Owls

Owls seem to be another animal like bats or black cats that get a bad rep. Pretty much anywhere you go they’re considered bad omens or evil.

Supposedly, demons can shape-shift into owls to do evil errands for witches at night or to play with them.

Ancient Egyptians associated owls with night, death, and the cold.

The Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament of the Holy Bible says they’re unclean.

Ancient Romans believed them to be bad omen, and death omens. Caesar’s death was announced by screeching owls. They also foretold illness, bad weather, and when the village girl would lose her virginity.

The Aztecs equated owls with evil spirits, including the Rational Owl, who is humanity’s worst enemy.

In Africa, owls were witches’ instruments and feared.

To North American Indians owl is an ill omen and bringer of death and a messenger of the dead.
The Chippewa medicine man stuffed owl skins with magical ingredients and commanded it to fly over a victim’s house bringing starvation.
The Sauk believe seeing an owl at night will cause facial paralysis.

Owls are respected in some cultures.

In Peru, folk healers use owls to combat negative magic and the “Owl Woman” is associated with Shamanism and curing in their mythology.

The Greeks saw owls as sacred and a symbol of wisdom because Athena the Goddess of Wisdom was always with her owl companion.

In India eating owl eyeballs is believed to give the eater night vision. ~I don’t know if eating it is respecting it.
Kiowa North American Indians believe their medicine men could become owls after death.

Images : http://magicalowls.tumblr.com/
http://imgkid.com/white-owls-in-flight.shtml

Red

The color red is believed to protect against evil in many cultures. Red ribbons are worn as amulets to protect from vampires, evil spirits, evil eye, bewitchment, and other evil or demonic attacks.

Salvic lore believes the red corpse is a tall tale sign of them person tell tale sign of vamirism.

Curanderos

Curandero and Curandera
In Meso-American, and Hispanic communities medicine man –curandero and medicine women -curandera are Hispanic healers.

Curandero with sacred tools

They’re very different from brujos and brujas male and female witches.
Curandero healings consist of folk psychiatrists -they offer magical cures for emotional and mental troubles by using herbal folk remedies.

Curandera making a remedio

They will clean the soul and if needed return the soul to its body. This could be through exorcism of spirits that are believed to cause the problem.
Curanderos believe most physical illnesses are symptoms of emotional or mental illness. Mind, body, and spirit are all treated together.

Images from Google search

Babylonian Devil Trap

Between the third and first Centuries B.C.E. and the 16th Century C.E., Babylonian Devil Traps were common.
These devil traps were terra-cotta bowls inscribed with magical texts or symbols with the purpose to drive away evil.

Hebrew slaves in Babylonia changed the words and text to quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures that invoked God.
One bowl was inscribed with the “bill of divorce” from the devil and all of his monsters. It ordered demons to leave town.
How were these bowls used? They were turned upside down, and buried under the four cornerstones of buildings and houses.

Image from Google search

Iron

Considered as near magical and credited with supernatural powers.

The Aztecs called it “the gift from heaven” because it fell from the sky in meteor form.

Specialists were needed to remove iron from the ore and harden it. These specialists of Blacksmiths soon were thought of as magicians.

Iron is used to fight evil, keep fairies and demons away, in some case to keep vampires away. It was believed to ward off witches.

Blue

Blue

The Greeks believed blue repels vampires and other spirits.
They painted blue around doorways and windows to prevent vampires from entering their house.

Blue is also the most common color of the evil eye protection amulet.

Use this to protect against evil eye.

Aspen

Aspen.
Aspen is believed to be the wood that made Christ’s cross and thus protection of all things evil.

It is a favorite for making stakes, and destroying vampires. If you lay a few branches on a vampire or which is grave it will keep them from raising.

Image from Google Search.

The Witching Hour: Modern and Evil

I’ve seen a few witch movie trailers, many of the witches are portrayed as evil. Where there is evil in witchcraft, it is evil that that person wants and that is why they are evil, not that all witches are evil. Much the same as some people rape or kill and others don’t.

Today for The Witching Hour, I want to look at modern witches, and the idea of evil witches.

Does she look like a witch to you?

One movie portrays witches in the past; they wear dark dresses and clothes. This is a common stereotypical idea of witches. It’s believed that they wear only black or dark colored clothes, and a lot of silver and crystal jewelry. Another idea is that they wear long colorful dresses or skirts have long hair, usually with a lot of colorful streaks, exaggerated make-up, and again the jewelry. Halloween has brought the idea of a black pointy hat, a long hooked nose, and a greenish color of the skin.

What about her, Does she look like a witch?

None of this is true. What if I told you the woman at the library or who checked you out at Wal-Mart this morning, or maybe the woman at the doctor’s office last week, you know the one in the suit, were all witches. What about the man filling his gas tank behind you at the gas station, could he be a witch? Would you believe me? Why not? They very well could be witches, no one can tell what someone believes in by the way they dress, and yes men can be witches.

Do these women look like witches? Why not?

Believes in? Yes, witchcraft is very similar to a religion. It actually is a religion of nature. Most witches believe in not hurting others. There are some that do hurt others, but we have that outside of witchcraft too.
Another movie I’ve seen trailers for, has a young girl who comes from a magical family. She’s told she’ll have to choose between good and evil on her birthday, but we’re given the idea that the choice has already been made for her. In real life, this is not possible. No one can make a choice for you; you are the only one who can choose your path. In addition, if you choose wrong, you can repent and work hard to stop and get back on the right path.

I understand the idea of an evil witch, is much more fun to write about or make movies about. I want you to think for just a moment though…

Cinderella’s fairy Godmother, was she a witch? Don’t tell me, “No, she was a fairy Godmother.” She was a witch; she used Magic to make Cindy’s dreams come true. The tree fairy Godmothers of Sleeping Beauty? Same thing, all three were witches too. They used magic. These four women were witches; they used their magic for good, so we could say they were white witches. They didn’t look like the evil witches who were causing harm.

My Witching Hour point for today is no matter what movie you watch, or novel/story you read. Please know there are good witches out there, just like there are bad people in the world. Being a witch doesn’t automatically make you evil, just as being a wine drinker doesn’t make you a habitual drunk.

Garlic

Time for another Vampire Wednesday!

So I decided to talk a little about Garlic.
Garlic has long been believed to ward off vampires. It was also believed to ward of all sorts of evil beings and spirits.

Like witches!
I find that somewhat hard to believe. Garlic has been used for centuries as a medicine. It still has a reputations as a powerful healing agent. It’s widely used for heart and blood conditions. Some witches were healers, I find it hard to believe that he/she wouldn’t use garlic to heal.

Garlic was rumored to protect from the plague! Kind of strange if you ask me, Italy loves garlic and yet they have suffered the plague a couple of times throughout history.

So back to the vampires…
Vampires who were hiding in their villages and were not detected for who knows how long, would be spotted when they refused to eat dishes made with garlic. –Busted!–
I guess ancient vampires could eat human food. According to this idea of finding hidden vampires they could.

It wasn’t until Bram Stoker that the smell garlic was able to deter vampires. (Filling Lucy’s room with garlic flowers to keep Count Dracula away.)

A special note! Modern vampires aren’t effected by garlic. (Well, some aren’t.)

What do you think about Garlic and vampires?
I know some writers are keeping the myth, others are leaving it behind.
If you write vampire stories, do you keep the garlic myth?