“Alp
The alp is a Germanic incubus or nightmare that presses the chest of the sleeper. Originally it was a kind of elf and perhaps was not always seen so malignantly. The alp usually afflicts women, entering them via their breath like a snake or tendril of mist so that it may ‘feed on their dreams.’ Some alps like to bring sexual dreams and others nightmares, or mixtures of both. It is significant to note that children may become an alp if a mother needs to use a horse collar to ease the pain during a long childbirth. Also, a child born with a caul or hair on the palms may become an alp. If a woman who is pregnant is frightened by an animal, the child may be born an alp. Stillborn infants are also suspected to return from the grave as alps and torment their family. It was therefore believed that an alp could be the Double of a human being.
Awenyddion
Gerald of Wales provides us with the only record of the Awenyddion :
Among the Welsh there are certain individuals called Awenyddion who behave as if they are possessed... When you consult them about some problem, they immediately go into a trance and lose control of their senses... They do not answer the question put to them in a logical way. Words stream from their mouths, incoherently and apparently meaningless and lacking any sense at all, but all the same well expressed: and if you listen carefully to what they say you will receive the solution to your problem. When it is all over, they will recover from their trance, as if they were ordinary people waking from a heavy sleep, but you have to give them a good shake before they regain control of themselves... and when they do return to their senses they can remember nothing of what they have said in the interval... They seem to receive this gift of divination through visions which they see in their dreams. Some of them have the impression that honey or sugary milk is being smeared on their mouths; others say that a sheet of paper with words written on it is pressed against their lips. As soon as they are roused from their trance and have come round from their prophesying, that is what they say has happened...
Although this account was gathering in the Middle Ages this notion of an ecstatic shamanistic practice linked with poetry and inspiration (what the Welsh called the Awen) continues up until this seventeenth century account that has much in common with the material here termed ‘witchcraft.’ Like the Awenyddion the poet in question has Awen enter him through the mouth, but this time via a fetch-beast sent to him by a male familiar spirit. This account of the descent of Awen in the form of a hawk is given in a letter to the 17th century antiquary, John Aubrey, from the Welsh poet, Henry Vaughan (1621-1695), who writes:
As to the later Bards, who were no such men, but had a society and some rules and orders among themselves, and several sorts of measures and a kind of lyric poetry, which are all set down exactly in the learned John David Rhees, or Rhesus his Welsh or British grammar, you shall have there, in the later end of his book, a most curious account of them. 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.
Beansidhe and Cyhiraeth
A beansidhe is a female spirit of Irish origin primarily known for wailing as an omen of death. The word essentially means: ‘woman from the mound’ and points toward the Underworldly origin of these creatures. A cyhiraeth is a very closely related Welsh spirit that does the same thing. Both spirits are known to appear as hags at times, or as ‘washer at the ford’ figures, washing the shroud of the one who is about to die. These spirits were probably originally a female ancestor or member of the venerated dead, because they tend to be attached to families and only appear when it is time for a member of that family to go over to the Otherness.
Benandanti or ‘Good Walker’
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 countermagic 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.
Changeling
A changeling is a faerie that has been exchanged for a mortal child. We need to understand this in the same way we understood the ‘change’ of the werewolf. Whilst today we would see the same baby lying in the cot and say that only its behaviour had changed, in the past a switch was seen to have occurred. Often these children would go on to have something very wrong with them or even die. Some were considered simple, some were never satiated by human food, others grew up to be relatively normal, but this was usually the exception rather than the rule. Exactly why faeries were in the habit of exchanging their children for human children is not clear, but it points to an interpenetration and process of exchange with the Otherworld than we commonly no longer perceive today.
Donas de Fuera
A name for faeries in Sicily and also for the women who associated with them. No actual distinction was drawn in their language between the women of faerie and the ostensibly human individuals who joined them in their company. It was believed that through joining them on their rides and for their feasting that good luck and abundance would henceforth rain down on your community, as though they acted as a kind of diplomatic envoy from the human village. The faerie people insisted on there being no mentions of Christ or the Virgin Mary and provided sexual partners to humans.
Faerie/Fae
These Siths or Fairies they call Sleagh Maith or the Good People...are said to be of middle nature between Man and Angel, as were Daemons thought to be of old; of intelligent fluidous Spirits, and light changeable bodies (lyke those called Astral) somewhat of the nature of a condensed cloud, and best seen in twilight. These bodies be so pliable through the sublety of Spirits that agitate them, that they can make them appear or disappear at pleasure .
