Dear magical reader,
I’m up against a deadline at the moment, but I’ve taken a short break from my essay because my brain could use a gear shift. The theory is that I will return to the piece with sharper acumen.
It’s Walpurgis Night or Walpurgisnacht, which to most people is associated with a scary night when witches congregate to take to the skies with delighted cries, but it’s also the eve of the feast day of Saint Walpurga, an 8th-century Anglo-Saxon Christian missionary to the Frankish Empire. Officially, her celebration is tomorrow, May Day or Bealtaine in Ireland, which is the start of our traditional summer. I enjoy considering how two contrary traditions can exist cheek by jowl.1
Here, university students will start their exams soon. I always remember that as a time when the sun roasted the cavernous, stifling halls to add an extra layer of stress. Although, monsoon rain hammering the roof of the echoing chamber is another memory. Perhaps all of this activity is conducted online now, and students never have to sit on hard seats while scribbling frantically and ignoring the rounds of the invigilator. The flight of witches might be a more attractive prospect.
Personally, I’ve always enjoyed stories about witches. When I was a kid I didn’t find them scary, but fascinating, because I sensed in them a powerful freedom from normal constraints. Plus, I never really believed in the eating children part… maybe in fairy tales, or in the gnarled forests from long ago, but not in the modern age.
I’ve written a number of witch and hag stories, including ‘Bone Mother’, where two cultural icons collide, and one of them is Baba Yaga. The title story of my collection, The Boughs Withered, is a witch story set in a nearby town. Most of the witches in my stories are not nice. They do not care about being likeable. They have a purpose and set about it with forceful intention. Stay out of their way when they are about their business or suffer consequences. They will aid those who ask for help but there is a price. There is always a price.
Witches tend to be guardians of thresholds. You might hear a cackle when your heart is breaking, or glimpse their shredded shadow pass the moon’s face when your spirits are soaring. As you traverse a tricky life barrier you might spot one of them seated nearby, puffing on a pipe, or gnawing on a bone. If she winks you’ll be all right; probably.
Witch can be slung as a slur, but I don’t live in a place where that accusation could bring considerable danger. What cannot be denied is that the word, the title, contains power. Even in the most rational society it zaps.
To take that designation upon yourself is to place a mantle over your head and set yourself apart from others (except for the company of your weird folk). It is to love the sparkle of the heavens on a clear night, the crackle of an open fire, the smell of herbs, the joy of shared concoctions, the beat of a drum and the chime of a bell, and to feast upon the marrow of life.
Even those of us who live busy urban lives can sense a witchy current sometimes. When the house is hushed at night, and you look out your window and see a fox sitting by a bin in the quiet garden, and the full moon stretches its shadow so wide and big.
A person could step inside that darkness, you think.
And before you know it, you’re in.
What a fantastic expression, cheek by jowl. It exudes sensation. A witchy term. Apparently it dates from the 16th century and replaced the humdrum cheek by cheek. That is sweeter. Cheek by jowl is sweatier.
I love your substack! Witches rock. Thanks for the story about them. ❤️☺️🌹🍒👍
Cheek by jowl is indeed a lovely, sweaty expression!