Real Magic in Folk Songs

© Hannah Sanders PhD Class Notes August 2023

• Magic is the art of transformation.

• Songs transform the singer, the listener & the environment.

• Folk songs are those that reflect the landscape and culture they were created in – remnants of folk lore, history, customs, and culture.

• Folk magic (also called witchcraft /cunning) are techniques and practices that attempt to harness ‘good luck’ or favour from the world, and likewise reflects the preoccupations of a people in a specific landscape.

What is Folk Magic? 

The forms of enchantment that require no religious / spiritual affiliation but understand that the world is made of connections. Practical in nature and employing commonly available materials. Folk magic addresses the common needs of a community, dealing with sickness, loss, grief, love, work, family and home. It is intimately connected to a specific landscape and region.

• LORE: The Belonging Principle

• GNOSIS: the Instinctive Principle

• CUNNING: The Transforming Principle

The fundamental rules of magic as they are found in our folk music tradition:

Natural Order – Folk song shows us that powerful encounters happen when we are in harmony with nature’s rhythms. Hence so many songs include signposts for harnessing nature’s power, mark seasonal changes, indications of how to appease the land and celebrate cycles of growth and decay: Wassailing, Harvest, May Day, Midsummer…

Repetition: Power comes in repeating words and actions. This is a charm / spell device but of course is significant in the structure of many traditional songs. Refrains, burdens, chorus…

Liminality: Times and Tides; the significant time are transition times – dawn, dusk, new moon, full moon, New Year’s Eve, Midsummers Eve, Hallowe’en; those times and places where one state or time abuts another.

Magic in herbs, Plants & Flowers

Across the British Isles, the language of love in our folk traditions is littered with flowers.

Plants, trees and flowers make a magical vernacular that allow us to speak to each other in symbolic terms and allows the world to give us signs as to the strength and veracity of love’s intentions. Plants are a means by which we summon otherworldly creatures into existence, we show our emotional state, we signal our social status, our political stance, and celebrate the turning of the year.

The making of charms, posies and tussies are a means of inviting love, or rewarding friendship and is as old as gift giving traditions. As a form of sympathetic magic, we combine the plants and carry them on us to externalize our internal desires!

Here is a list of some of the significant plants in our folk magic/music tradition. Where possible I have included their planetary / astrological signatures:

• Rosemary ☉ “Jennifer Gentle and Rosemary” (Juniper, Gentian and Rosemary) Alchemists refer to it as Libanotis, and Paracelsus called it Anthos, meaning ‘blossom’. It was the first known perfume, in the recipes for Queen of Hungary Water. It was a constituent of the famous anti plague ‘4 Thieves Vinegar’ and was often used in funerial rights as a means of fumigating and for holding a memory close. It is also considered the herb of remembrance –as it stimulates the mind and heals the heart. A herb of love and friendship given in wedding bouquets so promises and bonds are remembered and sustained. Repels despair and negativity – often used in ritual baths of purification and to lift the spirits in times of depression or anxiety.

• Gilli-flower ♀︎– This is of course, according to Lucy Broadwood, the Clove Carnation. Like many refrains it is often found alongside Gentle, which has been said to be a term used for a collection of plants – balm, bay etc.

• Primrose ♀︎ – Springtime, joy, love, youth (Banks of the Sweet Primroses)

• Rue ☉ “And everywhere your thyme was grown is all spread over with rue, rue, is all spread over the rue”. Symbolic of sorrow and regret, a natural abortifacient, it is often associated with remorse.

• Rose ♀︎ “Oh the rose and the lindsey o” (Cruel Mother). Hermetically it is a ‘herb of initiation’ into the knowledge of divine LOVE. Rose was called elgarisa by many medieval magicians (see the work Apuleius). As a flower associated with initiation, it also teaches the power of silence – a flower used to keep secrets. Briar rose, when found in woodland/hedgerow are often portals into the other worlds. Rose has a long association with love, beauty and self-care. The Queen of Flowers it has long been seen as a symbol for fecundity and power. Used in all matters of friendship and love – aphrodisiac.

• Sage ♃ “Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme” (Scarborough Fair). In the Cotswold’s, the folk magic of Sage is to ensure the longevity of love.  Commonly, due to its name it is often used for wisdom, long life and good health and even immortality. It is also a purification herb, burnt as a means of cleansing space or a person.

• Thyme ♀︎ “Thyme it is a precious thing, And thyme it will grow on, And thyme it'll bring all things to an end.” (Sprig o’ Thyme). Carried for protection, courage (Roman Soldiers bathed in it), good luck, often found in charms calling to the power of fairies. Considered a plant associated with the works of witches!

