I have maintained for a long time that, where once we might have sought out the Fae in unusual formations of rocks, plants, or trees and even in the water pools and swirls on a riverbank, now we feel the traces of the urban Fae in the artwork scrawled in underpasses and dark alleys. They lurk just on the edge of our vision and inspire those of us who are sensitive and, for time immemorial, the artists and revolutionaries among us who have been known for their visionary abilities.
~ Urban Faery Magick – Tara Sanchez
Often places of power will jump out at you, the rocks can, and do actually howl in their otherness.
Of course the rationalists1 of the world will tell you that rocks humming are just a fluke of geology, the right type of rock, and the right meteorological conditions on a certain day culminating in the rocks vibrating at a frequency that is audible to the human ear. This is all undoubtedly true, but it cannot take away the fact that some places will inspire awe, others will not. The differentiator for me is whether I think “Oh that’s cool” or if it inspires a story, a tale to be told, if you are a rationalist you might say it inspires a flight of fancy.
This is a flight of fancy that came to me whilst walking in the Lake District, as I made my way up Buttermere Fell along Scarth Gap Pass heading towards Haystacks. There is a large rock outcropping which moaned loudly enough that it was audible for some considerable time and the closer I got the more inspired I became.
The Hall of the Fairy King
Sometimes persistent sound can be as exhausting as physical labour. It can wear you down, leaving you distracted and trembling. It can make you turn away from even the most longed for goals. Even ones that you’ve set mind, body and soul to achieve. So hill walking in foul weather can be as much a mental task as anything else, the wind can howl almost deafening you, making you want to turn back long before the rain soaks you and chills you to the bone. Despite this the couple climbed steadily, it was cold, it was wet and the steep path was slippery underfoot, but they were enthralled by the idea of reaching the summit. The woman stopped for a moment, her face screwed up in concentration, head cocked slightly to one side as if listening to something more than the wind ripping at the hood of her jacket.
“Do you hear that? It was a struggle to lift her voice above the noise now.
The man turned round, face wrinkling as another gust of wind blasted more rain directly at him. “Is it an aeroplane?”
“I don’t think so! It sounds like the rocks over there vibrating”.
“Don’t be daft, rocks don’t vibrate.”
“Well I think they do, I’ve been hearing it for a while. I thought at first it might be an aeroplane too, or helicopter coming over the hill but it’s never appeared and nobody flies helicopters in this weather surely.”
They stood still together for a moment curious, listening for a little while longer before the man spoke again.
“I suppose the next thing you’re going tell me is that it’s fairies”.
Gleefully the woman turned and smiled.
“Of course! it’s always fairies, and this is the hall of the fairy King only those that can hear the hum can find the secret entrance. You have to have fae blood to hear the noise. You must be part fairy too.”
She grinned wickedly. The wind whipped around her, the rain drove a bit harder, sodden tendrils of hair stuck to her face. Wiping them away with a dripping hand she made a deep flourishing bow towards the rocks.
“How goes it FAIR ones? Thank you for your favour and passage through this realm.”
With a deep breath she nodded once, as if agreeing with some inaudible speaker before she turned and carried on walking up the hill. Intent once again upon her climb. Her companion snorted, shaking his head before following along.
Somewhere deep inside the mountain there was a clunk, followed by a distant rumble, as if a large doorway had opened. There was no machinery to see, no gears or levers moving, so whilst the noise was in essence mechanical there was also something otherworldly, eery about the sound. This was no ordinary, man-made doorway, it was an opening between one place and another. Hearing the rumble the fairy king settled back into his throne and smiled a grim determined smile.
“Finally, even after millennia we still haven’t totally been forgotten. The old blood lines still surprise us by manifesting every few generations. Maybe, just maybe this time there is hope.”
After a moment he leant forward again to stare intently into the silver pool in front of him. “Ahhh yes, there she is”, he flicked his wrist and the wind on the hillside died down.
Has the otherness of a place ever inspired you?
