Hedge-Rider: Witches and the Underworld

Witches and the Underworld

by Eric De Vries

First Edition Copyright 2008

SmashWords Edition 2012

By Pendraig Publishing

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except brief quotation in a review.

Cover Design & Interior Images, Typeset & Layout by: Jo-Ann Byers-Mierzwicki

Pendraig Publishing

Los Angeles, CA 91040

www.PendraigPublishing.com

ISBN: 978-1-936922-35-2

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Table of Contents

Hedge-Rider: Defining Witchcraft

Searching for the roots of Witchery

The Importance of HedgeWitchery for Modern Paganism

In Search of Culture and Context

Otherworld Geography:The Metaphysics of Hell

The Underworld in Norse Mythology

The Hollow Hills and the Witches’ Underworld

Wisdom and the Underworld

A Brief Introduction to the Conception of the Soul

At Fate’s Well:The Wyrd Sisters and Frau Holle

Wyrd and the Basic Conception of Fate

Half Black & Half White: the Goddess of Fate

Half Black & Half White: Goddess of the Underworld

Half Back & Half White: Goddess of the Earth

The Old Goddess: Queen of the Witches

The Black God: Death, Rebirth and the Quest for Wisdom

The Great Cheat in the Great Game

Nine Nights Upon the Tree

Witch-Sight and Mimir’s Well

Wodan and the God of the Witches

Steeds & Stangs: Initiating Trance and Witch-Sight

The Wooden Steed and the Pole

Trance: Yggdrasill, the Stang and the Medium of Flight

The Practice of Invoking Trance

Entheogens

About the Spirit of the Plant

Wine: an Entheogen

Mugwort & Wormwood

Sweet Flag

Passionflower

Spirit or Mind-Based Techniques

Awakening of Awareness

Pathworking

Serpent Swaying

Chanting

In the Spirit: The Fetch, the Familiar & the Spell of the Wolf

Werewolves, Witches & the Shape Shifters of Europe

Shape Shifting in Norse Mythology

The Fetch & the Fylgia

The Fetch & the Battle with the Daemon

Spell of the Wolf

The Stang

The Ointment

The Guise

Shape Shifting

Beyond the Boundary: The Hidden Road & the Spell of the Hawthorn

The Road to Hell in Norse Mythology

The Hedgerider’s Hidden Road to Elf-Land

The Gate to Hell

The Spell of the Hawthorn

The Hawthorn

The Stang

The Guise

Walking the Hidden Road

The Sacred Marriage: The Fetch & the Quest for the Underworld Bride

The Bride in the Deep Below

Supernatural Lovers in Witchery

The Sacred Marriage in HedgeWitchery

Musings from the Hearth: Living & Initiating the Old Ways

Living the Old Ways

Induction into the Witching Way

Appendix

Appendix I: Gallery of Witches

Appendix II: Spells of Gróa

Appendix III: Vocabulary

Appendix IV: Book Hoard

End Notes

About the Author

Fiction Novels from Pendraig Publishing

More Magickal Works from Pendraig Publishing

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Hedge-Rider:

Defining Witchcraft

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Often you here so called ‘Wiccans’ and ‘Pagans’ claim that they are ‘Witches’. They fight for the environment, freedom of religion and other good things that will make this world a better place. However, when you ask them what Witchcraft is, what it stands for and what its most dearly held principles are, you get some vague story about ‘the burning times’ and words like ‘responsibility’ and ‘nature religion’ keep popping out. The word used most commonly is ‘magic(k)’, which isn’t supernatural but, supposedly, ‘proven’ by science. To the new seeker they’re a weird, fluffy New-Age bunch and don’t seem to have any link to the ancient Witches. So, what is Witchcraft really about?

