Oi Witches! Stop bothering my cows!

Witches are such a problem at Lammas time. 

One of their main crimes (alongside curses, hexes and general chicanery) is of course COW BOTHERING.

Nobody wants to see a cow being bothered. No-one wants to see the results of cow bothering.

You’ve asked the witches nicely and yet on they bother.

Bothering the cows so the milk goes sour.

Bothering the calves so they forget to grow.

Bothering the bulls so their pintels droop.

What can you do? The answer is simple: 

Put a ball of hair into a pail of milk today and that will keep the witches from your cows!

Scaring Witches the Burghead Way - "Burning the Clavie"

"Burning the Clavie" takes place in Burghead every January 11th. The act of burning a barrel of tar is said to scare away witches. At the end of the evening the townsfolk take a bit of charred wood to protect themselves through the year. 

Witches are easy to scare. 

This was a fact that King James explored in his “Daemonologie”. He reported that you could “scare a wytch by affixing a carrote to your fringe, buying up alle the local merchant’s stock of catte food or playing a boysterous round of Ha’Penny Shrimp”. He sang the praises of various towns for their methods of keeping witches away; from Corfe Mullen in Dorset with their “Wreaths of Dust Motes”, to the good folk of Glamorgan and their habit of painting “Spectacles on Fruite” or even the men of Redditch who would “Burpe long and loude into bented horns”  - all of these methods were successful at keeping Satan’s harridans away. It was Burghead in Scotland that really caught his eye. As everyone knows now, nothing scares a witch away more than a burning barrelful of tar. This activity is known as "Burning the Clavie" and it takes place every January 11th. Some say it is the smell, others say it is their innate fear of fire. Needless to say since its introduction in 1093 there have been only 2157 recorded incidents of death by “wicked magicks”. If it wasn’t for  the hard work and quick thinking of the people of Burghead this death toll would be much higher*. 

So this January 11th raise a glass to the people of Burghead and thank them for keeping us all that little bit safer.

For an exciting look at this year's Clavie burning check out this video on the Twitter.

*Some estimates would put this figure as high as 2173

Can you hear the bells? The December Mix is here...

It is December.

The bells are ringing and the Old Father is coming. Find out what happens to those who displease the Old Father in extracts from the final tale of the Wyrd Kalendar entitled "Santa Claus and the Witch".

You can buy the book here... – All profits go to Wildlife Trusts.

As you wander through the snow and ice of the Kalendar Heath you will hear Simon and Garfunkel, Sufjan Stevens, Marc Almond, Iron and the Wine, Broadcast, Bjork, Bert Jansch, Anne Briggs, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Zen, The Divine Comedy, CAN, Kate Bush, The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, Sea of Bees, Sean Wesche, Lindisfarne, Jethro Tull, Mazzy Star, The Rolling Stones, Spinal Tap, Jimmy Smith, The Free Design, David Cain, Neal Casan, Vashti Bunyan, The Who, The Fall, Scott Walker, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Grateful Dead, David Gray and Victor Hely-Hutchinson as well as extracts from Winter Landscape by Laurie Lee.

Bridget Bishop -The First Victim of Salem

On this day in 1692 Bridget Bishop was executed for being a witch.

Across the world people are being murdered for their beliefs, lifestyle, orientation or as with the case of Bridget Bishop because of unfounded hysteria.

There is a detailed and terrifying account of Bridget's fate here.

To continue the fight against prejudice and injustice.

To combat regimes that oppress those who are different.

Click here.

Below you will find the song "If you float you're a witch" inspired by the song of the same name from Caryl Churchill's Vinegar Tom.

Put some Rum in your Tea! It's Mother Shipton Day!

Everyone knows that today is Mother Shipton Day.

That famous, probably fictional, prophetic laundress is celebrated on this day.

Apparently she was born  in Knaresborough, Yorkshire, in a place now called Mother Shipton's Cave (presumably it wasn't called this before), and was, according to credible sources "as ugly as sin". It is said that when she was born that there was a smell of sulphur and a great crack of thunder (although this could have been wind).  It was considered by some that her father was the devil himself.

You can visit Mother Shipton's Cave here!

Mother Shipton's Cave

So join us...

Do your laundry then...

Sit back, relax, pour some rum in your tea and settle down with some of our favourite Shipton prophecies...

And now a word, in uncouth rhyme

Of what shall be in future time

Then upside down the world shall be

And gold found at the root of tree

All England's sons that plough the land

Shall oft be seen with Book in hand

The poor shall now great wisdom know

Great houses stand in farflung vale

All covered o'er with snow and hail

A carriage without horse will go

Disaster fill the world with woe.

In London, Primrose Hill shall be

In centre hold a Bishop's See

Around the world men's thoughts will fly

Quick as the twinkling of an eye.

