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The beauty of that meadow reminded Hannah of the reasons to live in the world, and the reasons to mistrust those who saw wickedness in others, but never in themselves. The natural world was at the heart of her craft; what grew in the woods could harm or heal, and it was her obligation to know the difference. It was part of old Norse tradition, Seidhr, that had been brought to England in the ancient times. This was green magic, visionary in nature, blending the soul of the individual with the soul of the earth.
Tree Magic Holly should be burned to announce the end of winter. Rowan, sacred to witches for protection for making spindles and spinning wheels. Hazel will lead to water. Willow is sacred magic, transporting the soul. Yew signifies life, death, and rebirth, used for bows. Beware: the seeds are poisonous. Ash is sacred and healing, the leaves make a tonic for horses. Apple is the key to magic and is used for medicine, love spells. Birch, write spells on strips of bark and they will reach their intended. Pine tree sap is a salve for pox and spotted fever. The leaves of the larch tree boiled as
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Some witch-hunters actually nailed women’s feet to the ground and left them to try to escape. If they were able to evade their captors, they then needed to dab rosemary oil on the spot where the nail had entered them while invoking a spell of protection and vengeance: This cannot harm you on this day. When you walk, you walk away. When you return, all your enemies will burn.
She knew that counting the knots on a lilac bush could predict the number of cold spells and that if you lit a bit of snow with some tinder and it melted quickly the snow on the ground would soon disappear. Nutmeg opened the heart, lily was useful for rashes, and arnica could make a man burn with desire. When a baby refused to be born or would not nurse, when a child was ailing and feverish, when a husband strayed, when a candle burst into flame of its own accord, marking a spirit lurking nearby, women came to Hannah Owens’ door, and for the price of some eggs, or a pitcher of goat’s milk, or,
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White for health, black for expunging sorrow, red for love. Prick the third finger of the left hand with a silver needle to bring back a lover. The power of a spell increased with the waxing moon, and decreased with the waning moon.
Practical Materials Candles. Essential oil. Lavender for calming. Sage to purify. Rosemary for remembrance. Rose for love. Salt, garlic, stones, thread, talismans for fortune, love, luck, and good health. Always meet and depart from inside a circle. Honor the twelve full moons in a year from December until November: Oak, Wolf, Storm, Hare, Seed, Dryad, Mead, Herb, Barley, Harvest, Hunter’s, Snow, and the thirteenth moon, always most special, the Blue Moon. Silver coins, pure water, willow, birch, rowan, oak, string, knots, mirrors, black glass, brass bowls, pure water, blood, ink, pens, paper.
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Courage Tea, a blend of currants, spices, and thyme, made for protection and healing, a mixture that needed to steep for a long time. It was an elixir that made it clear one should never hide who one was. That was the first step toward courage. In this way, magic began.
Still Hannah feared for her fate, for this was the day when Maria realized she would be beautiful, for all the good it would do her in this cruel, heartless world.
For Love Boil yarrow into a tea, prick the third finger of your hand, add three drops of blood, and give to your beloved. Never cut parsley with a knife if you are in love or bad luck will come your way. Salt tossed on the fire for seven days will bring an errant lover home. Charms for wandering husbands: feather, hair, blood, bone.
Prick a candle with a pin. When the flame burns down to the pin, your true love will arrive. To win the favor of Venus in all matters of love gather a white garment, a dove, a circle, a star, the seventh day, the seventh month, the seven stars.
There are secrets that must be held close, and most of these have to do with the wounding of the human heart, for sorrow spoken aloud is sorrow lived through twice.
She made her own black soap every March, enough to last the year long, burning wood from rowans and hazelwoods for the ashes that would form her lye, using licorice-infused oil, honey, and clove, adding dried lavender for luck and rosemary for remembrance. Ladles of liquid soap were poured into wooden molds, where they hardened into bars.
Mistletoe for those who wished for children. Vervain to escape one’s enemies. Black mustard seed to repel nightmares. Lilac for love.
For Health Wash your hands with lye soap before treating the ill person. Horehound, boiled into a syrup, for coughs. Tea of wild onions and lobelia to soothe. Beebalm for a restful sleep. Vinegar elixirs stop nosebleeds. Eat raw garlic every day and a cup of hot water with lemon and honey. For asthma, drink chamomile tea. For chills, gingerroot tea.
Licorice root gathered from the riverside for chest pain. Dragon’s blood from tree bark and berries of the Dracaena draco, the red resin tree from Morocco and the Canary Islands that can only be found in one market in London and can cure nearly any wound. A live snail rubbed on burns will help heal the blisters. Feed a cold, starve a fever.
the Tenth Love Potion, a spell far too dangerous for common use. Wrap a red candle on which his name and yours is written on red paper, soak in dove’s blood and burn through the night. Saying the words: Love conquers all, so it must be. Let him burn with love for me. My lover’s heart will feel this pin, and his devotion I will win. There’ll be no way for him to rest or sleep, until he comes to me to speak. Only when he loves me best, will he find peace and with peace rest.
For Revenge A wax figure cast into fire can cause damage or death. A curse thrown to bind a man to the place where he stood. Nightshade, wolfsbane, foxglove, yew, fire. The bones of a bird baked into a pie of thorns.