The word ‘faerie’ like ‘witch’ has become such a general blanket term that one must make clear what one means by it. A great scope of beings are known as ‘faerie’ with hell hounds even being described as ‘faerie dogs’. But when we use it in relation to witches and sorcery it more often relates to the Shining Court. I do this for disambiguation, because other more ‘infernal’ types of faeries came to be known in later times simply as ‘devils’ or ‘demons’ or by more specific names like ‘goblin.’ Most ‘faerie- seers’ or ‘faerie-doctors’ or ‘magicians’ behave in a way that is usually benevolent to mankind. I say ‘usually’ with great emphasis as we are here dealing with a greatly unpredictable entity. And one should also not fall to believing the Christian notion that anything that appears ‘dark’ or comes from below the earth is necessarily not benevolent, for that matter. Instead one should limit one’s assumptions when it comes to encountering Otherworldly beings!
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.
Faerie Seer or Doctor
A faerie-seer or doctor was an individual who interacted with the realm of faerie and ‘doctored’ or healed with their assistance. Bessie Dunlop essentially acted as one, though she was tried as a witch. But generally speaking the phenomena was best known in Ireland and Sicily. In Ireland up until the nineteenth century there were still ‘faerie- doctors’. 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. Notable, faerie-based crimes were also on the list of heresies Joan of Arc was charged with. In many cases the ‘faerie-doctor ’ or ‘faerie- magician’ was actually believed to be faerie themselves, either through having been a changeling or in some other unspecified manner, or simply was ‘marked by the faeries.’ This is one of the many examples here were the line is blurred between humans and Otherworldly beings.
Lady Wilde described a faerie-seer one who lived in Innis Sark:—
He never touched beer, spirits, or meat in all his life, but has lived entirely on bread, fruit and vegetables. A man who knew him thus describes him—Winter and summer his dress is the same—merely a flannel shirt and coat. He will pay his share at a feast, but neither eats nor drinks of the food and drink set before him. He speaks no English, and never could be made to learn the English tongue, though he says it might be used with great effect to curse one’s enemy. He holds a burial-ground sacred, and would not carry away so much as a leaf of ivy from a grave. And he maintains that the people are right to keep to their ancient usages, such as never to dig a grave on a Monday, and to carry the coffin three times round the grave, following the course of the sun, for then the dead rest in peace.
Furious Horde
Otherwise known as the Wild Hunt this procession of the dead is usually led by a ‘Lord of the Dead’ figure. In Wales it was Gwyn ap Nudd, sometimes described as ‘king of the goblins’, or in Germanic areas Odin. Some regions maintained the archaic remnant of a female led infernal procession. Others had both a male and a female leader of the Hunt. The female led hunts were something which many women tried as ‘witches’ admitted to having participated in. This is another example where mythic entities, the dead, and the Doubles of human witches rubbed shoulders in a way that suggested no fundamental barrier between the dead, Otherworldly beings and living witches.
Ganconagh or ‘love talker ’
These male faerie creatures were known for seducing young women, and are probably a survival of older lore about a woman’s fetch-mate. They were usually first perceived by the girl through a hole in a wall or a hole in a holy stone (an established way of viewing the faerie realm). It is said that he showed the young woman a world of such beauty and wonder that when he left she would simply pine away. Though some Scottish matrons have it that not all such young girls are affected in this way, some go out and ‘make something of their life’ on account of it. This sounds very much like a form of passage of inspiration, though it is not as clear because women historically didn’t have the same opportunities to express inspiration as men. This may make the Ganconagh the masculine equivalent of the Leannan Sidhe , both are dangerous but potentially give rewards. The Ganconagh is associated with smoking a pipe while leaning on a wall or, like the poet’s Awengiving spirit, with making a tuneful whistling as he comes.
Ghost Seers
The women who were sometimes considered ‘female benandanti’ were able to see the dead. Their role seems to have lain in prediction of death and interceding with the dead on behalf of the living. Sometimes they also attended feasts with the dead or instructed others in how to offer to the dead. The ghost seer ’s presence in the village ensured that the dead were kept happy and appeased and therefore that things would go right in the community.
A woman named Anna La Rossa is a good example of such seers of the dead. She made a living through plying her ability to talk with those that had passed over, but this skill involved ecstasy like other forms of witchcraft. It came up in her trial that:
‘this woman used to be called by her husband many times at night… and even though he elbowed her vigorously, it as if she was dead, because she would say that the spirit had set out on a journey and thus the body was as though dead.’ When Anna was out on such sojourns she said that she learned secrets from the dead that she dare not repeat on threat of being beaten with sorghum by them. A female leader who appeared as a nocturnal goddess usually led the processions of the dead that these ghost seers took part in during ecstasy.
