Glossary of the Craft

The words that trip up newcomers, in a sentence or two each. Type to search. If a word you met in a book is missing, tell us and we will add it.

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Altar: The working surface of ritual, holding the tools and symbols of the Goddess, God and elements. See The Altar and the Tools.
Athame: The witch's ritual knife, traditionally black-handled, used to direct energy and cast the circle, never to cut. Pronounced ATH-ah-may, or several other ways; nobody agrees.
Beltane: The fire festival of 1 May, opening the bright half of the year. See Beltane.
Besom: The witch's broom, used to sweep the circle clear of unwanted energy and jumped over at handfastings.
Blessed be: The common Wiccan greeting, farewell and affirmation, from the Fivefold Kiss of initiation. Used roughly as "amen," "cheers," and "take care" combined.
Boline: The white-handled, often curved knife used for practical cutting: herbs, cords, bread.
Book of Shadows: The witch's personal record of rituals, spells and learning, or a coven's book of core rites. See The Book of Shadows.
Brat Bríde: Brighid's mantle: a cloth left out on Imbolc Eve to receive her blessing, then kept for healing.
Brídeog: A doll of straw or rushes representing Brighid, carried from house to house or laid in a bed by the hearth at Imbolc.
British Traditional Wicca (BTW): A term, mostly North American, for the lineaged initiatory traditions descended from Gardner and Sanders.
Cakes and ale: The shared food and drink blessed and eaten near the end of ritual, grounding the participants and honouring the gods. Also cakes and wine.
Casting: Creating the ritual circle by walking its boundary with intention and a tool, raising a sphere of energy. See Casting a Circle.
Censer: The incense burner, usually a dish of sand with a charcoal disc, representing Fire and Air.
Chalice: The ritual cup, representing Water and the Goddess.
Charge of the Goddess: The central liturgical text of Wicca, spoken by the Goddess through the priestess at the Esbat. Its best-known form is Doreen Valiente's, drawing on Leland and Crowley.
Circle: Both the sacred space cast for ritual and an informal group of practitioners without the oaths of a coven.
Cone of power: Energy raised in circle by chanting, dance or breath, visualised as a cone rising from the group and released toward a goal.
Correspondence: The agreed symbolic link between things: a colour, a planet, a day, a herb, a purpose. See Tables of Correspondence.
Coven: A small, closed, committed group of witches who work and train together, traditionally thirteen or fewer, often led by a High Priestess.
Covenstead: The home base of a coven; the place where it usually meets.
Craft, the: Witchcraft, and especially Wicca, as practised by those within it. "The Craft of the Wise."
Craft name: A name taken for use in circle and among other witches, for privacy, for dedication, or because the gods suggested it.
Cross-quarter days: The four fire festivals, Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh, which fall between the solstices and equinoxes.
Dedication: A rite of commitment to the path, to the Goddess and God, or to a group, made by the practitioner themselves rather than conferred by an initiator.
Degrees: The stages of training and initiation in traditional Wicca, usually three. The Hearth has none.
Deosil: Clockwise, sunwise; the direction of casting, invoking and increase. Pronounced JESH-il or DEE-o-sil.
Drawing down the moon: The rite in which the priestess invokes the Goddess into herself and speaks with her voice; the centre of the traditional Esbat.
Elements: Air, Fire, Water and Earth, with Spirit as the fifth, the structure of the circle and of Wiccan cosmology.
Esbat: A ritual gathering at the full (or dark) moon, in honour of the Goddess, where most working magic is done. See Esbats.
Familiar: An animal companion with whom a witch has a working relationship. Historically a demon in the trial records; today, usually the cat.
Great Rite: The sacred marriage of Goddess and God, enacted in most rituals symbolically by lowering the athame into the chalice.
Grimoire: A book of magic, especially the old ceremonial manuals. Distinct from a Book of Shadows, which is personal.
Grounding: Connecting one's energy to the earth before and after ritual for stability and release. See Grounding and Centering.
Handfasting: A pagan wedding, in which the couple's hands are bound with cord. For a year and a day, for life, or for as long as love lasts.
Hearthkeeper: At the Hearth of Brighid, one of the dedicated core who carry the work. See Joining the Hearth.
Hedge witch: A solitary practitioner who crosses the "hedge" between this world and the other, usually through trance; more broadly, any solitary folk witch.
High Priestess, High Priest: The leaders of a traditional coven, representing the Goddess and God in ritual.
Imbolc: Brighid's feast, 1 February, the first stirring of spring. See Imbolc.
Initiation: Formal admission into a tradition or coven by one already initiated, after study, traditionally a year and a day. Never sold.
Invocation: Calling a deity or power into the circle or into a person. Evocation calls it to appear before you; invocation calls it in.
Lineage: The chain of initiations linking a witch back to the founders of a tradition.
Magic, magick: The art of causing change by will, intention and ritual. The "k" was added by Aleister Crowley to distinguish it from stage conjuring; use it or not as you please.
Merry meet: The Wiccan greeting, completed by "merry part, and merry meet again" at the opening of the circle.
Pentacle, pentagram: The pentagram is the five-pointed star, representing the elements and Spirit. The pentacle is the star within a circle, or the altar disc bearing it. The point-up star is the ordinary form; the point-down one has specific uses in some traditions and is not, in itself, anything sinister.
Quarters: The four directions and their elements, called at the start of ritual and thanked at the end. Also "watchtowers" in some traditions.
Rede: The Wiccan ethic: "An it harm none, do what ye will." See Beliefs and Ethics.
Sabbat: One of the eight seasonal festivals of the Wheel of the Year. See The Wheel of the Year.
Samhain: The festival of the dead and the witches' new year, 31 October. Pronounced SOW-in. See Samhain.
Scrying: Divination by gazing: into water, a dark mirror, a crystal, flame or smoke.
Sigil: A symbol made to carry an intention, often by combining the letters of a phrase into a single glyph, then charged and released.
Skyclad: Ritually naked. Practised in some traditional covens as a sign of freedom and equality; never at open gatherings.
Solitary: A witch who practises alone, by choice or circumstance. The majority of witches.
Summerland: The Wiccan afterlife: a place of rest, reunion and remembering between lives.
Threefold Law: The teaching that what one sends out returns threefold. Held literally by some, as a teaching about character by others.
Tradition: A distinct lineage or school of the Craft with its own rituals and structure: Gardnerian, Alexandrian, Dianic and so on. See Traditions and Paths.
UPG: Unverified personal gnosis: something you have come to know through your own experience of the gods or spirits, as distinct from what the sources say. Valid, and to be labelled as such.
Wand: A rod of wood used to invite and direct energy where the athame commands.
Wheel of the Year: The cycle of the eight Sabbats and the story they tell.
Wicca: The modern religion of witchcraft that emerged in mid-twentieth-century Britain. See What is Wicca?
Widdershins: Anticlockwise, against the sun; the direction of banishing, releasing and opening the circle.
Working: A piece of magic: a spell, a healing, a blessing. "I have a working to do tonight."
Year and a day: The traditional period of study before initiation or dedication, and the traditional term of a handfasting. Long enough to see the whole wheel turn once.