Natural Magic - Doreen Valiente 1998

Magic of Birds and Animals

An essential part of nature is man’s relationship with birds and animals—and indeed with all other things upon this planet. The occult philosophers of ancient time recognized this by ascribing astrological rulerships to the animal kingdom, even as they did to jewels, plants, colours and so on. Likewise, they believed that animals, birds, reptiles and even insects, had curious hidden virtues, which could be utilized in magic.

Unfortunately, this belief often led to acts of callous cruelty by man towards other living creatures, in order to obtain their blood or parts of their bodies for magic spells. Such practices are part of the evil realm of black magic, no matter what excuses the practitioners of them may put forward; and sooner or later the magician who follows this path will find karmic retribution at the end of it.

Let us therefore look, not at such matters as this, but at the fellowship which exists and always has existed, between humans and the rest of the living things we share this planet with. At the present day, we are developing the science of ecology and studying the interdependence of living things and the way in which this interacts with the environment. In times past, however, before such studies existed, mankind had a wordless fellowship, taken for granted, with the animals upon which he depended for food and transport.

Many primitive people have been found to have the idea of a kind of animal-god, who was the invisible ruler and guardian of all the beasts of a certain kind which they hunted. They would therefore not merely slay indiscriminately, but would first ask the guardian of the animals to give them permission to kill some of them for food. After a successful hunt, they would render thanks to the Great Deer, or the Great Buffalo, or whatever the kind of animal involved was, for permitting them to kill the game.

Our ancestors in the Stone Age probably had similar beliefs. We know from their cave-paintings that they practised hunting magic and we find pictures of men upon the walls of the painted caves wearing animal masks and horns and evidently engaged in a kind of ritual dance. Perhaps they are trying to contact the guardian-god of the animals, by thus dressing themselves to look like him. In this way, they are putting themselves en rapport with the hidden group-soul of the great beasts, and with its mysterious ruler. They are attuning themselves to the world of nature, in those aspects of it which vitally affect them; for these pictures go back to before the time when man had learned to practise agriculture, to the days when hunting was the mainstay of his life.

The horned head-dress was probably man’s earliest form of crown. All the time, archaeologists are discovering more relics of the past which illustrate this. Among the latest to be discovered are the now famous Tassili Frescoes in the Sahara Desert. One of these shows a tall horned god figure, surrounded by animals and humans, with the latter seemingly raising their arms to him in invocation. There is really no need to do as some modern writers have done, and postulate that these ancient drawings represent ’spacemen’ with ’antennae’ upon their heads. There are too many representations of horned gods and goddesses in ancient art, both primitive and highly cultured, to make such a speculation really tenable.

Right down to the days just before the arrival of Christianity, the Romans honoured Pan, whom they also called Faunus or Silvanus, as the guardian of flocks and herds. He was associated with the goddess Diana, and together they were the rulers of the woodland and of all creatures of the wild.

Pan was a merry, uninhibited old fellow, acknowledged to be from an older stratum of culture than the more dignified gods and goddesses such as Jupiter and his heavenly court. Earthy and orgiastic festivals were held in his honour, notably the famous Lupercalia in the spring, which everyone except long-faced moralists thoroughly enjoyed.

The God Pan, as drawn by Charles Godfrey Leland

Consequently, it was the great god Pan, with his horns and hoofs, his primitive life-force and sexuality, who furnished the model for the Christian image of the Devil or Satan. As the Roman Empire had spread itself over most of Western Europe, the civilization of those countries had been greatly influenced by Roman ways, and the culture of the old gods was everywhere to be found. It did not yield easily to Christianity. People went on clandestinely worshipping the old divinities of nature, who were declared by the new religion to be devils, and their devotees denounced as heretics and witches.

The Greek and Roman Pan found his counterpart among the Celtic people of Europe and the British Isles, as the god Cernunnos, ’the Horned One’. The pagan Romans quite happily accepted that the older, indigenous gods of the native people of their provinces were really just another version of their own gods, as seen through the eyes of a different people. Hence statues and carvings of Cernunnos are found in plenty, showing him as the guardian of animals, the giver of life and fertility and sometimes of wealth. These representations vary from the roughly carved figure in low relief, cut out of sandstone, which comes from Maryport in Cumberland, to the magnificent Gundestrop Cauldron, an elaborately worked vessel of Celtic silver, now in the National Museum at Copenhagen, Denmark.

In later times still, the old Horned One reappears as the god of the witches, worshipped and invoked in the underground witch covens. Sometimes he takes the form of a ram, a bull or a goat; or perhaps these animals are regarded as embodying something of his spirit, as the sacred bulls of Egypt embodied the spirit of Osiris. Sometimes he is impersonated by a man, the high priest of the coven, dressed up in a ceremonial regalia of horned mask and robe of animal skins. Such a figure, seen at midnight in a lonely place, by the flickering blaze of a ritual bonfire, must have been strange and unearthly, even to those who knew there was really a man under the mask.

The psychological effect of masked ceremonies can be very potent, even in broad daylight; as many can testify who have witnessed the strange, old-world atmosphere generated by the famous Obby Oss ceremony held every year in Padstow, Cornwall, on May Day. The ’Oss’ is actually a man in a fantastic mask and a huge black cloak draped over a kind of circular frame. In former days, the man who played the part of the Oss was naked beneath this black canopy, or so it was said. He dances through the little Cornish town, accompanied by traditional songs and general merriment. The streets are decorated with greenery, and many visitors come to see and join in the fun.

Behind it all, however, is a deep meaning. At the climax of the ceremony, the Oss pretends to be killed; only to be resurrected again every year. He is the representative of the old god of the life-force, the power of fertility for humans, animals and all of nature, ever dying and being resurrected from death. He is the ever-renewing cycle of life.

Another piece of folk-magic connected with animals is the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance in Staffordshire. This is still in lively observance each year and has been recently featured in a television film about old English customs. In the course of this broadcast, it was stated that the dancers had to be sure of visiting all the local farms with their performance and music, because it would be unlucky for any farm that was left out. This seems to establish a definite link between the performance of the dance and the bringing of luck and fertility.

Here is a nineteenth-century description of the dance, taken from a book called Old English Customs Extant at the Present Time: An Account of Local Observance, Festival Customs, and Ancient Ceremonies, yet Surviving in Great Britain, by P.H. Ditchfield, MA, FSA (George Redway, London, 1896). It has some points of interest not contained in later accounts:

The annual wakes at Abbot Bromley, a village on the borders of Needwood Forest, near Stafford, is celebrated by a curious survival from mediaeval times called the Horn-dance. Six deer-skulls with antlers, mounted on short poles, are carried about by men grotesquely attired, who caper to a lively tune, and make “the deer”, as the antlers are called, dance about. Another quaintly-dressed individual, mounted on a hobby-horse, is at hand with a whip, with which he lashes the deer every now and again in order to keep them moving. Meanwhile a sportsman with a bow and arrow makes believe to shoot the deer. The horn-dance used to take place on certain Sunday mornings at the main entrance to the parish church, when a collection was made for the poor. At the present day the horns are the property of the vicar for the time being, and are kept, with a bow and arrow and the frame of the hobby-horse, in the church tower, together with a curious old pot for collecting money at the dance. It takes place now on the Monday after Wakes Sunday, which is the Sunday next to September 4th. Similar dances formerly took place in other places in the county of Stafford, notably at the county town and Seighford, where they lingered until the beginning of the century. The under-jaw of the hobby-horse is loose, and is worked by a string, so that it “clacks” against the upper-jaw in time with the music. The money is collected by a woman, probably Maid Marion; the archer is doubtless a representation of Robin Hood; and besides these characters there is a jester. Dr Cox has examined the horns, and pronounced them to be reindeer horns.

The Hobby-horse and the “dragon with snapping jaws”

Dr Plot in his Natural History of Staffordshire, published in 1686, gives a similar description of the dance, and he too describes the horns as being those of reindeer. This is strange, because reindeer have long been extinct in Britain; they were last heard of in Caithness, Scotland, in the twelfth century AD.

Some people have explained the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance by saying that it merely relates to the villagers’ rights to hunt in the nearby Needwood Forest; but if, as Mr Ditchfield’s account states, the dance was at one time performed in other parts of Staffordshire as well, then it evidently has no mere local origin and relates back to something much older and more fundamental than this. It is part of the ancient magic associated with the horned god.

Evidently, too, the present date on which the dance is performed is not that on which it originally took place. Dr Plot describes it as being celebrated “at Christmas (on New Year and Twelfth-day).” This connects the Horn Dance directly with similar commemorations of the horned god which took place in other parts of England at this time; for instance, the ’Christmas Bull’, who used to appear in Dorset villages during the twelve days of Christmas, impersonated by a man wearing a horned mask and accompanied by the usual rustic music and merriment. One of these horned masks, called the Dorset Ooser, survived long enough to be photographed and described in Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, in 1891; and to be noticed by Margaret Murray, in her book The God of the Witches (Faber and Faber, London, 1952), as being connected with the worship of the horned god.

The antiquity of this Yuletide masking is proved by the fact that it was denounced in vain by the early Christian church. In England, Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote his Liber Poenitentialis in the seventh century AD, in which he declared: “If anyone at the Kalends of January goes about as a stag or a bull; that is, making himself into a wild animal and dressing in the skin of a herd animal, and putting on the heads of beasts; those who in such wise transform themselves into the appearance of a wild animal, penance for three years because this is devilish.”

The Kalends of January is New Year’s Day, the very time that the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance used originally to be performed. It seems that the clergy, being unable to suppress the old ritual, eventually came to terms with it and, according to Dr Plot, used it as an occasion of collecting money to repair the church and give alms to the poor. However, they moved the date of the dance to the annual wakes, or holiday time. Meanwhile, the country people regarded it (and still do) as a survival of primordial magic.

One of the most time-honoured magical practices connected with animals and birds is that of augury. That is, of observing the actions of living creatures, and deciding whether this portends good fortune or ill. The Romans used to take this very seriously, having a College of Augurs, who observed the omens that appeared on any occasion of national importance. The augur wore a white robe, being regarded as a priest of the gods, and he carried a staff called a lituus. This was a long wand with a curved piece bending over at the top.

The augur would pray to the gods and then look at the scene through the curved end of his staff. Whatever animal or bird appeared within his view, observed in this way, would be interpreted as the gods’ answer to his prayer, according to the meanings laid down by the College of Augurs.

In general, an animal or bird appearing from the right hand side was regarded as fortunate, but one which came from the left was unlucky. This is the derivation of our word ’sinister’. It is the Latin word meaning ’on the left’, which foreboded ill.

Dusio, a mischievous nature spirit, a kind of cheerful hobgoblin

Many of our beliefs about animals and birds are derived from this old Roman practice of augury. There are still many people who do not like to see a single magpie, for instance, because one magpie on its own is unlucky. There is an old rhyme about the magpie which says:

One for sorrow,

Two for mirth,

Three for a wedding,

Four for a birth,

Five for silver,

Six for gold,

Seven for a secret,

That’s never been told.

Many people, too, are quite afraid of owls, regarding them as uncanny creatures. Personally, I think the owl is a delightful bird and most useful in the way he makes war on rats and mice. Yet the old belief persists that the hooting of an owl, at some unusual time or place, is an evil omen; often it is said to mean news of a death. Probably because it is a bird of the night, with its weird cry and moon-like eyes, the owl is regarded as a bird of witchcraft. Old-fashioned woodcuts, paintings and engravings depicting witches seldom fail to show an owl somewhere in the background. For instance, when Frans Hals painted his portrait of Mallie Babbe, the sorceress of Haarlem, he showed her as a cheerful-looking lady with a tankard in her hand and an owl perched on her shoulder.

However, I doubt whether in real life an owl would often be kept as a witch’s familiar. It would hardly make a practical pet and most witches’ familiars in this country were (and are) simply pet animals or birds. Their difference from ordinary pets lies in the fact that they are believed to have a special link with their owner and with the spirit world, even to the point of being actually posssessed at times by a spirit.

After all, if the idea is once accepted that human beings can act as mediums for spirits to communicate, why should not an animal be a medium also? Certainly, many people can testify that horses and dogs will react strongly to haunted places and demonstrate their awareness of a spirit presence.

The popular expression about ’rats deserting a sinking ship’ is based on an old-time sailors’ belief. Back in the days of sail, the sailors swore that if a ship was doomed to be wrecked on her forthcoming voyage, then while she still stood in dock the rats would make their way to the shore across her mooring-ropes, and leave her. Rats and mice were also said to desert a house that was about to be burned down.

There are a number of strange stories on record about unusual behaviour of animals and birds before some natural catastrophe. In October 1923 the people of Tokyo complained of the peculiar restlessness of their dogs. The animals barked and howled with extraordinary noisiness and kept up their disturbed state until early in November. Then they fell silent and all stray dogs seemed to have disappeared—just before the city was struck by a severe earthquake which cost thousands of lives.

A similar thing happened a year before in Copiapo, Chile; only this time the disturbed animals were cats. Hundreds of them deserted the town and fled to the surrounding countryside. Then an earthquake hit the city, doing extensive damage and making thousands of people homeless.

The story goes, too, that before the terrible volcanic explosion on the island of Krakatoa in 1883, animals, birds and even fish deserted the locality. Animals actually leaped into the sea and swam away, to the amazement of onlookers who saw them doing this days beforehand.

In some strange way, animals and birds were believed to have foreknowledge of what was going to happen. Hence, if human beings could communicate with them, they could share this knowledge. One of the legends about King Solomon says that he was given the gift of understanding the languages of animals and birds and this was one way in which he was able to become the great magician that he is portrayed as in Eastern tales.

Such communion, however, does not have to be literally by a language; it can take place by telepathy. If a person is sufficiently sensitive, they can establish a telepathic rapport between themselves and an animal.

The famous jungle fighter of World War Two, Lieutenant-Colonel John Williams, earned his nickname of ’Elephant Bill’ on account of his extraordinary power to control elephants. When he was fighting in the jungles of Burma, this ability came in very useful. He could also establish a rapport with dogs. Often he dared not call a dog aloud, in case the enemy heard him. So he just willed the dog to come to him by telephathy and he said that it never failed up to a distance of two miles.

Three seventeenth-century witches and their familiars. From an old woodcut

The more intelligent the animal, the more one can learn from it. Cats are supposed by witches to be particularly knowing and also to have the habit of exchanging information with each other. Hence one reason for the popularity of the cat as a witches’ familiar.

Not only did the witch keep a cat herself. She was widely believed to be able to transform herself into the shape of a cat and go about in this disguise whither she would. Other animals, too, featured in this strange belief, notably hares. Many are the folk-tales of the British Isles that tell of the witch-hare. Like the witch-cat, it could be only be shot by a silver bullet; but this was deadly to it and if the fatal shot struck, then not a hare or a cat, but a woman, would be found lying dead. Other versions of the story said that on being struck by a silver bullet, the animal-form would vanish; but later the witch would be found lying dead in her house.

All these stories have a thread of magical correspondence running through them, which may serve to explain them. The cat and the hare are both animals ruled astrologically by the moon and silver is the moon’s metal. The moon also rules witchcraft and hence the association. (The importance of the moon in magical matters has already been noted in previous chapters). This also explains the old belief that it is unlucky to have a hare run across your path. The creature might be a witch in disguise.

On board ship, in times past, rabbits and hares might not even be mentioned and some fishermen around Britain’s coasts keep to this custom still. Witches were notoriously able to raise storms and talking about witch-animals might somehow arouse uncanny forces and bring bad luck if nothing worse.

It has been known for rival groups of fishermen to take a rather spiteful advantage of this belief, by secretly nailing a rabbit’s skin to the mast of their adversaries’ boat. Fishermen who found this trick had been done to them would be furious because it meant they dared not put to sea until every scrap of the ill-omened skin had been removed. As the ill-wishers took care to use as many nails as they could, this ceremonial cleansing would take some time; long enough, probably, to make the boat miss the tide while the others sailed off ahead of them.

In spite of their definite psychic sensitivity, one does not often hear of dogs in connection with witchcraft and magic, except for the sinister phantom dog known as Black Shuck. Stories of Black Shuck are found in the folklore of many English counties; but perhaps his favourite haunting ground is East Anglia, an area with strong associations of witchcraft.

He is described as a huge, coal-black hound with fiery eyes, who pads soundlessly by night along lonely lanes, or is seen after dark among the gravestones in ancient churchyards. He is also known as ’Padfoot’, from his habit of following benighted travellers.

Further north, in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, he is known as the Barghest, and regarded as a portent of death. In Norfolk, too, he has this reputation and in Cambridgeshire. However, in other places, notably Essex and Lincolnshire, he is regarded as harmless if treated with respect—and the guardian of the good. There are many stories of travellers on lonely roads at night, who have been saved from robbers and ruffians by the apparition of Black Shuck.

Lincolnshire has many traditions of the phantom black dog. There is often some particular place associated with his appearance, such as a clump of trees or the bank of a stream. He generally appears upon the spectator’s left and, unlike other ghostly beings, he does not at all mind crossing water. However, he never crosses a parish boundary. He will silently accompany someone along a lane or through a wood, and then vanish when some boundary-mark is reached.

It should be remembered in this connection that old parish boundaries often go back for centuries and that boundary-marks can figure as indicators of what Alfred Watkins described as ’leys’ in his book The Old Straight Track (first published by Methuen & Co. London in 1925 and several times reprinted). There is not sufficient space available here to go fully into this subject; but present-day researchers who have followed up Alfred Watkins’ discovery have come to the conclusion that leys do not merely consist of indications of trackways across the countryside. They also indicate lines of some mysterious kind of energy-flow, which is connected with the fertility of the land. People who travel along a ley are likely to have psychic experiences, especially at a place where two or more leys cross.

Some of the names given to witches’ familiars, according to Matthew Hopkins, Witch-Finder General

This subject, which is well worth investigation, is treated more fully in The View Over Atlantis, by John Michell (Garnstone Press, London, 1972). It is also referred to in Mysterious Britain, by Janet and Colin Bord (Garnstone Press, London, 1972).

Returning to the subject of the phantom black dog, it is curious to note his resemblances to the Egyptian Anubis, whom the Greeks associated with Hermes. The latter god was the guardian of roads, boundaries and waymarks; and he was also the psychopompos, or conductor of the souls of the dead. Anubis, too, was the guardian-god of the dead. He was depicted in Egyptian art as a god with a dog’s head, or simply as a large black dog. When Howard Carter opened the tomb of Tutankhamen, there at the entrance to the burial chamber, where he had kept watch and ward throughout the centuries, was a magnificent statue of Anubis in his form as a black dog.

It will be seen how all the things associated with Anubis and Hermes—guardianship, death, way-marks, roads, boundaries—come into the stories about Black Shuck. Perhaps he is an archetypal figure from the collective unconscious of mankind?

Another magical animal which seems to haunt not only the English countryside, but the human mind, is the white horse. It is the favourite subject of Britain’s famous and unique hill-figures, formed by removing the upper layers of turf and soil to reveal a different coloured earth, usually white chalk, underneath. For an unknown length of time, the country folk kept these figures in existence, by cleaning and renovating them at regular intervals, generally the magical number of every seven years. This ’scouring’, as it was called, was accompanied by a folk festival of rustic games, feasting and dancing.

Nowadays, the white horses and other hill figures are recognized for their interest and antiquity and are generally preserved by archaeological associations. It is now known that Britain’s hill figures were made by the same basic technique as the famous Nazca figures in Peru; that is, by digging trenches and removing the top soil, to show lines of different coloured soil underneath. The so-called ’Candlestick of the Andes’ is a similar figure, and not a rock-carving, as it is often described.

Britain’s most famous white horse hill figure, and generally thought to be the oldest, is the one at Uffington in Berkshire. Cut on the edge of a beautiful green hill, its white chalk outline resembles the horses depicted in Celtic art, rather than the more naturalistic forms of later hill figures of horses. All kinds of speculations have been advanced to account for this and other British hill figures; but no one really knows their origin and meaning.

The legend of the Uffington White Horse says that it is the white horse of St George, because it was here that he fought and slew the dragon. Below the figure of the horse is an artificial mound called Dragon Hill. It is said that grass will grow very little, if at all, upon the summit of this mound, because of the dragon’s poisonous blood which sank into the soil.

Nearby, giving a possible indication of the age of this mysterious figure, is a large enclosure surrounded by a prehistoric earthwork. This enclosure is known as Uffington Castle. Local legend says that if you stand in the centre of the horse’s eye, turn round three times, and make a wish, that wish will come true, if sincerely willed from the heart.

St George, the champion of the powers of light against the powers of darkness, is frequently depicted in art as riding upon a white horse. Yet the white horse is rather an ambiguous figure in British folklore. In some places, it is considered unlucky to meet a white horse and the ill luck is averted by spitting on the ground. However, I remember being told as a child that it was lucky to meet a white horse “so long as you didn’t see its tail”; in other words, the animal had to be coming towards you, not going away from you. In these circumstances, you could make a wish and hopefully it would come true, so long as you did not look again after the horse had passed you. This may be another relic of the practice of augury, or perhaps a memory of the white horse as a sacred animal in times long past.

Another peculiarity of white horses is that officially they don’t exist! However snow-white a horse may be, I am told that horse-breeders will never refer to it as such, but always call it a “light grey”. Could this be a relic of some magical taboo?

The magical lore of birds is almost endless and only glimpses of it can be given here. Much of it dates from very ancient times, when our Celtic ancestors held certain birds to be sacred, because they were associated with the gods. The raven, for instance, was the companion of the Celtic god Bran. This may be the reason for the presence of the pet ravens who still live within the precincts of the Tower of London. The magical speaking head of Bran, which continued to discourse although severed from its body, was said to be buried on the site of the Tower of London, with the face towards France, so as to protect Britain from invasion. It remained there until King Arthur had it dug up and removed, saying that he would hold the country by his strength alone. According to Bardic legend, this was one of the three fatal disclosures of Britain.

We know that the Celtic inhabitants of ancient Britain had a custom of carving images of their gods in the form of heads, because many such sacred heads have been found. (See Pagan Celtic Britain by Anne Ross: Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, and Columbia University Press, New York, 1967). So this legend may be a folk-memory of the time when a sanctuary of Bran stood upon the site of the Tower of London, until a Christian king did away with it. Yet Bran’s sacred ravens are still cared for on the spot, and may be seen calmly surveying the visitors with a superior air, as if they knew all the secrets of the Tower’s long and darksome history.

During World War Two the ravens of the Tower were given a special ration of meat, as the raven is a carnivorous bird. Another old legend says that if the ravens ever leave the Tower for good, or their race dies out, it will be fatal to the British royal family.

The cuckoo as the herald of spring was believed also to be able to give omens of people’s fate for the coming year. Whatever you were doing when you heard the first cry of the cuckoo would give you an idea of what you would be doing for the rest of the year. The luckiest thing to be doing was to be standing on green grass; but if you heard the cuckoo first while lying in bed, it meant your health was threatened. Hence people used to go out into the country especially to hear the cuckoo, for luck.

The robin and the wren were believed to be sacred birds down to our own day. Anyone who injured them would suffer bad luck for it. There is a charming old saying from Sussex which runs like this:

Robins and wrens

Are God Almighty’s friends.

Martins and swallows

Are God Almighty’s scholars.

The rhymes may not be very good, but the sentiment is deep and true.

The cock who greets the dawn with his crowing was anciently believed to have the power to disperse evil spirits, who fled at the first cock-crow. Hence the gilded figure of a cock which so often surmounts church steeples and weather vanes. He is there to drive away the evil demons, who were thought of as dwelling invisibly in the air, looking for opportunities to do mischief.

Finally, I like the old rhyme repeated by country people about sowing seeds, which seems to embody the idea that the world of nature is one, and that the birds, like ourselves, are entitled to their share in it:

Four seeds in a hole.

One for the rook, one for the crow,

One to rot and one to grow.

Four seeds in a hole.