I use the term rationalist over the term realist because in my opinion what is real is subjective. People who would seek to explain the wonders of the world away, rationalise the situation so it is a much better term. ↩︎
Once upon a time I used to have an almost photographic memory (as long as it was on a subject I cared about). When taking exams I could close my eyes and see the text I wanted to recall on the page in the book, like an picture in my mind. That got me through more than one or two tough exams I tell you! When arguing on the internet because somebody was wrong I knew exactly where I had read something and would often send the long suffering husbeast to find the book which would help me win an argument with a blase comment like – “its on the fourth shelf down about 6 books in from the left, it’s on a right hand page about a 3rd of the way through” I was rarely (if ever) wrong.
My personal “marked deck”
Thing is to achieve this feat I needed to see the thing first laid out in front of me and when I got serious about the Tarot I struggled to make the connect between the elemental attributions and the astrology associated with certain cards because most decks don’t include the symbolism for these attributions in their designs. In fairness I’ve got lazy now and I would still really have to wrinkle my nose and squint hard before I could tell you that the 2 of Swords was Moon in Libra, but is partly because I hit upon a thing that changed my tarot reading forever and literally levelled me up by an order of magnitude. I started writing on my decks.
For me cards are just that, cards. OK there are now a few exceptions in my collection. Items that were created and consecrated in a talismanic way. But for the most part our decks are mass produced objects, it’s what we do with them that makes them special, so writing on them when you first get them isn’t a no-no in my world. So when I get a new deck the first thing I do now is mark the astrology, elemental and sometimes even keyword associations. With my main “working” deck which I use for the clients I work with on the lines I even properly write on the cards, new ideas, thoughts for new associations etc. My cards quite literally become a book of mysteries.
Annotated Etteilla II from the Hexen Museum
And yet this practise is often frowned upon, considered a basic or beginners move, although goodness knows why. So although I teach my students to do this its not something I publicise very often. Until now that is. Last year I read an interview with Wicca Meier Spring in the Esotoracle magazine about the Hexen Museum in Switzerland and its collections of rare cards. One deck a Grand Etteilla II discussed was of particular interest, it had once belonged to Mde. Moreau a student of the infamous Mlle Lenormand, it is heavily hand annotated. In fact if you look at other decks from the same stable, the Grande or the Petit Etteilla all have writing and keywords on the Trumps, Pips and Courts. This isn’t a new concept. The Queen of Pentacles for example is “La Femme de Campagne” – the country woman, which gives a great new view on that particular Queen don’t you think? but I digress.
Benebells Golden Universal
The Universe often likes to tell me that it’s got my back when I do heretical things, so shortly after I read the article about the Etteilla deck, whilst debating if I would go “public” as it were I was doom scrolling social media and a Youtube video caught my eye. The esteemed Benebell Wen with a deck of marked cards eschewing the benefits of adding – with a sharpie no less – correspondences to your cards. If it’s good enough for her, then it’s good enough for me. So now I don’t fret too much who sees my cards and I push the joys of card marking even more to my students. Go on do it, you won’t regret it, well unless its on some uber rare 1st edition – then I’d probably stay your hand; but for a mass produced deck hey what could go wrong if you bungle it one of two things will happen, it will be a laminated or plasticised card so with a bit of good old Florida water and a tissue you can quickly wipe away your mistake with minimal damage OR you just buy another blimmin deck.
Let me know how you get on
Thanks to both Benebell Wen and Wicca Meier-Spring who gave me permission to use thier images. I am very grateful x
A ramble rather than a review – It started as a review but then meandered around a lot so bear with me!
It’s fair to say that once you get to a certain stage in your card obsession you will start collecting decks of all shapes and sizes. For example, last year I became totally fixated with the Etteilla cards in all their incarnations, I will do a blog post about them some day soon I promise. Once you slip down the slippery slope of other cartomantic systems you will without a doubt finally stumble upon the ‘Gypsy’ decks. I know that the name Gypsy is problematic for some, but I am not going to make apologies for using the term in this blog or for the deck. Firstly, the deck is a product of its time and 100+ years ago when these cards first came into being things aren’t as they are now, if we cancel everything because the world was different then, we’ve got a problem in the cartomantic world and should probably just go back to reading playing cards!