Incubus and Succubus
The incubus and succubus were understood as male and female sexually predatory demons. But it seems likely that a great deal of different entities could have easily had their lore find its way under this heading. As with the title ‘witch’ any entity that engaged in sex with a mortal witch could easily be termed an ‘incubus or succubus.’ The incubi or succubae were believed to drain their victim’s vitality through sexual intercourse and the stealing of the breath. There is far too much lore on the topic to suggest that the element of predation was only invented by the church, it seems clear that this vampiric practice would at times occur. All powers associated with the world of the dead are depicted as being hungry for the vital-force of the living even if only at certain times of the year, and if it is not given as an offering some powers have been known to take it by force and leave blight behind. This being said, the fetch-mate of a witch, a spirit that chooses to unite sexually with them for mutual benefit can often perform a power exchange of types with the human in question. An example of this can be seen under ‘Leannan Sidhe.’
Leannan Sidhe
Leannan Sidhe lore is a valuable source of information about reciprocal power exchange between a human and a spirit lover. Whilst the Leannan Sidhe is, like the succubus, guilty of draining off the life-force of her human lover, she (or perhaps also at times he) gives in return the fire of inspiration. Whilst this may at times shorten a poet or artist’s life span it is inarguably a kind of exchange rather than a straightforward predation. Some of the spirits that we tend to call the blanket term ‘fetch-mates’ in modern Traditional Witchcraft may belong to this category. Please see the chapter on the fetch-mate for more information.
Lidérc
The Lidérc was a creature of Hungarian origin that came in a few different forms. One of them was like an imp, hatched out of the egg of a black hen. But the other more anthropomorphic form bears similarities with the succubus or incubus. It appeared to a woman as a man with horse’s hooves and sometimes wings. This form of the Lidérc flies at night, appearing as a fiery light, a will o’ the wisp, or even as a bird of fire. It was also believed that sometimes the Lidérc could be the Double of a human practitioner travelling in animal form or part animal form.
Malandanti
‘Malandanti ’ is an Italian word that essentially covers what we think of when we say ‘black witch’ or a practitioner of maleficium. Had Isobel Gowdie been born in Italy there is a good chance she’d have been known as a ‘malandanti’ rather than just ‘witch.’ Like the benandanti the malandanti were compelled to be as they were, though less information seems to have been collected about how they were marked out and in what manner they were compelled. Whilst the benandanti fought with fennel, they fought with or rode on sorghum, something that has a traditional association with the dead, as we can see from Anna La Rossa’s account above. Like the post-witchcraft-trials image of the witch in general, malandant i blighted crops, fouled the wine in its kegs, caused infertility and soured milk. In other words they were envoys of a world ‘in reverse’, of the back-to-front world of the dead.
Mara
The original ‘night mare’ a very widespread concept with variants such as: Mara/Mare/Mahr/Mora/rina/Zmora/Zmora/ Morava, in different countries throughout Europe. Even as far as Wales there is a ‘spirit of death’ figure attested to in folklore known as ‘Margan’ who may be related to the Mara-complex. These terms all most likely derive from the Indo-European root word * Moros (death). This feminine entity arguable had more impact on the development of the image of the ‘witch’ than any other creature. A ‘mara’ may be either a spirit or may be incarnated as a living human. As Eva Pocs puts it: ‘All the peoples of Europe are acquainted with mora creatures that appear exclusively as dead souls – as returning souls – but generally it is clear that the dead moras are the dead variants of those who were mora creatures during their lifetimes.’
The features of the Mora creature vary from place to place, but all are able to send their Double into other people’s dwellings, sometimes as an animal or simply as mist. In Slavic countries they are also known as Nocnica or ‘night women’ or a ‘striges’. They sit on the chest and oppress the sleeper, perhaps draining his vital force or ‘riding’ the sleeper. She was somewhat like a female alp and like the alp a human woman could easily be accused of being a ‘mare’. The figure of the ‘night woman’ or ‘mare’ is of course where we derive the term ‘nightmare’.
Eva Pocs believes that this spirit known for ‘riding’ the sleeper was the original of the malevolent witch figure and we can see several other features that mora creatures have in common with the later ‘witch’, for instance, an injury to the animal form or Double will injure the mora. Additionally it was believed that mora-creatures could float on water and not sink. It is this earlier belief that led to the practice of ‘swimming’ witches to see if they were sink and thus prove themselves innocent.
