Dowsing Tools You Can Make & Use
MAKING A WALKING STICK, STAFF OR STANG
It is no coincidence that wizards and shamans everywhere are depicted with a staff, though its purpose is very rarely understood – it is not a fancy walking stick or an accessory to make the magician look more imposing. The staff is a portable world tree or cosmic mundi, which connects the magician to the three realms of the heavens, middle earth and the underworld.
The stang is a forked staff that represents the Horned God when placed in the circle. Cut the wood in winter when the sap is down. Remove any side twigs and branches. Leave the bark or remove as desired, burn on patterns with a soldering iron or a heated knitting needle. Allow the stick to dry out for several months before varnishing, if wished.
THE BROOM
Use twigs from the birch cut in the spring for the broom part, an ash pole for the shaft. The shaft should be smoothed and sanded. Carve a point in one end and bore a hole a couple of inches from this point. Insert a wooden peg into this. Gather the birch twigs around this and tie on the binding above and below the peg so that it is held on safely. Cut willow for tying when the tree is in leaf. Split these and put in hot water for 20 minutes to make them pliable.
RUSHLIGHTS
Cottages up and down the country were once lit with home-made rush lights, rather than candles or lamps. They are easily made from rushes with white spongy centres such as Juncus effuses. Soak them in water for six or seven hours and leave to dry outdoors in the sun. Peel the skin on one side, leaving it on the other. Heat wax in a dipping container and dip the rushes one at a time, allowing the wax to set in between each dipping. Aim to dip them four or five times in all. Clip the rushlight to the side of a bottle or candlestick using a bulldog clip.
HAG TAPERS
Many of the folk names for mullein, such as Hag Taper and Candlewick Plant, are a reference to the fact that it was used as a wick before the introduction of cotton. Dried pieces of the stalk were dipped into suet, tallow or pitch and used as candles. In Britain in the Middle Ages the stalks were dipped in suet to burn at funerals.
Hearth Witch (The Eight Paths of Magic)
Anna Franklin
Witches Of The Craft® 