Secondly I am acutely aware that the problematic nature of the name is very geographic, in parts of Europe there are those who see the name Gypsy as a racial slur and it’s led a lot of people worldwide to come out in support of that (quite rightly so – racism needs to be quashed), but here in the UK the nouns Gypsy and Traveller are the recognised names specifically requested by the Gyspy/Traveller communities. This is what they have asked to be known by officially, is it not wrong to try and cancel a name when members of that minority group wish it to be used? – just some food for thought (I’ve agonised over this and don’t have an answer I really don’t). Further consideration is that the author of this book clearly states that the “Romani have given it their own unique meaning” to this deck which implies strongly that the Romani have embraced and are using these cards and don’t seem to have a problem with them – just sayin’.
Anyway with all that said, you may remember I had a dalliance with the deck last year, doing my usual thing, trying to track down the origins and even looking for the instructions for the early decks to see if there had been any deviation in meanings during the decks lifetime. A frustrating process as there is so little written about it. You can understand then that I was absolutely beside myself with joy when I discovered a book on the subject was being released. “Reading Fortune Telling Cards – a Romani approach – featuring the Gypsy Witch deck“, by Fabio Vinago (Published by U.S Games); it is as far as I am aware a first and in a heavily saturated market like cartomancy firsts are something to be celebrated.
I could not find much information on the author other than a website in Dutch, from which I gleaned that he has previously self published a number of books and decks. This is his first book in the English language and it’s a cute little thing just 125 pages long. Due to its brevity it feels like more like a LWB (Little White Book) than a comprehensive guide which is a shame as I think in my heart that is what I was hoping for. I was particularly intrigued by the idea that the book contained a Romani approach to reading the Gypsy Witch deck. The Lenormand derived decks of the early 1900s that came with names like “gypsy witch fortune-telling deck” and the “old gypsy fortune-telling deck” were for the most part created in America and are therefore relatively modern unlike the Romani culture and their use of playing cards which is not. Although some of the forerunners of the early “gypsy” decks were created in Berlin they only predated their cousins by a few years, my cynics head can’t help but wonder if what we’re seeing here in this book is an attempt to blend the unusual meanings in these peculiar, rather ugly and slightly problematic cards with Roma influenced playing card divination to give them a slightly more glamorous face and attaching a provenance to them that I am just not sure they deserve.
Anyway, in fairness to the author, he doesn’t claim that he knows the origins of this particular deck but there are several references within the book to the Romani people giving the cards “their own and unique meanings” but then offers neither research nor anecdotal stories to back this up – which just makes me desperately want to know more. Now, if you read Mary K Greer’s article on 19th-century American Lenormand decks she mentions that some of the early decks were published in both English and Polish which would make the connection back to the “old country” as it were, however I feel like I’m clutching at straws with this angle, I suspect that it’s more likely that the American Romani adopted these cards sometime in the last 100 years rather than having brought them over from Europe. So, currently all I can do is accept the statement that the Romani have given these cards their own unique purpose but in the absence or any further detail I do so with some healthy scepticism. I’d dearly love to know what makes this approach specifically Romani, hopefully the author will write more about this soon.
Moving on, let’s have a look at what we can learn from the book. The descriptions of each of the cards are detailed with an image of the card included an explanation about how you would actually read it both as a playing card and using the keywords associated with the image, layering the two together to make a comprehensive reading. Mostly the traditional meanings of the gypsy cards remain intact, so for example, ‘The Sun’ is very much happiness, success, popularity and joy – brilliant it matches, my brain can get behind that. However, when we look at the definition given for ‘The Moon’ what we are given are the meanings: happiness, emotions and work! There is no reference to work at all in the original instructions, so where did it come from? Enquiring minds need to know!