Mazzeri
The mazzeri is a Corsican phenomenon. Like the benandanti and malandanti the mazzeri was also experienced spiritual compulsion. They would turn into a kind of beast, usually something like a black dog and would hunt out those fated to die. If they killed the Double of someone in the Otherworld the person’s physical body would soon die here on earth. There is some suggestion that something like the mazzeri may have originally been more widely spread. In Wales where the ‘ cwn annwn ’ or hellhounds were a very important part of folklore the pack of hounds seems to be responsible for rounding up the dead. But there is a different type of hound in Welsh mythology that travels alone. This large black beast, unlike the pack animals, actually stalks and pursues those who are doomed to die, there is even suggestion that like the mazzeri this solitary hell-hound might have played an active rather than just a predictive role in delivering the message of Fate. As Marie Trevelyan explains in her Folk-Lore and Folk-Stories of Wales:
Sometimes they [solitary spirit dogs] were known to go in pursuit of people who were doomed to die with twelve months from one of the processional nights. Then they went quietly, stealthily… They were seen but not heard as they ran quickly from room to room… in pursuit of their victim. It was stated that on certain occasions the spirits [Doubles] of those pursued people were seen running out into the night followed by the hideous hound.
The main difference between this Welsh spirit dog and the mazzeri, is that the mazzeri was explicitly known to also live in the form of a human male or female who had a second skin in the form of a dog.
The mazzeri tended to believe that they were carrying out a fateful edict rather than simply killing people. In their communities they were considered useful because they were often able to warn people of impending death. Their very existence hints at the way human ‘witches’ have been called upon to aid in Otherworldly processes and how we human witches often form necessary ‘points of interaction’ between this world and the next. Through us certain tensions are discharged, through us certain hungers are appeased, through us certain Fate messages are passed along. In it all the human witch, whether faerie-doctor or mazzeri or even malandanti is simply ‘marked’ and has little choice but to perform this function on behalf of greater powers. There is evidence, however, that the experienced ecstatic could come to influence how and upon whom they performed their function, which we will come to later.
Revenant
To understand the revenant one must already understand what we have said about the corporeal nature of the soul. Lecouteux’s work on revenants in The Return of the Dead has done a great deal to correct our understanding of the potential of ghosts. A ‘revenant’ is usually a kind of ghost that has failed to complete a crucial life transition, and thus still has a great deal of vital force untapped. This vital force allows the second skin to continue to live on after death. It may even prevent the physical body from decaying for a while, as it uses it as its base from which to conduct its new life. Revenants are able to be seen and to affect their environment in certain ways. The only way to get rid of one is via the body, it must either be dismembered in some way or moved too far away that it is unable to travel back to its home because revenants find it difficult or impossible to stray too far from their body.
Snake Man
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.[16] There is some evidence that this phenomenon might have once been wider spread, as Welsh folklore contains a lot of information about snake-people and also about sightings of winged serpents.
Táltos
The Hungarian táltos could be either male or female, but were more often than not, men. They were born with more bones than the unusual, like six fingers (altogether 11 or 12 fingers) or already-grown-in teeth or a long head of hair. Táltos were believed to be ‘born knowing’ having been tutored in their future role in the pre-natal phase by spirits or gods. They did not need to learn how to perform their role. At some point they would meet the ‘táltos horse’ that only they would be able to ride, and thus they would learn to fly through the skies in the Otherworld.
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. When the táltos did battle with enemy practitioners they would usually turn into a stallion, a bull or a ball of flame.
Were Beasts
Folklore provides us with examples of other ‘were’ people that were known for transforming into animals other than wolves, and where this tendency was even believed to be in the family. In Wales there were believed to be a ‘fox clan’ whose members had red-hair who would turn their Skin to their fox form at the Midsummer Solstice and the Midwinter one.
There were also people who were known for turning into snakes. These traditions must hark back to the days when families would share the same animalform or pass it on to their children. The ‘purpose’ of these transformations seems to have been to allow the individual to partake of the powers of that animal, such as the cunning of the fox, but whether there was more to their function, as with the werewolf, this is for the time being unknown.
Werewolves
Werewolves underwent a great transformation at the hands of the witch-hunter. The information coming to us directly from men who claimed to be werewolves depicts their role entirely differently than the diabolical image we have been led to believe. The famous werewolf Thiess, insisted at some length in his trial that werewolves are not evil, they did in fact go down into Hell to steal back the grains and other needfuls that the people of the Underworld (with the help of witches) had stolen from the world above. But Thiess is not the only example of the ‘benevolent’ werewolf.