Searching for The Roots of Witchery

For centuries, Witches have been regarded as wicked, evil women who try to harm Christian people by cursing their live stock, their crops or suck the blood out of their children. Normal human beings are, usually, not capable of doing such things and therefore people thought they had the ability to make magic. This ability was given to them by the Devil himself, who tried to torture innocent Christians as much as he could, and the Witches, the people believed, helped him. With the aid of politically and religiously motivated propaganda, this resulted in the hanging, burning, exiling and persecution of real and imagined Witches.

Though the above doesn’t make the Witches look like really nice people, they often did serve a purpose in the community. Some were regarded as ‘white Witches’ or ‘wise women’ and helped the common people with herbal and magical remedies. Often functioning as midwives they were labelled ‘Witch’, especially when the mother or child had died while giving birth or soon after it. However, Witches weren’t always regarded as ‘evil’ which is demonstrated by the continental origins of the word – and the vast majority of the Witches. Modern Wiccans and Witches have talked endlessly about the English roots, without paying any attention to the continental ones. The Dutch word for Witch, ‘heks’, comes from the Middle Dutch ‘Haghetesse’, which means ‘Hedgerider’ or ‘spirit on the hedge’. The same goes for the root of the modern German ‘hexe’, which is Hagazussa, which also means Hedgerider, soul on the fence.

The term Hedgerider must have been almost universal in the Germanic languages. It appears in Old Norse as ‘Hagzissa’, but also in Old English as ‘haegtesse’ – shortened in the modern day as ‘Hag’. The continental Germanic words for Witch clearly come from words meaning ‘Hedgerider’. However, all this talking about ‘Hedgeriders’ doesn’t answer our question immediately. The meaning is a bit vague: what’s about riding a hedge? What does Hedgerider mean? And what does it have to do with Witchery?

The answer is found in the symbolism of the hedge. To our ancestors the hedge separated the village from the wild, outside world. Within the village you were protected by law and things were, more or less, civilized. At this side of the hedge everything was nice, humane and protected by Law and most important, it has culture. Outside everything was wild, dangerous and one could be attacked by animals and perhaps angered wood-spirits or other demons. Chaos was everywhere, waiting with its dark, sinister hands until you walk by. The hedge is the Boundary, separating the two and was thus an ‘in-between’ place. All this is symbolic of Middle-Earth and the Otherworld, as well as culture and the wild.

In the Swedish Law of Västgötaland it is said: Woman, I saw you riding on a fence with loose hair and belt, in the troll skin, at the time when day and night are equal. All this points to the Otherworldly nature of the Witch and the Hedgerider. The fence is the hedge, the boundary. The troll skin is, obviously, some kind of mask or guise in which the Witch dressed herself, as to be recognised by or invoke the Otherworldly powers. At the time when day and night are equal, the boundary is thought to be the thinnest. It isn’t the Day, but not yet the Night, meaning it is the in-between time; the Otherworldly time.

The idea of the hedge is also found in the trial of Hans Buochman in 1572: he was carried away to a strange land; he did not recognize himself and was not in his right mind. He had gone through the forest by night and had happened on a gap in the fence, when he heard a rustling as if a mighty demon flew by, and immediately afterwards drumming, piping, and the sounds of strings. Apparently he went to the forest and when he passed through the fence he heard sounds of a feast, denoting his entrance into the Otherworld.

Middle-Earth or Midgart, this world, is symbolized by the village while the Otherworld is the outer world, the wild and dangerous forests. When you ride the hedge, one of your legs is hanging on the left while the other is on the right. You’re in both worlds; you’re on the boundary, being part of both worlds at once. Now things are starting to get clearer; the Hedgeriders weren’t just people who enjoyed sitting on hedges all day, but who were able to travel between the worlds. They could be in Middle-Earth and the next moment in the chthonic spirit-realm. That is the true meaning of Hedge-Witchery: Witchery of the Otherworld.