• Laurel ☉ “Green grow the laurels, so does the dew, Sorry 'I've been since I parted from you. But when I return, love, my joys shall be new, Then I'll change the green laurels for the violets so blue.” (Green Grow the Laurel)

There are of course many, many more to add to this: broom, rush, gorse…

Charms for Love and Friendship

Heart’s Desire: Rose, Sage, Ivy

Good Surrounds Me: Thyme, Bay, Lavender, Ivy

Remember Me: Rosemary, Willow, Ivy

Tree Lore

ASH ☉

Sacred as the Tree of Origin, these trees have deep roots and wide branches. The folklore of the Ash is extensive as it is a tree much associated with divine intersession, wisdom, and rebirth. The Ash has been used to make arrows, to invite lightening, to remove warts and for safety and speed during travel. Carry the leaves to gain love and place fresh leaves in a bowl by the bed overnight, to prevent illness. Ash keys are good spell makers. Ash wood is used for wands, staffs and stangs – as seen in their use as the MAYPOLE and the BROOM STICK.

HAWTHORN ♂︎

Long known to be a portal to the other realms, A sacred tree in British folklore and magic. Due to the putrid smell emitted from the blossom when it grows, it is considered unlucky to bring into a home on any day but Mayday. Mayday / Beltane is a fire festival associated with joy, youthfulness, and sexuality; we crown the May Queen. Leaving offerings beneath a hawthorn or dancing around a maypole is sure to bring blessings. Hawthorn teaches us about the heart’s true and deepest needs - he shows us the crucial nature of allowing our heart to flourish.

WILLOW ☽

A tree long associated with grief, recovery, immortality. Due to its association with water, Willow is often considered a tree that offers aid to those grieving. Tie a ribbon to a willow tree and ask for its aid in releasing grief.

APPLE ♀︎

Isle of Apples – Avalon – Apples have long been considered a passport to the otherworld – the Fey Queen or the Goddesses grant mortals the ability to move freely and gain knowledge and inspiration from the otherworld. The apple symbolizes immortality – thus can be part of altars and offerings to our Beloved Dead. Used in various folk magic divinations, for asking the help of unseen forces. We honour the apple for its lifegiving cider making prowess!

Wands of wood are found in Ballad tradition as a means of magically transforming animals or people - Allison Gross, The Laily Worm… Silver wands (Birch? Apple? Ash?) are often called for.

The Making of an APPLE Wand is a sure way to attract the positive attentions of the Fairy Folk.

Fruiting or blossoming, cut a LIVE apple branch no longer than the length of your forearm, and leave all the bark, leaves, blossom or fruit upon it. To this branch tie 3 red and 3 green threads. You can decorate this as elaborately as you like, all the while you should be singing to it (or at least playing music whilst you work – as this wand it is often called the ‘singing wand’ in folk story). Hag stones, seeds, evergreens can be added, but only that which is found in nature. Avoid glue/metal…

Herbs and flowers in folk song are thus:

A shorthand to communicate character’s emotional qualities – love, grief, joy – but also to trigger the listener to understand deeper forces at play.

Magical markers of intention – heralds of what is to come.

A means to traverse the otherworld.

Charms and Spells

A charm is an object imbued with magical power. They are found in many folk songs and stories. The most notable parts used are:

• Knots – Witch’s Ladder, weather spells (shanties)

• Wax - Poppets / Dolls

• Pins

• Bells

• Plants

• Words

Littered within songs we find tropes of magical speech – incantation, charms, riddles, invocations. Words are powerful things, and we see this clearly in the magical sequence (Bob Stewart) or transformation songs.

“Cunning tradition, witchcraft and of course most religious functions require the learning and saying of certain words.  The fundamental basis for wielding sacred power was “hallowing” or consecration, through which divine power could be infused into earthly matter…” (Jim Baker, p. 232)

The Charming of 3

When you want to bring something to life, you do it 3 times. We see this in folk song refrains and ballads, we find lists of three plants, the sound of 3 bells, the enacting of something three times in order to bring it to life. If three is power full in folk charms, then 9 (3x3) is triply so: nine witch knots, fifty bells and nine, The Devil’s Nine Questions, Broomfield Wager

Famously the ballad Willies’ Lady has a complex spell sequence cast by a mother upon her daughter in law to bind her from giving birth:

Willie’s Lady (extract)

“…How she spoke and how she swore
She spied the babe where no babe could be before
She spied the babe where none could be before

Says, "Who was it who undid the nine witch knots
Braided in amongst this lady's locks?

And who was it who took out the combs of care
Braided in amongst this lady's hair?

And who was it slew the master kid
That ran and slept all beneath this lady's bed
That ran and slept all beneath her bed?

And who was it unlaced her left shoe
And who was it that let her lighter be
That she might bear her baby boy?"

And it was Willie who undid the nine witch knots
Braided in amongst this lady's locks

And it was Willie who took out the combs of care
Braided in amongst this lady's hair

And it was Willie the master kid did slay
And it was Willie who unlaced her left foot shoe
And he has let her lighter be”

Knot Spell

Witches’ Ladder Incantation

By knot of one, the spell’s begun,

By knot of two, it cometh true,

By knot of three, so shall it be,

By knot of four, ’tis strengthened more,

By knot of five, so will it thrive,

By knot of six, the spell Is fix’t,

By knot of seven, all Stars of heaven,

By knot of eight, the Hand of Fate,

By knot of nine, the spell is mine!