Walpurgisnacht, the Second Halloween

“Walpurgis Night was when, according to the belief of millions of people, the devil was abroad—when the graves were opened and the dead came forth and walked. When all evil things of earth and air and water held revel.” ~ Bram Stoker, “Dracula’s Guest”

Walpurgis night, or as it’s often referred to in its German form, Walpurgisnacht is the eve of the feast day of Saint Walpurgis, a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Walpurgis Night falls on April 30th and is a traditional holiday celebrated in northern Europe and Scandinavia. 

It may surprise you to know this festival has little to do with either Saint Walpurga or Christianity. The origins of this festival may be found in the period before the arrival of Christianity in northern Europe. 

Instead, it is a spring celebration with striking similarities to Halloween. Walpurgisnacht, falls exactly six months from All Hallow’s Eve, or Samhain.

As the festival falls during the period when spring arrived, the pagans conducted rituals to welcome spring and ensure the fertility of the land.

Many of the ancient cultures divided the year into just two seasons, summer and winter. The dividing line between the two seasons were Beltane and Samhain, with Beltane being one of eight solar Sabbats in the pagan calendar, its date based on the sun.

For some reason, Walpurgis Night is also associated with witches..

Picture: “Walpurgisnacht. Der Aufbruch der Hexen” (Walpurgis Night. The Departure of the Witches) (1878) by Luis Ricardo Falero.

Hexennacht – Witches Night

Many practitioners of the magickal arts believe that Walpurgis Night is a great time for powerful ritual spell work. It’s considered a day that equals Samhain; when the barrier between the worlds is thin and easily crossed. Witches and sorcerers were more powerful on this night than any other night except Samhain. 

In Britain, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, Beltane often begins at sunset on April 30 and continues through May day. 

Since the medieval era at least, it was believed that the night before Beltane equals Samhain; when the barrier between the worlds is thin and easily crossed. The night would be filled with ghosts of the dead, fairies, shapeshifters, lesser demons, and all sorts of feral magical beings, and in regards to Walpurgis, witches were at their most powerful.

Many practitioners of the magickal arts believe that Walpurgis Night is a great time for powerful ritual spell work.

"Witches, warlocks, and wizards gather for the Great Sabbath of the year. Some fly to the meeting places on their brooms or forks, others turn themselves into cats, goats, horses, and toads for the journey, some leave their bodies and attend the meeting in spirit, while others cover their bodies with a secret ointment to grow bat wings so they can fly to the gathering. In their place, they leave a vicarium daemonem, their demonic double. It doesn’t matter which method is used for traveling, as long as the meeting is honored by everyone’s presence.

They gather just before midnight at crossroads, mountain tops, and in forests, they light a roaring bonfire which they jump through and dance around, until their Horned God arrives in their middle and the true Night of the Witches begins!"

In German folklore it is said that witches from all over the land would gather for a great sabbath on top of the Brocken (also known as the Blocksberg), the highest peak of the Harz mountain range. Although not tall by Alpine standards, the peak stays very cold and is shrouded by mist and fog most of the time. The surrounding land is inhospitable with gnarly trees and strange moss-covered rock formations which have been given foreboding names such as Devil’s Pulpit or the Witch’s Altar. 

According to writings from the 16th and 17th century, witches were purported to hold a large gatherings on Walpurgis Night. This notion was first recorded during the 17th century in Johannes Präetorius’, The Blocksberg Performance, a tome about the history and geography of the mountain and the region. It was, however, during the 19th and 20th century that the witches’ sabbath on the Brocken became popular in art and literature, most notably in Goethe’s well-known play Faust.

Picture: Lewis Morrison as "Mephistopheles" in Faust! – "The Brocken". Poster for a theatrical performance of Goethe's play showing Mephistopheles conjuring supernatural creatures on the German mountain, the Brocken (or Blocksberg), which according to the tale is the scenery for the Walpurgis night, from 30 April to 1 May. 

Walpurgisnacht Traditions Around The World

Throughout Europe and the United States, Walpurgis Night is still celebrated. One common tradition seen everywhere is a bonfire. It was considered good luck to burn anything no longer useful on Walpurgisnacht fires. In many cultures, small scarecrow-looking dolls are made during the day and ritually imbued with all the back luck and ill will of the past year. They are then tossed on the Walpurgis bonfires that night along with worn-out, burnable household items.  Also, the arts of the cunning women, or wise women of the forest were especially potent during this time. Their magic often revolved around love, sexuality and fertility.

