The Witch of Forest Grove

For an example of how books can be used in folk magic practice, here is a spell for someone who has been “overlooked” aka has had the evil eye cast upon them. The evil eye is often unintentionally cast by those with the power who do not know it.  It can come from anyone, not necessarily a magician. The following is a Gypsy folk remedy recounted by Charles G. Leland in his work Gypsy Sorcery & Fortune-Telling (p.51-54), but collected by a Dr. Wlislocki from his travels with the Gypsies of Eastern and Northern Europe.

Fill a jar with water from a spring or stream collecting the water with the current, not against it. I collected water from an ever flowing mountain spring with clear clean water. Upon returning home, place the water in a pot with seven black coals, seven handfuls of meal (I chose oat flour), and seven cloves of garlic. When it boils, stir it with a three-forked stick and no other utensil. My stang happens to have three tines, so I used it to stir the mixture. Trees and branches with three forks have been held especially sacred by the peoples of Northern Europe. Rituals and festivals were held under such trees and the Druids even used to graft two large branches onto the trunk of an Oak tree to beocme a sacred place of worship. Three-forked trees and branches have a humanoid appearance making them representations of the World Tree as a deity connecting the three realms, now only remaining as the tridents of Hades, Poseidon, and Shiva.

As you stir with your trident speak the following charm:

“Evil eyes who look on me
May they here extinguished be!
And then seven ravens
Pluck out the evil eyes;
Evil eyes who look on me,
May they soon extinguished be!
Much dust in the eyes,
Thence may they become blind,
Evil eyes who look on me;
May they soon extinguished be!
May they burn, may they burn
In the fire of the King of Elphame!”

I made some small changes to Leland’s translation so the charm fits more with the purpose. Leland translated the repeating line as “evil eyes look on me” – but you don’t want the evil eye to look at you as the whole point of the ritual is to get rid of the evil eye so I changed the line to address the giver of the evil eye instead; “evil eyes who look on me”. The only other change I made was to the last line which was “In the fire of God”. I decided to add a specific god – the King of Elphame ruler of the Scottish underworld. The seven ravens are the seven coals to pluck out the evil eye, the meal is the dust to blind the evil eye, and the garlic is either the burning or is added because garlic is an ancient plant of protection against the evil eye, sickness, witchcraft, and spirits in many cultures.

We’re not finished yet. Let the mixture simmer and reduce until it is nothing but a hardened residue at the bottom of the pot (you may want to use a pot you don’t cherish). Let the residue harden and scrape what you can into a mortar and bash it with the pestle to make it a powder. The powder will be black from the coals and will smell strongly of burnt garlic. Place this powder in a scrap of linen, and linen only, which has been sewn into a bag with three corners – a triangle. Now tie around the afflicted person’s neck while speaking a charm of protection nine times. It is done. The person should wear the amulet for a few weeks. If the smell of garlic is too much, it can be kept in a pocket during the day and under the pillow at night. To dispose of the amulet, it can be burned in a fire or buried at a crossroads.