In the mid-sixteenth century an anecdote about a young man of Riga was recorded. He had suddenly fallen prostrate during a banquet and one of the onlookers had been able to immediately tell that he was a werewolf. The next day the youth related that he had fought a ‘witch’ who had been flying around as a red-hot butterfly. Werewolves apparently boasted that they kept bad witches away.
This being said, whilst the werewolf believed they were the ‘hounds of god’ who defended the community they did so by going outside of it. They shed their human clothes and identity and went out past the barriers of things. They became the animal that was most feared by the community inside the hedge for it’s ability to predate on humans. Even the term ‘wolf ’ in Saxon times referred to an outlaw, one who had been cast out and had lost the sanctified status of those things within the defined walled or hedged area of the communities allotment. As such the figure of the werewolf was one of ultimate ambiguity, one of a man forced to come very close to the raw and wild forces of the Outside and to face the challenge of reigning them to utilise for the good.
It is noted by Eva Pocs that the dates that were traditional for werewolf transformation were also times traditional for the return of the dead. She notes: ‘They also have close relationships with the returning dead and where thought to become active during the periods of the festivals of the dead. Dead, demonic werewolves can also be seen as guardians that attack or protect their tribes.’ In this way the werewolf is much like a male version of the moracreature, in that is seems to start its career as a human who transforms into a wolf and to return later as a dead spirit as well, and thus gain an association with the dead. Like all of the dead this returning wolf may be either helpful or baneful depending on how it has been treated and appeased.
Witch
As we have stated above ‘witch’ is an infinitely complex word. It is, essentially a blanket term that was thrown over all manner of ecstatic and magical practitioners. And yet by blanketing in this manner a new reality was created. It is noteworthy that some benandanti actually refused to name the ‘witches’ or malandanti that they fought against. Although they were enemies the concept of Fate allows us to see both their actions as necessary parts of a whole. Those like Isobel Gowdie who dealt death have been shown to behave, as Emma Wilby has shown, like ‘a Fate.’ Whilst the word ‘witch’ was usually used by some of the types of ecstatics we’ve mentioned here to denote an enemy, we have seen from the entry on werewolves how subjective the positioning of ‘outside the hedge’ can be. Regardless of whether one means harm or help the very fact of crossing the hedge makes the ecstatic an outsider in some way.
Some societies were flexible enough to have institutions in place to either embrace or tolerate such aberrance. But regardless of what a benandanti might like to think about himself or a werewolf might claim about his actions today’s society, as with the Christian world of the past, does not have such a place in its bosom for those born to experience ecstatic episodes and bring back Otherworldly materials. For this reason the word ‘witch’ with all its connotations of the outside, the back to front and even the sinister, can still be meaningful to a wide range of modern ecstatic practitioners.
Valkyrie
Valkyrie refers to female spirits of Norse origin, the word means ‘chooser of the slain’. Unlike the Irish beansidhe or the Welsh cyhiraeth the valkyrie actually chooses who is to die in battle. In this way the valkyrie performs a function between the worlds that is more like the mazzeri , in that they actually deliver the blow of the Fate. Like the valkyrie the mazzeri was sometimes also a ‘chooser of the slain’, being able to occasionally direct the blow of Fate away from a loved one and onto some other unfortunate. The interesting difference here is that the valkyrie was explicitly an Otherworldly woman, whereas the mazzeri was also a mortal woman or man.
This being said the valkyrie did interact with this world in more ways than carrying off the slain, as they were sometimes known to be the lovers of mortal men. They are also listed among ‘harmful female spirits’ in prayers of protection, where they find their way in beside ‘haegtessa’ or ‘hedge-riders’ another term for witch. Here we see further evidence of the hazy space between the spirit-doings of the human participant and those of non- human Others.
Vampire
The original idea behind ‘vampire’ was a particular kind of witch possessing ‘two hearts’ a human one and that of a ‘demonic’ intelligence. In some places werewolves were also considered to be ‘two hearted’ in this manner. Both creatures could be identified by extra sets of teeth. During life this person might fly in spirit and feed on the vital force of others and cause milk to sour and crops to fail like the typical ‘black witch’ or malandanti . But after death, like an alp or mara, if such a person was not properly disposed of they may create a revenant and become a blood- seeking member of the living dead. In other areas they were believed to strictly be undead creatures. A vast number of entities of all types could be considered ‘vampiric’, including the succubus and incubus.”
A Deed Without a Name:
Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft
Chapter 6: ‘The Bestiary’
by Lee Morgan