In Sweden, it seems as if the entire nation is ablaze to celebrate Valborg. Across the country, citizens gather around massive community bonfires to sing welcoming songs to Spring. As the night goes on, there will be drinking, dancing, and even fireworks. One old custom, though no longer popular, would send the children into the woods to collected branches of greenery to decorate the village houses.

In Finland, the holiday is called Vappu and people have picnics and drink homemade mead during the day, but can be seen running through the streets at night wearing masks, drinking, and screaming as loud as they can. The Finns borrow heavily from the Germanic tradition of celebrating witches. It’s one of the four biggest Finnish holidays and is the biggest carnival day of the year.

Germans often leave out a piece of bread spread with butter and honey called an Ankenschnitt. This offering is left outside to appease the phantom hounds and to order to protect people from bad weather or bad harvests. They also celebrate around great bonfires and some of the youth are known to play pranks similar to the “tricks” played at Halloween.

In Bavaria, Walpurgis Night is known as a Freinacht or Drudennacht. Young people roam the neighborhoods pulling mischievous pranks, such as wrapping cars or trees in toilet paper.

Estonia refers to the holiday as Volbriöö, and celebrates witches. It precedes Kevadpüha, the day which marks the arrival of spring. Volbriöö still sees carnivals, celebration and drinking, often with people dressed as traditional witches.

In the Czech Republic, Walpurgis Night is known as Pálení čarodějnic, which translates to the “burning of the witches” in English. Witches made of rags and straw are burned in bonfires amidst plenty of drinking. Whenever a burst of black smoke is emitted from the blaze, a cheer goes up as the witch is said to have flown away.

In America, most pagans gravitate toward celebrating Beltane as it has a broader meaning. There are still some covens who use Walpurgis Night for serious spell work or other magickal rites.

Also read:

• Krampusnacht will give you the Christmas of your nightmares

Embracing Your Inner Witch

Becoming a Witch isn't something we acquire. The Witch is already within us. She is someone we become ready and willing to embrace. Someone we realize we ARE.

When a woman embraces her inner witch, she finds new strength. She is overtaken by true serenity. She creates order where there was none before. Her eyes have now been opened.

Witchcraft is the magick of the Earth itself. It is the essence that can bind life together.

Witchcraft is more than just a practice, it is a way of life. A way of looking at the physical and spiritual as a collaborative source of manifestation. We are in tune with nature, in tune with ourselves and in alignment with our all-knowing inner witch.

Witchcraft involves being willing to understand and embrace your true self. It is about exploring your light and learning to celebrate your darkness.

A wise witch knows the shadows come from the light.

Witches seek the sacred knowledge the rest of the world has already forgotten.

Witches work with the truth of the Earth itself.

A Witch awakens within herself qualities of the elements and forces of nature.

Witches escape to the forest to listen to the whispers of nature itself...

Some of the best advice you will ever hear will come from the forest.

Magick is an art; using reality and the world as its canvas.

An experienced witch does not rely on karma. She relies on magickal justice.

Cursing and healing. Left Hand path and Right Hand path. Black and White. Desiring and Repelling. They are all part of the same circle. All interlocking forms of spiritual, magickal and transformational work. Human energies in the spiritual, coming into the material world through perfectly natural means.

There is no such thing as White Magick or Black Magick. If you are participating in magick, you are interfering with the natural order of how life would have developed without your hand in it. You are manipulating reality to suit your own personal needs. Regardless of whether you perceive it as "positive" or "white light", you are manipulating life. If you are afraid of this responsibly or are intimidated by this statement, I encourage you to reexamine your belief structure. Witchcraft requires confidence and courage.

There is nothing more powerful than a witch who knows how to contain her power. Standing comfortably within its mystery and allure.

Our deepest fear is NOT that we are incompetent women. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond physical measure. It is our radiated spiritual strength that most frightens us…

And empowers us!

You are the most powerful tool in your life. Use your energy, your thoughts and your magick wisely!

- Quotes by Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft / Old World Witchcraft: Pathway To Effective Magick)

North America’s largest Witchcraft collection has its first major exhibition

On Halloween evening, dozens gathered in Kroch library for the opening of “The World Bewitch’d,” an exhibition — on display through August 2018 — exploring the history of witchcraft.