Desire, if handled incorrectly, could become a curse.
unless there was no choice, for they could wound the practitioner as well as the object of their conjuring. Spells for revenge or survival, in which the spell maker’s own blood was used as ink to ensure that only she could read the words. Sympathetic magic, using poppets and lifelike figures, and, when revenge was involved, pins and hooks. Poisons that were tasteless and odorless, but stung like a wasp before they could be noticed. Black magic, red magic, blood magic, love magic.
For Love Gone Wrong Vervain eases the pain of unrequited love. A cobweb on a door means your beloved has been untrue. To bring about passion: anise seed, burdock root, myrtle leaves. Amulets for luck are made of blue beads, dove feathers, mistletoe, wishbones. All spells increase with the waxing moon, decrease with the waning moon. Place two eggs under the bed to cleanse the atmosphere—destroy afterward. Do not eat or you will swallow bad fortune. A mirror beside you reflects back the evil eye. For protection against love: black cloth, red thread, clove, blackthorn.
For him, Rebecca had planted a night garden that bloomed after dark. Angel’s trumpet, moonflower, night jasmine, evening primrose, all waited for the moon to rise.
It was in their very nature, and they must do their best with it, but how did a woman survive when she would surely be judged again and again?
“Never be without thread,” she told the girl. “What is broken can also be mended. Remember that in your dark days, as I have.”
and it mattered now, for they both understood that they would not meet again.
For Sea Travel Hyssop tea will rid a man of worms. Basil will preserve fish. Borage can heal abscesses. Ginger and vinegar for sores. Mint for toothache. If the cat on board sleeps in a coil, the weather will be bad. If the sun rises red, there will be rain. Do not take salt from another person’s hand at the table, or you will both have
bad luck. If salt spills, throw a pinch over your left shoulder. Blue thread sewn onto every piece of clothing, for protection.
Rats could be done away with by the use of monkshood, caraway was good for spider bites, peony root guarded against storms, nightmares, and lunacy, for there were those who were made mad by the endless rush of the sea.
for Hannah had always said there was no need to ever let anyone know what you were thinking. Why be punished for your thoughts or beliefs?
eggs would keep well in limewater, that quicksilver beaten into egg whites could poison bedbugs, that lamp wicks would not smell bad if the cotton wick yarn was rinsed with vinegar, then dried in the fresh air. She was taught to shake carpets rather than sweep them and to wash silk dresses in green tea to restore their shine.
She knew how to walk in the shadows so she wouldn’t shine in the darkness.
Curaçao Cures Soursop tea made from a glossy green tree with yellow-green flowers, cures insomnia, infections, and keeps away lice. Mampuritu, a slender weed for tea to cure for nausea and cramps. Kleistubom, a creeping weed with an extract helpful to ease prickly heat. Lamoengras for fever. Caraway cures the bites of poisonous scorpions and centipedes. Wandu helps with an easy delivery of a baby, also good for the blood and improves memory and strength. Tawa-tawa, a tea made from the hairy plant found in the grassland, a cure for Dengue, called Breakbone Fever, that stops bleeding inside the
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Burn mandrake in a brass bowl. Write his name on a candle and throw it far into the sea. Repeat three times: Fly away as fast as you can.
Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy,
You are not mine, I am not yours, you have no power, I walk where I wish, my heart is protected.
I will never love you,
rue in the garden to keep away flies, without mentioning that it also checked lust,
wild lettuce to reduce longings.
Love begins in curious ways, in daylight or in darkness, when you are in search of it or when you least expect to find it. You may think it is one thing, when in fact it is something else entirely: infatuation, loneliness, seduction.
What burns is best left to turn to cinders. Be wise and stay away.
She was destined to face her own future.
Maria understood that a woman with her own beliefs who refuses to bow to those she believes to be wrong can be considered dangerous.
Love Potion #9 9 oz. red wine 9 basil leaves 9 rose petals 9 cloves 9 apple seeds 9 anise seeds 9 drops of vinegar Combine all ingredients on the 9th hour of the 9th day of the month. The effect is strongest when performed on the 9th month of the year. Stir nine times. Let the one who drinks this wine grant me true love divine.
Maria’s talents were evident, and the line outside their door grew to be surprisingly long. There were those who must set two eggs, never to be eaten, beneath their beds to clean a tainted atmosphere, and those who were to use black mustard seed to repel nightmares, those who were told to use vinegar for husbands who could not perform in bed and were told to feed their men chestnuts and oysters to inflame desire, those who asked for Be True to Me Tea, for straying husbands. Still others came for a remedy of garlic, salt, and rosemary, the most ancient spell to cast away evil.
Fever Tea was composed of bayberry, ginger, cinnamon, thyme, and marjoram. Frustration Tea was made of chamomile, hyssop, raspberry leaf, and rosemary.
Boston Remedies Honey and milk for worms. Salt and molasses for cuts. Huckleberries boiled for stomachaches. Balm of Gilead buds boiled into a paste for wounds. Dark blue violets as a tincture for mouth sores. Chickweed prevents toothaches. Table salt and vinegar, fermented, for colic. Castor oil, milk, and sugar for a children’s tonic.
Fate is what you make of it. You can make the best of it, or you can let it make the best of you.
Life is not what you think it is. Remember that. Remember me.
Believe what the world shows you, and make no excuses. See what is right before you.
Turn it over once for love, twice for betrayal, three times for heartbreak.
Pay attention, pay heed, listen to the voice inside.