A copy of a 1903 set of instructions from a very very early gypsy witch fortune-telling deck and if you can peer closely you will see the original meanings.
Andy Boroveshengra also uses ‘work’ in the Lenormand interpretation of the moon card in his book 36 Cards, so are we seeing the Roma influence here? Perhaps, and let’s remember that just because it’s not in the original instruction booklet it doesn’t mean that we should ignore these other meanings, this is a different approach after all. Also included in the book are a number of spreads some of them the traditional ones that you will find in both old and new instruction booklets and some of them are very obviously ones that the author has either created himself or has learnt from the person who taught them (Did I mention I would have loved more research and/or anecdotal information?). Alongside this is an overview of the positive and negative cards in the deck and a detailed analysis of the person/court cards and finally a section on the ever popular card combinations that has taken the Lenormand community by storm in recent years.
All things considered, I don’t hate the book, it definitely adds something to the mix, it has everything you need to learn to read these cards and in more detail than the little pamphlet that comes with just the deck alone, so if you’re in the market for a new and obscure divination system it will make a good addition to your library. It’s certainly a saucy little deck that doesn’t pull punches – I’ve been known to use it when I work on the Psychic Lines because it’s definitely a “life” deck. I’m just so saddened that we did not learn a little more of the authors background, where and how they learnt this system, explanations for the deviations in meaning; it just feels like a missed opportunity. I wish I could read Dutch because it does look like the author has penned a slightly longer version entitled “De Complete Gypsy Waarzeg Set” which is available from Amazon in the Netherlands.
If you are interested I would suggest getting the English Book and Deck set can be found here (or at any reputable seller).
I would be surprised if we hadn’t all read a report something like this in the last few days.
Wildfires north of Athens leapt back to life on Thursday as searing conditions persisted and emergency crews battled blazes across Greece for a third day running. Red flames and sparks glowed in the night on the outskirts of the Greek capital, residents fled suburbs, asylum seekers were evacuated and authorities warned of more blazes on Friday as temperatures hovered around 40 degrees Celsius (107 Fahrenheit) and gale force winds were expected. Twelve people were taken to hospital including two volunteer firefighters who were treated for burns in intensive care, health officials said. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said emergency services faced a difficult night with westerly winds set to strengthen and he urged people to comply with evacuation orders and avoid unnecessary travel. “We are dealing with unprecedented conditions as many days of heatwave have turned the whole country into a powder keg,” he said in a special televised address. – Reuters Aug 5
The Message
You’d be forgiven for having read it, and unless it somehow it directly affected you and yours passing on by with a sorry shake of the head. That’s exactly what I did for my sins. After all much of the world is crashing and burning in one way or another. But something happened this morning that made me sit up and take notice.
I went to do my usual weekly shop. There on the sanitation station was an ornamental key. I never ignore a key when it randomly appears in my life, especially one so bizarre as a small brass key in the middle of Aldi. Mere moments later a dear friend and Priestess contacted me asking if we could do anything to help the Ranch-Eros horse sanctuary who are in dire need after the devastating fires in Greece. Horses are sacred to Hekate and she even has her own horse headed aspect “Hekate Eurippa”.
Yes Hekate, well played my dear, well played, the Message was received.
What has happened since then is mindblowing, amazing, and restores my faith the Pagan and Goddess community. We have a facebook page – Horses For Hekate, a just giving page (which is already at 21% of goal in less than 3 hours) also by the same name (click here to donate) and now we have a ritual for all those that are so inclined can use as part of their dark moon rites tomorrow night. I do find it amazing that what we have this weekend is a new moon in leo, one that is part of what some call a “Lionsgate Portal” where the constellation Leo, the Sun and the Dog star Sirius align in a very specific manner and is considered by some to be very cosmologically important. For me the importance is that its Leo and Sirius, the dog and the lion are together at new moon, 3 very sacred symbols for the Goddess Hekate. The Chaldean Oracles actually state that “if you call upon me often you will perceive everything in lion-form.” C’mon this is starting to get to be a perfect a storm.