And water shall great wonders do

How strange. And yet it shall come true.

Through towering hills proud men shall ride

No horse or ass move by his side.

Beneath the water, men shall walk

Shall ride, shall sleep, shall even talk.

And in the air men shall be seen

In white and black and even green

A great man then, shall come and go

For prophecy declares it so.

In water, iron, then shall float

As easy as a wooden boat

Gold shall be seen in stream and stone

In land that is yet unknown.

And England shall admit a Jew

You think this strange, but it is true

The Jew that once was held in scorn

Shall of a Christian then be born.

A house of glass shall come to pass

In England. But Alas, alas

A war will follow with the work

Where dwells the Pagan and the Turk

These states will lock in fiercest strife

And seek to take each others life.

When North shall thus divide the south

And Eagle build in Lions mouth

Then tax and blood and cruel war

Shall come to every humble door.

Three times shall lovely sunny France

Be led to play a bloody dance

Before the people shall be free

Three tyrant rulers shall she see.

Three rulers in succession be

Each springs from different dynasty.

Then when the fiercest strife is done

England and France shall be as one.

The British olive shall next then twine

In marriage with a german vine.

Men walk beneath and over streams

Fulfilled shall be their wondrous dreams.

For in those wondrous far off days

The women shall adopt a craze

To dress like men, and trousers wear

And to cut off their locks of hair

They'll ride astride with brazen brow

As witches do on broomstick now.

And roaring monsters with man atop

Does seem to eat the verdant crop

And men shall fly as birds do now

And give away the horse and plough.

There'll be a sign for all to see

Be sure that it will certain be.

Then love shall die and marriage cease

And nations wane as babes decrease

And wives shall fondle cats and dogs

And men live much the same as hogs.

In nineteen hundred and twenty six

Build houses light of straw and sticks.

For then shall mighty wars be planned

And fire and sword shall sweep the land.

When pictures seem alive with movements free

When boats like fishes swim beneath the sea,

When men like birds shall scour the sky

Then half the world, deep drenched in blood shall die.

For those who live the century through

In fear and trembling this shall do.

Flee to the mountains and the dens

To bog and forest and wild fens.

For storms will rage and oceans roar

When Gabriel stands on sea and shore

And as he blows his wondrous horn

Old worlds die and new be born.

A fiery dragon will cross the sky

Six times before this earth shall die

Mankind will tremble and frightened be

for the sixth heralds in this prophecy.

For seven days and seven nights

Man will watch this awesome sight.

The tides will rise beyond their ken

To bite away the shores and then

The mountains will begin to roar

And earthquakes split the plain to shore.

And flooding waters, rushing in

Will flood the lands with such a din

That mankind cowers in muddy fen

And snarls about his fellow men.

He bares his teeth and fights and kills

And secrets food in secret hills

And ugly in his fear, he lies

To kill marauders, thieves and spies.

Man flees in terror from the floods

And kills, and rapes and lies in blood

And spilling blood by mankinds' hands

Will stain and bitter many lands

And when the dragon's tail is gone,

Man forgets, and smiles, and carries on

To apply himself - too late, too late

For mankind has earned deserved fate.

His masked smile - his false grandeur,

Will serve the Gods their anger stir.

And they will send the Dragon back

To light the sky - his tail will crack

Upon the earth and rend the earth

And man shall flee, King, Lord, and serf.

But slowly they are routed out

To seek diminishing water spout

And men will die of thirst before

The oceans rise to mount the shore.

And lands will crack and rend anew

You think it strange. It will come true.

And in some far off distant land

Some men - oh such a tiny band

Will have to leave their solid mount

And span the earth, those few to count,

Who survives this (unreadable) and then

Begin the human race again.

But not on land already there

But on ocean beds, stark, dry and bare

Not every soul on Earth will die

As the Dragons tail goes sweeping by.

Not every land on earth will sink

But these will wallow in stench and stink

Of rotting bodies of beast and man

Of vegetation crisped on land.

But the land that rises from the sea

Will be dry and clean and soft and free

Of mankinds' dirt and therefore be

The source of man's new dynasty.

And those that live will ever fear

The dragons tail for many year

But time erases memory

You think it strange. But it will be.

And before the race is built anew

A silver serpent comes to view

And spew out men of like unknown

To mingle with the earth now grown

Cold from its heat and these men can

Enlighten the minds of future man.

To intermingle and show them how

To live and love and thus endow

The children with the second sight.

A natural thing so that they might

Grow graceful, humble and when they do

The Golden Age will start anew.

The dragon's tail is but a sign

For mankind's fall and man's decline.

And before this prophecy is done

I shall be burned at the stake, at one

My body singed and my soul set free

You think I utter blasphemy

You're wrong. These things have come to me

This prophecy will come to be.

