lore, the Elementals who lived in the earth were dwarfish spirits who lurked underground, guarding hoards of secret treasure. Known as gnomes, they could also, if provoked, swell up like giants. And they harbored a certain malevolence toward man. Still, if a man was determined to keep a gnome as a servant, he could keep him in line: “If you do your duty to him,” Paracelsus asserted, “he will do his duty to you.”

  The Elementals of the Air, however, were much friendlier and easier to handle. Known as sylphs or sylvestres, these airy sprites were the ones that most resembled humans.

  In the water, the undines held sway. But they have also been known, unlike their fellow spirits, to marry mortals. If a man should happen to marry one, Paracelsus warned, he should be careful never to anger her while they were passing by a body of water: she could decide to jump in and disappear.

  And salamanders were the Elementals of fire, named for the mythical lizardlike creatures that could live and breathe inside a bed of flames. No man could get too close to them, nor could they come too close to man. In his memoirs, Benvenuto Cellini claimed to have seen one in his family’s fireplace, “sporting in the core of the intensest coals.”

  What the Elementals shared, in Paracelsus’s view, was a distaste for drunkards and louts and people with too high an opinion of themselves. They liked, on the other hand, “natural men, who are simple-minded and child-like, innocent and sincere, and the less vanity and hypocrisy there is in a man, the easier it will be for him to approach them.”

  MAGICAL DEVICES

  Every witch who could write kept a little book, and in it she recorded the recipes for her potions, the correct wording of her incantations, the results of her work. For the witch, this Book of Shadows, as it has come to be known, was the equivalent of a ship’s log, or a scientist’s lab book.

  But in the days when witchcraft was a capital offense, such books were dangerous to keep. They were kept hidden, and upon the witch’s death her fellows in the coven were instructed to take what they wanted from it, and then burn the original (as, indeed, its author may already have been burned).

  Still, from what records and books do remain, there appear to have been certain tried and true means used by witches to achieve their magical ends.

  Witches’ brew.

  Of the many potent charms regularly employed, one of the most popular was known as the Hand of Glory.

  The recipe was fairly simple. A hand cut from the body of a hanged man was first wrapped in a piece of shroud, then the shroud cloth was drawn tight to squeeze out any blood that might still remain. The hand was next marinated, as it were, in an earthenware pot filled with salt, saltpeter, and peppers. Two weeks later, the hand was taken out of the pot and dried to a crisp — in the sun or, if time was of the essence, in an oven with vervain and fern.

  What was the Hand of Glory good for? It was a kind of all-purpose charm. You lit the fingers and while it burned you could pursue whatever nefarious scheme you chose. According to Martin Del Rio, the sixteenth-century Jesuit demonologist, a thief once lit the Hand of Glory to keep the residents of a house asleep while he went through the drawers. To his misfortune, a servant girl saw him light it, and after several unsuccessful attempts to put it out by blowing on it, dousing it with water, then beer—she finally managed it with a pitcher of milk. (Why that worked remains a mystery.) The owners of the house instantly woke up, the burglar was caught, and the servant girl was rewarded for her valor.

  Cautious homeowners could defend themselves against the Hand of Glory through the use of a special ointment. This ointment, according to Marvellous Secrets of the Natural and Cabalistic Magic of Little Albert (published in Cologne in 1772), had to be prepared in the dog days from three particular ingredients — the gall of a black cat, the blood of a screech owl, and the fat of a white hen. Smeared over the threshold of the house and all other entry points, it would keep any one from using the Hand of Glory to bewitch the house’s inhabitants.

  The Witch’s Ladder wa
s another homemade charm, though this one was somewhat easier to manufacture. All it required was a length of new rope or strong thread, and a clutch of white goose feathers. (Black feathers from a crow or rook were also sometimes used.)

  While the strands of the rope or thread were being braided, the witch recited a malediction against the person she intended to do harm. She recited the curse every time she made a knot in the rope, and every time she made a knot she inserted a feather. When the job was done, she hid the bad luck charm in the victim’s bed. By one account, it was also possible to weight the rope with a stone and sink it in a pond. As the bubbles rose to the surface, the power of the curse would be freed.

  It was important that the rope have three strands — a magical number — and that the feathers come from a male bird. The feathers, it was thought, assured the witch that the curse would fly toward its target. In Italy, the charm was known as la guirlanda delle streghe, or the witch’s garland.

  The Bellarmine Jug got its name from Cardinal Bellarmine, whose scowling, bearded face often adorned it. Manufactured in the Rhineland from the 1500s on, the jugs were exported to England by the crateload and became a very popular household item.

  But their uses weren’t always benign.

  A stout, stoneware vessel with a bulging body and a narrow neck, the Bellarmine Jug could be easily stoppered with a bit of cork. It could be used to hold anything from wine to honey, but it could also be used to hold the motley items needed to inflict or counteract a curse: as a result, it acquired the nickname of “witch bottle.”