The exhibit features a variety of rare manuscripts, photographs and historical movie posters and is known to be the largest witchcraft collection in North America. The exhibit holds over 3,000 objects on superstition and witchcraft in Europe, mostly acquired in the 1880s but spanning multiple centuries of artifacts since the 1400s, according to the Cornell University Library website.

Kornelia Tancheva, co-curator of the exhibition, said the purpose was to show what witch-hunting actually meant in the original context and how it was reinterpreted in popular culture.

In her opinion, the broader significance of the exhibit is its connection to the modern day.

“There are a lot of accusations of witch-hunting in our present time, and it’s really interesting to see how anybody who feels that they are wrongfully persecuted for political, social, religious or whatever reasons, employs the trope of witch-hunting,” she said.

Anne Kenney, the other co-curator, said that the persecution of witches reveals a theme of scapegoating that is relevant in many other contexts.

“When you want to blame others for things, you blame it on something that is beyond your control, and the powerful become the victims is a very interesting twist,” she said.

The collection was started by Cornell’s very own cofounder A.D. White, who collected rare books and manuscripts. Since then, the collection has grown dramatically. The popular culture portion, most notably, was started in 2012, Tancheva said.

“It’s not just a single, finished collection of material, it’s something that’s very much alive and we continue to add to it,” said Anne Sauer, director of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections.

“This is the best witchcraft collection in the country,” Tancheva said.

“When I first picked the Nuremberg Chronicle up, I went, ‘Oh my goodness, I can’t believe I’m holding this book,’” she said.

The stories of the women who were tried for witchcraft are Kenney’s favorite portion of the exhibition because these demonstrate the ordinariness of the women being accused of witchcraft.

“They were seen as possessing so much power but they were really powerless,” she said.

“Prior to 1500, most sorcerers were men because they were seen as powerful agents — think of Merlin — but as the ecclesiastical leaders began to think of a new form of witchcraft, it was the more powerless people whom the devil contacted to do his work,” Kenney said. “So they were not independent agents, but slaves of the devil. That powerlessness really became associated with women.”

Among the five featured books in The World Bewitch’d that were published before 1500 is the first written on witchcraft. Dating to 1471, it is still in its original binding. It was soon followed by the notorious demonology tome Malleus Maleficarum, first printed in 1487, of which Cornell has 14 Latin editions. “The book was second only to the Bible in terms of sales for almost 200 years,” Kenney explained. It not only served as a touchstone for subsequent treatises, it was used as the basis for how trials were conducted.

“It is mainly cited today for its misogyny in identifying women as being witches,” Kenney added. The text claims that women consort with the devil due to their uncontrollable carnal lust, and thus sex with the devil was a big part of supposed demonic pacts. Although there were exceptions, like Dietrich Flade, a city judge who spoke out against the barbarity of witchcraft trials in the 1580s (the minutes of his own trial are at Cornell), the majority of those accused and tortured were women. The World Bewitch’d uses its exhibition narrative to focus on seven individual women, and find their voices and stories in court records, depositions, and the surviving imagery.

These centuries-old manuscripts are joined by contemporary objects, including newly acquired film posters that show recent portrayals of witches, from the malicious figures in Rosemary’s Baby to the heroic wizards in Harry Potter. Familiars, the small animals that accompany witches, reappear in cinema through the forms of cats and owls, as does the trope of witches flying on broomsticks, which dates back to 1451.

“There’s the contemporary twist where witches in popular culture now are more powerful, whether they do good or bad things, whereas in the historical material, most of the women who were accused of being witches were powerless, they were victims of a mania that was occurring,” Kenney said. And that mania is difficult to comprehend without examining the religious, societal, and political forces at work in the 15th and 16th centuries. Estimates range from 50,000 to 100,000 for the number of people burned, hanged, and otherwise executed for witchcraft.

“Most Americans know about the Salem Witch Trials, and not to diminish the horrible aspects of that, but only 19 women were hanged,” Kenney stated. “There’s this whole bigger story of witchcraft that is not very well known.”

The exhibit opened on Halloween in Kroch Library and will remain open until Aug. 31 2018.

See their Digital Witchcraft Collection to view 104 English language books from Cornell’s Witchcraft Collection.