Poems found on the outer wrapping of Scrolls

I know I go - I know I'm free

I know that this will come to be.

Secreted this - for this will be

Found by later dynasty

A dairy maid, a bonny lass

Shall kick this stone as she does pass

And five generations she shall breed

Before one male child does learn to read.

This is then held year by year

Till an iron monster trembling fear

eats parchment, words and quill and ink

And mankind is given time to think.

And only when this comes to be

Will mankind read this prophecy

But one mans sweets anothers bane

So I shall not have burned in vain.

This Poem was found in a Separate Jar.

The signs will be there for all to read

When man shall do most heinous deed

Man will ruin kinder lives

By taking them as to their wives.

And murder foul and brutal deed

When man will only think of greed.

And man shall walk as if asleep

He does not look - he many not peep

And iron men the tail shall do

And iron cart and carriage too.

The kings shall false promise make

And talk just for talking's sake

And nations plan horrific war

The like as never seen before

And taxes rise and lively down

And nations wear perpetual frown.

Yet greater sign there be to see

As man nears latter century

Three sleeping mountains gather breath

And spew out mud, and ice and death.

And earthquakes swallow town and town,

In lands as yet to me unknown.

And christian one fights christian two

And nations sigh, yet nothing do

And yellow men great power gain

From mighty bear with whom they've lain.

These mighty tyrants will fail to do

They fail to split the world in two.

But from their acts a danger bred

An ague - leaving many dead.

And physics find no remedy

For this is worse than leprosy.

Oh many signs for all to see

The truth of this true prophecy.

It's Walpurgis Night! Protect Your House From Witches!

It is Walpurgis Night! 

What are you doing to protect your home from witches?

We at Wyrd Kalendar have been kind enough to collate genuine methods for repelling witches.

Don't forget...

Every WALPURGIS NIGHT witches of   every hue, age and colour will plague our land.

It is vital that you protect your house from these supernatural miscreants.

They will ride about on a horse with THE  DEVIL, 

turn your MILK sour, 

CURSE your cattle, 

replace your children with FOUL argumentative urchins, 

make your PORRIDGE stiff, 

CAST spells that will make you have FUN, 

embrace TREES, 

heal AILMENTS, 

fly on BROOMSTICKS, 

DANCE around bonfires,  

use HERBS, 

speak with their FAMILIARS, 

stroke CATS, 

make deals with GOATS, 

tell FORTUNES, 

make POPPETS, 

sport HATS, 

wear NOTHING at all, 

make otherwise good and honest MENFOLK think LUSTFUL and LASCIVIOUS thoughts, 

caper about POLES, 

knock at your DOOR...

TO STOP WITCHES ENTERING YOUR HOME WE RECOMMEND THE FOLLOWING FOOLPROOF METHODS…

MAKE AS MUCH NOISE AS YOU CAN - RING CHURCH BELLS - SLAM DOORS - CRACK WHIPS—BANG POTS AND PANS

LIGHT BONFIRES

ERECT CROSSES

BRANDISH TORCHES (TOPPED WITH ROSEMARY AND JUNIPER)

WITCH PROOF YOUR HOUSE WITH BIRCH BOUGHS

STAY SAFE!

The Witch Who Became a Hare

In March our thoughts turn to hares.

Maria Hale, the witch of Aldermaston (Berkshire) was able to turn herself into a hare. 

Between the 1850s and '60s it was reported that the transformed Maria would sit outside the local pub and listen to the gossip, nose and ears twitching.

A local gamekeeper shot this hare in the leg and thereafter it was said that Maria Hale walked with a limp.

Maria was considered to be a most wicked woman. 

She scammed the vulnerable and lonely selling them expensive curses or cures.

The local people were very frightened of her.

The following are some of her reported sins:

1. She sold a local shopkeeper what she said was ham, though she kept no pigs. Apparently it was the most delicious ham in all of Aldermaston, yet she kept no pigs...

2. If she asked you for flowers and you refused to give them to her then all of your plants would wither and die.

3. When her son tried to leave home she cursed him, this caused him to become ill so he had to return home.

She died in 1879 (aged 88) and was buried in the Graveyard of Aldermaston Church.
The villagers planted her under a yew tree in a hole at least 12 feet deep (most graves are 6 feet deep).
The placed rocks on the coffin and jumped up and down upon the grave to ensure she wouldn't get out.
It is said that if you place a pin on the steps of the church and run around it three times she will appear.

The adventures of Maria Hale (in life and after her death) alongside other strange characters from the Berkshire area can be heard in "Deadman's Lane" a Folk Horror School Play. 

A radio version is below...

Source: David Nash Ford's "Royal Berkshire History" 2001
http://www.berkshirehistory.com/villages/aldermaston.html