Local witchcraft , build your craft and weave the web

[AlfrunGrima]

A topic about local witchcraft and this is a topic that is not yet deepend out unto its fine details. I spent some time to read on WF, other forums and reddit also, it seems to be a very rare topic to talk about. It is at its core of the craft, so it might be worth. So I wrote a serie of questions to start the topic hopefully in its first gear.

So, for the witches who are working with local energies, local folklore, local narural materials: what is exactly the information and are the natural materials you are working with? Special things in local weather that happens more often and that you use in your craft? If you see it as your little treasure chest what is there to be find in your area what you love most? Are there things that scare you? Or special liminal places?

Which local folklore does there exist in your area and how do you incorporate it in your craft/ how did you entwine things together?

Are there local things that define one or more parts of your witchcraft? Or that confirm things? How did you build the bridge between the natural world around you and the astral and the world inside you? Were there books that changed what you observed in your own local area?

This time, you go first. I have build up my own craft over decades and in future I want to build a mega-thread about it as inspiration for others. But I first want to make room for other witches to talk about how you builded your craft out of the all those local things and and how you work together with your magic biosphere/territory.

 

[Yazata]

I wish I felt something for the local history where I live, but sadly I don't. Where I live, there was a tribe of Germans / Celts who may have reached to where you are AlfrunGrima. They were called the Sunici and their goddess was Sunuxal with her partner the god Varnenos. I did some of my amateur etymology and decided the goddess' name means something like "sun up high" and the god's name "he who warns" (so he is the moon, which in Germanic lore is correct, the Sun is female and the Moon male).
But I think that part of my genes / heritage is too thin or maybe not even present at all anymore (I am no big blonde warrior.. )

Another, later local legend that I wish I could feel more connection with is "de Bokkenrijders". This was (actually there were two waves) a large group of robbers who have been romanticized in recent times, but back then were feared by all. Their name comes from the belief that they flew through the air on goats when they went out to plunder. Horrible brutes who for the most part have been hanged. When they had set their sights on a farm, they didn't break down the door or smash the windows but rammed holes in the walls.

 

[Durward]

Not a witch, but a dreamwalker, which many people consider a craft. As a very young man I had a very busy and active dream-life. In the dream body, which I now understand as lucid dreaming and astral projection, I could see and feel things that I couldn't repeat when I was awake, and I did try. One of the things that I observed was related to localized power flows moving into and out of the Earth itself. They were of differing strengths, with some flows arching at a low height and returning back into the Earth, and others like giant geysers that disappeared into the sky. These flows have different energetic configurations at different locations, some of them are easier to 'grab' than others, some are draining, some are energizing. One house we lived in was sitting on a fault that had a very specific and draining energy, it felt like time stopped there. The boost that the Earth can give at particular locations can be detrimental or advantageous to your goals. I believe that some crop circles are reflecting what I see and feel, but I have never observed a crop circle happening in real time. In the dream body, I could grab an energy bundle going up, tightening my solar plexus muscles around it. The tighter I held on, the more I would fly with the flow. That energy felt like wet rubber dragging over the surface of your skin, with the vibrating nausea, the elevator butterflies, and all the discomfort that goes with that feeling. Over time, I noticed that I sense certain energy configurations, while awake, that are location dependent, and stole the term power spots from literature. Sometimes you can see how vegetation and animals react to these energies, where there is geometry to the growth, or lack of growth, and animals either gravitate towards or are repelled by these spots. So, in my opinion, the energy of the location will sometimes define the energy of any practicing group that lives there. Some cultures travel long distances to visit power spots, and at times they can be healing or supply a boost of energy, depending on your own configuration and how your internal energy aligns with the external energy at large. Some trees also have enough energy and awareness to be helpful, or harm. Underground water, caves, wells, and some other natural formations like tectonic plates also shape energy and energetic flows, and many places also host entities that can share and trade, or steal your energy. The familiar can usually help with energy locations and configurations, if that is part of your craft.

 

[AlfrunGrima]

Where I live, there was a tribe of Germans / Celts who may have reached to where you are AlfrunGrima. They were called the Sunici and their goddess was Sunuxal with her partner the god Varnenos.

If you google Sandraudiga you have the goddes from this region, there is a lot of iron offered to her which is logical because we have iron (ijzeroer, can't really think of a decent English word for that)..... it were the Toxandriërs here, but both Celtic and Germanic influences. Our village has original a Celtic name, one village to the east a Germanic name and burial mounts of the iron age. Our local story about Hilbert the giant, is a Germanic name and giants were more beings of the Germanic world.

For more local stories it is quite possible to find in the books of Sinninghe. But there are quite a few stories that go around everywhere in the Low Lands. You are in the South-East? If you send in DM a region I will take a look what I can find.
White ladies, witte wieven, witte juffrouwen, Weisse Frauen were to be mentioned in practically the complete country except for the coast and IJsselmeer, and mentioned in the west of Germany also.

What's in the soil layer of your region? We have loam/clay because of the little streams here what was the inspiration of using clay in my magic operations. Are there plants of trees more typical for your region?

And yeah, Bokkenrijders were known in a very large region. There are in Brabant stories in which they entwine with the Wild Hunt... but... if I can't get the source on top of my mind.

(For non Dutch people IJsselmeer is now a lake because of a long dike that was made, but in the past it was a sea. So in fact in folklore it was more a folk region..... but, feel free to share from your local area also. Happy to welcone you in this topic)

 

[A.Nox]

For me local craft was never really about the woods or fancy nature stuff.It was more… I don’t know how to say it… connected to quiet places, especially old cemeteries and spots “in between”.
Like places where you just feel something is different in the air.

Where I grew up people didn’t call it magic or anything.They just kinda knew that some places have their own weight.

Cemeteries especially.
Not scary, just… you walk in and you automatically lower your voice, because it feels like you aren’t alone even if nobody is there.

Crossroads too.
People used to leave things there early morning.Nobody talked about it but everybody knew why someone would do it.
It wasn’t dramatic or anything, just part of how things worked.

Plants weren’t anything special.
Mostly stuff for protection or for “separating” things.Mugwort, wormwood, juniper… stuff that grows everywhere.Nothing complicated.

Weather mattered a lot though.
Like heavy fog in late autumn — people got quiet on those days, like everyone felt the same shift even if they didn’t say it out loud.

So for me local craft is mostly about those strange-in-a-normal-way places: old cemetery walls, crossroads nobody uses anymore, small shrines next to the road.
It’s not big rituals or anything, just paying attention and knowing when a place wants silence.