Also read:

• 10 Ancient books that promise supernatural powers

Witches’ Familiars, Spirit Guardians and Demons

The folk lore of the wicked witch and her diabolical familiar is a well-known and often repeated tale. When the seasons change and the nights get long it’s not uncommon to see images and symbols of a dark-cloaked witch with an evil black cat or toad at her side. This is a fantastic archetype of magic users wielding control over nature and animals, but it’s a far cry from the beliefs that started it all.

The concept of magical spirit creatures has resonated throughout history in creation myths, tribal traditions and religions, but it’s only relatively recently that magical animal and familiars became re-imagined as evil or dangerous companions. Historically, familiars or spirits were often seen as a type of guardian angel rather than an evil demon.

The Witch’s Familiar

A familiar (or familiar spirit or familiar animal) is an animal-shaped spirit believed to serve a witch or magician as domestic servant, spy and companion, in addition to helping to bewitch enemies or to divine information. The animal was often believed to be possessed of magic powers, such as the ability to change its shape. 

In the days of widespread persecution of witches in Europe and North America during the Medieval and Early Modern periods, women accused of magic use and witchcraft were assumed to have a familiar, most often in the form of cats, dogs, owls, mice, newts or toads. These servants to witches were considered low-ranking demons, or even fairies. Legends of the time, British and Scottish contribution to the lore, said familiars fed on the blood of the women. The witches in turn used the animals for spell casting. The familiar could shape-shift, and spy on others. Many completely innocent pet lovers were persecuted for this ‘unnatural’ pairing, and the blame was placed on them for any kind of bad luck, such as milk spoiling or crops withering.

“During the Salem witch trials, there is little account of the practice of animal familiars, although one man was charged with encouraging a dog to attack by way of magical means. The dog, interestingly enough, was tried, convicted, and hanged.” Patti Wigington reveals in About Religion.

Pagan Lore writes that beyond the infamous witch trials, familiars “helped diagnose illnesses and the sources of bewitchment and were used for divining and finding lost objects and treasures. Magicians conjured them in rituals, then locked then in bottles, rings and stones. They sometimes sold them as charms, claiming the spirits would ensure success in gambling, love, business or whatever the customer wanted. This sort of familiar was technically not illegal; England’s Witchcraft Act of 1604 prohibited only evil and wicked spirits.”

Because of the assumed dangerous nature of the familiars, many animal were massacred, especially cats. These killings resulted in a tragic situation. In the middle of the 14th century Black Death was ravaging Europe. Some scholars suggest the huge reduction in cat numbers allowed rat and rodent populations to boom, in turn increasing the amount of plague-carrying fleas, and ultimately leading to the near-decimation of the human population.

Daimons

In ancient Rome, a tutelary, or spirit guardian, was a protector of a household or nation, or even of simple farms or storehouses. 

Classical Greek philosopher Socrates spoke of a personal spirit or daimon who guided his conscience, stopping him from making rash mistakes or foolish decisions.

One type of tutelary deity is the genius, the personal deity or daimon of an individual from birth to death. Another form of personal tutelary spirit is the familiar spirit of European folklore.

Many eastern religions maintain shrines and altars dedicated to tutelary spirits. Tiny, brightly painted ‘spirit houses’ built to contain tutelary deities are found abundantly in Bangkok.

Totem Spirits

Power animals are featured prominently in Native American mythology. These helpers fall within the spirit realm, and are believed to assist the Shaman when called upon. Native beliefs hold that totem animals – animal symbols which reflect certain qualities or characteristics – serve as guides and guardian spirits of both the physical and spiritual worlds. It is believed they advise on the journeys and tasks of life. Such animals could range from the smallest butterflies, to large buffaloes, deer, coyotes, rabbits, turtles, and more. Ultimately they were helpful, benevolent creatures (if sometimes mischief makers).

Totem animals, or familiars, can be found in societies around the globe, including Africa, Asia, Australia, Eastern and Western Europe, and more.

Modern Witches

While Christians traditionally interpret familiars as demons, to Wiccans and Neo-Pagans, they are more like the Christian concept of a guardian angel. 

Modern ‘witches’ see them as creatures sensitive to psychic vibrations, extra-sensory perception, power, and magic, and are welcomed partners inside the magic circle and other magical work.

A witch's familiar can be his or her closest companion, offering moral support, special knowledge, and/or physical healing. They also serve as psychic radar, reacting visibly to the presence of any negative or evil energy, whether it be an unseen force or a person who dabbles in the wrong kind of magic.


Also read:

• 10 Ancient books that promise supernatural powers