Witches' Night Blessings

At midnight, especially on Walpurgisnacht, the Devil holds picnics in the graveyards and invites the witches; then they dig up fresh corpses, and eat them. Anyone will tell you that.

—Angela Carter, “The Company of Wolves”

As I write to you on this dreich Sunday, kirk bells are ringing through the salt wind. I don’t know which of the three in kirks town is calling, and I don’t heed it. It’s almost Walpurgis Night—tomorrow is the day devoted to the child abbess, St. Walpurga. She was one of the great artists of Wimborne Nunnery, working in pearls, precious stones and thread of fine metals to create liturgical textiles. In the 8th century, Walpurgis went to convert heathens in central Europe where she died a natural death.

Legend has it her remains were transferred on May 1st, a sacred pagan day at the hinge between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. Her bones were secreted in a cliffside in Bavaria where they began to exude a miraculous, healing oil.

Like St. Brigid, Walpurgis embodies the older pagan idea of the Grain Mother, and corn dollies made of the last of harvest were made in her image. Older lore ties her to pagan seers and psychopomps. (More about St. Walpurgis—from the Wild Hunt to a vǫlvas—see this fascinating blog.) In the Catholic tradition, she is invoked against storms, witchcraft, and hydrophobia. Wimborne, her convent in England, was destroyed by Vikings in 1013; the faith-war of the sky gods still raged long after her death.

Do a Google search for Saint Walpurgis and you’ll be presented with countless images of witches; they’ll outnumber her bland countenance. They drown her out, and with her black book and little vial of magic oil, she blends right in.

Tomorrow summer begins in the Northern hemisphere (it snowed this week, so not holding my breath). In the hours of darkness before Walpurgis’ feast day, bonfires will be lit across Northern Europe to ‘ward off witches.’ I revel in the ambiguity of this ‘second Halloween.’ It’s two things at once, both sacred and profane, a paradox. We can make use of the smoke, the grey area: sain* ourselves against witch hunters and their ilk as we prepare for the unending light of summer in the North.

*a protective Scottish blessing, like warding in spellwork.

So, my wee coven, let’s gather in June.

ONLINE, 11th of JUNE, 7 pm, British Summer Time (to find your time zone, go here.)

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