Judika Illes - The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World

Blodeuwedd, the Welsh magical woman, is formed from flowers. Since she is a magical being, she is immortal and cannot be punished by death for betraying and killing her husband Lleu; instead she is transformed into an owl, condemned to hunt alone at night for ever. The implication is that Blodeuwedd, as the embodiment of the lustful, fickle, secretive, plotting, murderous woman now displays her true form—that of a witch.

Owls fly with Tlazolteotl, Aztec witch-goddess with dominion over life, death, magic, and spiritual purification. Tlazolteotl cleans up sin like owls gobble up rats.

Marinette, Vodou sorceress lwa, manifests as a screech owl. Those whom she temporarily possesses demonstrate her presence by behaving like owls too.

Owls signify witchcraft. Whether this is understood positively, negatively or neutrally reflects cultural and individual perceptions of witchcraft. Owls famously serve as witches’ familiars and messengers and most frequently as the guise into which witches transform.

Some Siberian shamans’ coats are cut to resemble owl wings and tail.

Apuleius witnessed the successful transformation of the witch Pamphile into an owl in his novel, The Golden Ass.

In central and southern Africa, sorcerers are believed to fly at night like owls to steal food and valuables from their neighbors.

African witches who prefer not to shape-shift into hyenas are believed most likely to choose the shape of an owl instead.

Aztec nocturnal shape-shifting sorcerers were known as “tlacatecolotl,” “owl-men.”

The Aztecs associated owls with caves and mirrors—the same magical world of sorcery inhabited by sacred jaguars and presided over by the divine sorcerer, Tezcatlipoca.

Owls signify birth and women’s power, especially their reproductive and sexual powers:

In Ecuador and Peru, dating back at least as far as 300 BCE, owls representing the divine mother are favored decorative motifs on spindle whorls. The deity is usually depicted in a birthing position. (These spindles strung together are found in abundance at gravesites as well as other sites associated with death, perhaps as charms of rebirth.)

In parts of France and Wales, the hooting of owls doesn’t signify death but its opposite. It’s believed to foretell the birth of daughters.

In the nineteenth century, “owl” became slang for whore or harlot.

Circe, the sacred sorceress, notoriously transformed men into swine; historically however, pigs are more usually identified with powerful goddesses and witches than with their transformed victims.

Perhaps no animal evokes as passionate a reaction as does the seemingly humble pig. Few cultures are traditionally neutral towards pigs; instead pigs tend to inspire either intense reverence or loathing. Some ancient cultures, the Celts for instance, perceived pigs as sacred, holy animals; other cultures understand pigs to be just the opposite. Most famously, pork is a tabooed food for Muslims and Jews. Perhaps in reaction, in certain parts of medieval Christendom, to eat pork developed almost a sacramental quality: one could prove one were a good Christian by eating pork with gusto.

So some cultures perceive pigs as bad , while others see them as good . It seems so clear, doesn’t it—almost dualist? Well, when one approaches the sacred, nothing is ever that simple, and perceptions of pigs are no exception.

Prohibitions against consuming pork in what is now considered the Middle Eastern region pre-date both Islam and Judaism. The ancient Egyptians also refrained from eating pork under religious taboo, perhaps because of its associations with the dangerous sorcerer deity Set. Swineherds occupied the absolute lowest niche in ancient Egyptian society—the equivalent of India’s Untouchable caste. (Although one wonders, if no one was eating pork, why there were any swineherds at all?)

There is a belief common to many anthropologists and scholars of religion that intense food taboos virtually always arise only when something is too holy to be eaten. In general, tabooed meat derives from an animal that is (or once was) a culturally sacred totem. In plain English, the forbidden animal was once a holy beast; too sacred to eat, often too sacred to even discuss freely, so that later generations may no longer recall or understand the true original impetus for the prohibition.

Conversely, in Christian areas, pigs were simultaneously perceived as lucky and treated with contempt. Today, if someone is described as a “ pig ” virtually anywhere on Earth, not only in Jewish or Muslim areas, it’s almost inevitably meant as an insult.

Pigs are frequently used to represent the epitome of sloth, greed, carnal pleasures, and slovenliness.

In medieval Christian art, the pig symbolized gross materiality and the inherent bestial nature that humans should strive to rise above.

In Buddhist iconography, the pig epitomizes desire in all its forms.

People first domesticated pigs some five to seven thousand years ago, however, like cats, there are only slight distinctions between wild and domestic pigs. Abandoned domestic pigs return to a feral state easily and are notoriously self-sufficient. The term “ boar ” is used to refer to the wild European pig once widespread throughout the forests of Europe and the British Isles and believed to be the ancestor of modern domestic pigs. “ Boar ” also names the adult male domestic pig. (The female pig is a sow .) To avoid confusion, the term “ pig ” is used in this section to refer to the entire porcine family, wild, feral, and domestic, unless specified otherwise.

Pigs, in some ways, occupy a sacred niche similar to that of the bear, an animal whose sacredness is also considered too potent to even discuss. Like bears, pigs are associated with dangerous but fiercely devoted mothers, lunar deities, herbalism and root magic, and Earth’s gestation during winter. Bears and pigs also featured in similar sacrificial rituals and practices. Male and female bears are also called boars and sows respectively.

Pigs are highly intelligent. Today they are frequently kept as pets and many people claim that pigs are more easily trained than dogs. However, pigs are also notoriously stubborn and strong-minded. (As they can grow to be quite formidable in size, it may also be more physically challenging to persuade a recalcitrant pig to change its mind.) They are potentially destructive creatures. They do not graze like sheep; instead, they famously root , overturning the Earth in search of the delicacies they enjoy. (It is believed that pigs introduced humans to the pleasures of truffles; from a folkloric or mythic perspective, pigs are associated with mushrooms in general, and with Amanita muscaria in particular.)