If you can please share this ritual it is free for all to use, the prayer is by the wonderful Mabh Savage and all I ask is if you use it you credit her, I also ask that you consider donating either your cash or maybe an item or service to the Silent Auction which will be announced properly in the coming days – we’ve already got some amazing donations so please come and look. And finally if all you can do is give your energy that is as important, please consider taking part in this rite both this weekend and every new moon until we reach our goal.
So without further ado here it is The Rite of Hekate Eurippa (ps if you like the FB page you can download it as PDF to work from at your altar).
HEKATE EURIPPA DARK MOON RITUAL
Set your sacred space in your normal way, this isn’t about fancy and fan-fair this is about raising energy and heartfelt devotion to the Goddess. Simple is good all that is needed for this rite is yourself, a singing bowl and a candle but you of course can make your preparations as you like. You may like to add flowers, incense, grain, wine, garlic, eggs or honey as offerings, these are all traditional to the Goddess and will be well received.
Opening Invocation:
Observe the fire burns without form, hear the voice that whispers from it.
Behold the soul, Dark Hekate, Numeric, Harmonic, Chaotic, Chthonic
I strike the Bell, I/we light the flame, we call you by your sacred names.
Ring bell/strike bowl 3x3x3
Light Candle
The Summoning
Hear our call, she who is our chosen accomplice, to whose presence this rite is dedicated.
Three times three we call as is your right, three times, for earth and sea and sky.
Hearken to your dread hounds calling, turn your magic wheel Hekate, Eurippa hear our prayers.
Hekate of the Many Names – Polyonumos, Come forth from the sea, Stand at our head with your ravening hosts.
Hearken to your dread hounds calling, turn your magic wheel Hekate, Eurippa hear our prayers.
Hekate of the Many Ways – Polytropos, Come forth from the earth, Stand at our head with your ravening hosts.
Hearken to your dread hounds calling, turn your magic wheel Hekate, Eurippa hear our prayers.
Hekate of the Many Ways – Polymorphikos, Come forth from the sky, Stand at our head with your ravening hosts.
Hearken to your dread hounds calling, turn your magic wheel Hekate, Eurippa hear our prayers.
The Prayer to Eurippa by Mabh Savage
Hail Hekate Eurippa
Horse headed
A horse leaping from her shoulder
Creature of fire
A fiery soul
So no flames need come near
As twin torches light
The night instead.
Speed away from danger
Solid and safe
Swift and sure
Hekate Eurippa
Horse finder
She of the animals
And of the land
Guide your charges
Away from harm
The fire without form,
Form barriers of protection
Let your fire breathing head
Protect its kin
Let the horses leap away
As you raise your hydra head
Towards the sphere of water
Cooling and drenching the land
We call to you Great Lady
From our land to theirs
Eyes upward to the skies
Minds joined across seas
Liminally poised
We pray for protection
Hekate Eurippa
With offerings and libations
We pray for safety
For horses and people
And the other inhabitants
Of Kria Vrisi (Κρύα Βρύση)
Rancheros Farm
And the surrounding areas
Affected by wildfires
Hands on heart
Mouth and brow
We send our prayer to you now
Hail Hekate Eurippa
Hail Hekate Kleidouchos
Hail Hekate.
HERE IS WHERE YOU MAY LIKE TO DANCE, SING, MEDITATE, SPEAK DEEPLY FROM THE HEART OR EVEN JUST SIT QUIETLY AND SEND YOUR ENERGY OUT ACROSS THE SEAS TO THE GODDESS AND THE HORSES ON HER LAND.
The Closing
I strike the Bell, I/we put out the flame, we thank you with your sacred names.
Polyonumos, Polytropos, Polymorphikos, Eurippa,
By Air, and Land and Sea Farewell this night Blessed Be!
