Deed Without a Name, A Quotes

“think the easiest way to understand the difference is to point out that in Roman pagan thinking all things had their own ‘geni’ and every person possessed their ‘genius.’ To some extent this same thinking can be found among the Greeks in relation to the daimon. The sages understood every person to possess both an eidolon and a daimonic self. For the uninitiated the ‘eidolon’ (much like what is today called an ego) is all they know and the daimon appears as an external agency. But the goal of initiation is to unite daimon and eidolon into a ‘whole self.’ In the language of this book so far we could equate the eidolon with what we have been calling ‘the Shadow’ – this is the normal everyday consciousness of the person. The ‘Skins’ are other forms that may be animated by the Shadow, but the daimonic aspect of consciousness is the most mysterious of all, subtly working through the Shadow at all times, a direct spark of divine fire, the ‘godhead’ dimension of the self that few ever become aware of.”
― Lee Morgan, Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft

“It is therefore possible that a ‘power site’ is simply a power site for humans, perhaps to certain non-human Others there is no such thing as a ‘non power site”
― Lee Morgan, Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft

“The concept of a pact, particularly one with the Devil is a relative latecomer to witchcraft mythology.[23] Early examples of magical grimoires such as the Greek Magical Papyri and even the Key of Solomon both present the occultist as ‘master of spirits’, just as the tribal shaman is in traditional cultures. In fact the Greek Magical Papyri actually shows the mage extracting an oath of allegiance from the daimon, rather than the other way around! It seems to be a uniquely post-Christian idea that the witch obtained his or her power from a pact with the devil or other powerful familiar”
― Lee Morgan, Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft

“Erzsébet Balázsi, a táltos , was accused of being a witch. The court asked her to explain the role of táltos . She said: the táltos cures, sees buried treasures with the naked eye, and ‘the táltos are fighting for Hungary in heaven’. So it is clear to see from this that the benevolent role of the táltos makes it similar to the benandanti , though the táltos was marked by precociousness and more extreme physical differences.”
― Lee Morgan, Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft

“A Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian phenomenon the zmajevit covek , snake-men or snake-magicians, were born with cauls that looked like snakeskins over their faces or even literal snakeskin over them. Many were said in addition to their reptilian characteristics to have secret wings, usually of an eagle. These allowed them to participate in supernatural flight. When a storm with hail in it was approaching they fell into trances and fought fiery battles using lightning against darker, watery serpents that brought destructive storms.”
― Lee Morgan, Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft

“Sicily also boasts an entire set of trials known as the ‘Sicilian Fairy Trials’ that centred around the prosecution of individuals who interacted with faerie.”
― Lee Morgan, Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft

“For practical dealing with them it should be noted that the realm of Faerie seems to thrive on contradiction and ambiguity. They love twilight and between times. Stale bread is considered a defence against them and yet bread is often an offering to them. Faeries prefer reciprocation or remembrance of a good deed rather than ‘thanks.’ They may take offence to being thanked. They also do not like to be given money as a gift or payment for their benevolent behaviour. Iron is a kind of poison to them and most Faeries enjoy milk.”
― Lee Morgan, Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft

“Benandanti are a type of ecstatic human who lead a double life as a spirit, in this double existence they fought enemy witches for the benefit of their community and its harvest. They involuntarily left their bodies on the Ember Days (very close to the four fire festivals often practiced in witchcraft today) or on Thursdays. Their flights usually began at the age of eighteen and persisted until they were forty. The term and phenomenon is Italian but the prevalence elsewhere of ‘white witches’ and cunning men who specialised in counter-magic or protection from witches in many other parts of Europe, Great Britain and the Appalachian Mountains of America, suggests that such a notion might have been more wide-spread initially.”
― Lee Morgan, Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft

“This vein of poetry they call Awen, which in their language signifies as much as Raptus, or a poetic furore; and in truth as many of them as I have conversed with are, as I may say, gifted or inspired with it. I was told by a very sober and knowing person (now dead) that in his time there was a young lad fatherless and motherless, and so very poor that he was forced to beg; but at last was taken up by a rich man that kept a great stock of sheep upon the mountains not far off from the place where I now dwell, who clothed him and sent him into the mountains to keep his sheep. There in summer time, following the sheep and looking to their lambs, he fell into a deep sleep, in which he dreamed that he saw a beautiful young man with a garland of green leaves upon his head and a hawk upon his fist, with a quiver full of arrows at his back, coming towards him (whistling several measures or tunes all the way) and at last let the hawk fly at him, which he dreamed got into his mouth and inward parts, and suddenly awaked in a great fear and consternation, but possessed with such a vein, or gift of poetry, that he left the sheep and went about the Country, making songs upon all occasions, and came to be the most famous Bard in all the Country in his time.”
― Lee Morgan, Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft

“In his book The Return of the Dead: the transparent veil of the pagan mind Lecouteux exposes us to older definitions of ‘body’ and ‘soul’ that are ultimately heathen in origin. He shows in detail how Christianity went about ‘de-corporealising’ the soul and making it into an immaterial thing. To our ancestors there was no such thing as an ‘immaterial’ thing. Everything had a kind of body; some of them were just denser and more easily perceived by humans than others.”
― Lee Morgan, Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft

“It is noted that witches were inclined to fly on brooms, stangs, pitchforks, distaffs and even ladles which can initially seem a little strange. But when we realise that in Hungary, for instance, when the drum became something that could no longer be owned for fear of being caught using it to go into a trance state, it gradually became replaced by the sieve, a common household object that could be pressed into the service of the unseen.[5] These common household objects are a testimony to how the world outside the hedge continually interpenetrates with everything inside it, everything mundane and seemingly normal and unthreatening remains subtly imbued with its Other. In a world where ‘witchcraft’, a practice always partially hidden, became something that had to hide, it was able to hide, behind every teapot, ladle, broom and kettle on the stovetop.”
― Lee Morgan, Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft

“Fylgia’, the fetch is the follower or guardian that often appears in animal form. In the North it is clear that the Fylgia was inherited, an ancestral being, carrying on the person’s behalf the ‘luck force’ of their family. Most people only saw the fetch close to the time of their own death, but some people were born with a particular gift for ‘sending the fetch.”
― Lee Morgan, Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft