Wane Wyrds

This post falls more under the general witchcraft subject than anything particularly heathen. Out of disappointment with some recently purchased scent sachets for clothing and closets, I decided to make some of my own today and was very happy with how they turned out. My intentions were entirely practical until I started putting them together and realized that I had plenty of herbs and materials on hand to give them a bit of a magical kick. When I completed them I thought about sharing my experience in a post, particularly for those who are not out of the broom closet or prefer their own practices to be kept to a minimum level of awareness in regards to others. Photo: istockphoto.com/Monika Adamczyk These sachets are very simple to make and can be combined with a great many items for almost any purpose on the magical spectrum, from healing to cursing, with little chance that anyone would suspect they are anything other than a practical item. I will share the instructions for two...

The Blot, or more correctly punctuated blót, was a common Germanic ceremony in sacrifice to the gods. It is one of the most well known religious rituals of the Germanic people and was well documented within the surviving literary works of the Norse people. The world blót is an interesting one in the linguistic sense, and scholars are often debating about its origin and meaning. It is believed to be derived from the Proto-Germanic "blotan" which means to sacrifice or worship. Alternative theories connect it to other roots with meanings such as blood, flame, bubble, murmur, etc. By Rebecca Radcliff (Hljod.Huskona on Flickr.) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons The components of a blot were really quite simple, though their performance was time consuming. The first step was the sacrifice, usually of an animal. There is also some minor evidence pointing to a possibility of human sacrifices involved in blot, particularly aro...