An infestation of uninvited fae can be a nuisance and whilst I absolutely do not think you should go round wantonly banishing the good folk there are times when posting up a magickal “Trespassers will be prosecuted” sign is really handy. The problem is, once you start working with them, they do like to invite their friends. A great and very cheap way of popping up that sign is with Cascarilla, a.k.a ground eggshells. Although I have been using it for some years and was taught it as hoodoo/folk magic skill, I’ve not seen it in mainstream western practises until quite recently, which surprises me because there is a considerable amount of lore surrounding it – especially with the Fae, so let’s have a look.
In German, French, Polish, Irish, Welsh and English folklore stories can be found where a wily human gets rid of a faery problem using eggshells. Brewing with eggshells to confuse a changeling enough to trick it into revealing its true nature is very common as is cooking in eggshells, the poet W.B Yeats recants the woeful tale of Mrs Sullivan who upon suspecting that her child was in fact a Faerie goes through the motion of cooking a meal for all the reapers in the field in just a single egg shell.
The Welsh folklorist John Rhys, tells two distinct tales of mothers who believing that their children have been whisked away by the Benith y Mamau (the mothers blessings) attempt to bake using only eggshells again to trick the changeling into revealing themselves and the prolific folklorist Evan Wentz retells a number of Breton tales where water is boiled in shells roasting before the fire thus causing a faery to cry out, ‘I have seen the acorn before the oak; I have seen the egg before the chicken: I have never seen the equal to this.’*
There are literally dozens of tales with variations on this same egg theme, and the words the faery speaks are so similar that when I discovered it I felt it necessary to do some digging to try and find the source. I’ve found all sort of suggestions to the origins of the eggshell theory, some think that the original source is the 16th century writer Reginald Scot who explained that this connection to the Fae is because both Faeries and Witches can, “saile in an egge shell, a cockle or muscle shell, through and under the tempestuous seas.”
Wirt Sykes* another welsh folklorist claimed that he could trace the origins of the egg shell story back to 7th Century Gaul, however the general use of eggshells in magic can be traced even further still. In the 1st century C.E. the Roman historian Pliny waxed lyrical about the medicinal and magical properties of eggs stating that people would immediately break or pierce the shells of eggs with a spoon after eating them to ward off evil spells. Eggshells were also part of “demon traps” found in middle eastern countries to disarm unwanted spirits, and sometimes, whole eggs were placed at the threshold to appease the threshold guardians specifically Hekate, who unsurprisingly is linked very closely with the Fae.
This practise is old, old, old and whichever way you look at it eggshells are faery kryptonite.
So why wouldn’t we use this resource in our regular ritual practises? It’s very simple, wash your shells out and peel out the membrane whilst they are still ‘moist’ and then either bake them and grind them to create brown cascarillia or just let them dry and grind them to make white. I’ve yet to find a definite answer as to why you would use one type over another but as so many of the traditional tales involve cooking with, roasting or heating eggshells as part of the banishing ritual I tend to make the brown kind. The uses are endless bathe in it to cleanse yourself of any unwanted influences from the spirit realm (including rude Fae), place it along your doors and window sills to keep the grobblies out of your home and even place it around your boundaries on your property to aid in your magical shielding. It doesn’t hurt to carry a little sachet of it in your witchy napsack when your out hunting fae either.
Finally I am always up for a good chant when I do this kind of work, and Wirt Sykes very cleverly worked out that the Welsh and the Breton of the words that the Fae speak when they are outed makes a very pleasing rhyme.
‘I have seen the acorn before I saw the oak: I have seen the egg before I saw the white hen: I have never seen the like of this.’
‘Gweliz mez ken gwelet derven,
Gweliz vi ken gwelet iar wenn,
Erioez ne wiliz evelhenn’
Let’s face it the Welsh is way cooler and sounds nice and arcane, really adds to the ambience.
*Evans-Wentz, W. Y. (Walter Yeeling), 1878-1965. The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries (pp. 127-128). HardPress Publishing. Kindle Edition.
* Wirt Sikes. British Goblins: Welsh Folk-Lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions (p. 54). Organization. Kindle Edition.
Anyway with all that said, you may remember I had a 