The Otherworld has been and is known by various names such as Elphame, Elvelond, Wormsel, Faeryland, Niflheim, the Land of Faery, though most people will know it under the name ‘Hell’. Although you might think of Hell as a fiery pit full of sinners, tortured by a satanic majesty; it is definitely not. Hell was the Germanic Underworld where the dead travelled and had another existence defined by both their virtues and sins. If you died gloriously in battle you went to Odin’s Vallhöl, if you weren’t chosen by Odin, then maybe Freya choose you go live with Her. If not, then you would go into the hall of Hell – though this isn’t as black-white as it seems, some cults held that they would go live in the mountains, or stayed in their grave or burial mound. In Hell, you could live well, just as you spent the most of your life, or you could be ‘punished’ in the hall of the Goddess Hel. Niflhel was the lowest region, suited at the roots of the World-Tree, full of mystery, darkness, mist, the dead, where the really wicked were sent, preventing them from being reborn, keeping them from doing more harm.

The Hedgeriders travelled to this strange world and mediated its mystery back to midgart. With their ability to divine the future, to raise the dead, speak to the Gods and see into any of the worlds, they were as much feared as they were respected. The words ‘Haghetesse’ and ‘Hagazussa’ also refer to ‘Hagedisse’, which is a term applied to the priestesses of the Germanic peoples and they – the Hagedisse – fulfilled the same tasks as the Hedgeriders did.

As you might have expected, the Hedgeriders, and so the Witches, were everything but Christian. They still continued a Pagan practice and didn’t think of the Underworld as a realm of punishment, but more as a place full of secrets to be uncovered and where wisdom was to be found. The Hedgeriders were the heirs of a long forgotten cult of priest(esse)s and travellers to the Underworld. With the passing of time, the ruthless persecution and the high death-rate in Medieval and Renaissance life, this cult was wiped out.

During the Witch-hunts, a lot of people were burned, hanged, exiled and of course, tortured. Often the hunters chased after their own, perverted fantasies rather than real Witches. Even though they probably murdered more Christians than real Witches, this does give us some testimonies about Witches. Of course we shouldn’t over exaggerate the importance of these testimonies for they are obviously modified by the clergy or given under the pressure of torture. However, the essence is still there and can give us a lead in the search for Witchery.

In the testimonies there are certain elements which range from Christian imagination to real, often Germanic, Witch-beliefs. Although we have Witches confessing to have spit upon the crucifix and having sucked the blood out of babies, there are also Witches who have ridden through the sky with Frau Holle, Madame Oriente or Dame Abondia, or whatever name the Goddess was known by; and Witches who’ve journeyed across an immense river to the gate of Hell and of course the appearance and worship of the, obviously Pagan, ‘Devil’. The following passage is from Aelfric’s Homilies, dating from 10th century England:

Yet fares Witches to where roads meet, and to Heathen burials with their phantom craft and call to them the Devil, and he comes to them in the dead man’s likeness, as if he from death arises, but she cannot cause that to happen, the dead to arise through her wizardry.

If you filter out the Christian elements, there remains important information about the Shamanic lore of the Hedgeriders. In this passage, it is clearly stated that Witches travel to the crossroads and Heathen burial mounds. Of old, crossroads have been considered entrances to the realm of the dead and places where the Dark Powers would gather. It is interesting to note that the gallows were erected at crossroads to confuse the angered spirits of the dead and so prevent them from haunting their executioners. Moreover, the gallows and the crossroads were sacred to the Germanic God Odin/ Wodan. Also, in Greek mythology, the crossroads are considered sacred to the Goddess Hecate, the Goddess of the Underworld, the dead and…Witchcraft.

Actually, the Heathen burial mound is a powerful entrance into the Underworld. It is the hollow hill where the Gods, the elves and the dead reside. From this mound the Hedgerider can summon the dead, a craft deeply associated with the Hagedisse, the Volva, Seidkona and Seidmadr of Norse Mythology and the Heathen God Odin.

More interesting and maybe even more Otherworldly, is the mentioning of faring and phantom craft. This is actually a reference to the ability of the Witch to shape shift, which is skill deeply associated with the journey to the Underworld. For example, the werewolf is a man-wolf who is exiled from the village and