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This category contains everything on Witchcraft & Folklore related to the Maier files series. Many aspects of witches and witchcraft are explored.

The Whispering Nights

As the sun reaches its lowest ebb and the longest night descends, a different kind of time begins. From December 21st through January 6th, the fabric of our world grows thin. This is the time of the Raunächte—the Rough Nights, the Smoky Nights, the time when the wheel of the year grinds to a halt, and the unseen world bleeds into our own. The very name...
Ishtar

Crescent Moon and Star

It was Rodin who stated that “Man never invented anything new, only discovered things.” Although it’s correct to say that certain symbols have been man-made for a particular purpose, it’s just as correct to argue that everything is somehow inspired by the natural world around us, by the forms of nature, plants, animals, the elements. Even a reaction against the fluid forms of nature is usually...
Holle Teich

Holle: a nearly absolute power?

Hella, Hel, known to all Germanic peoples, including the Goths as Hellarunester. A Gothic word for “witch” was Haljoruna. The name itself stems from a root meaning “to hide”. The word Hellirunar describes people who ‘rune’ (Speak, sing, whisper) with Hel/Helja, the goddess and realm of the underworld. “Hell”, in its original meaning is the hidden realm, the dark and foggy place where the dead and...

The Green Fairy’s Secret: Unraveling the Mystical Herb of a Forgotten Monastery

At Maier Files Tidbits, we delve into the enigmatic and the unexplained, where history intertwines with the supernatural. In the remote mountains of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France, amidst the crumbling ruins of an ancient monastery, a peculiar discovery whispers of secrets long buried. A plant, steeped in bitter mystique, grows wild among the stones of Chartreuse de Bonnefoy, a once-thriving Carthusian enclave. Known to some as the harbinger...
Raven T-shirt design

The secrets of the Crow

Hrafn The Bird Goddess is believed to be the earliest and best-documented deity. During the Paleolithic period (Old Stone Age), carved figurines and cave paintings began to appear in a vast area that stretched from the Pyrenees of France to Lake Baikal in Siberia, just north of Mongolia. Crows are mentioned in the mythology of many cultures throughout the world and are frequently depicted as  guides...
runen

The Rune Row

The rune row or runic alphabet is not an alphabet comparable to the Greek or Roman alphabets. The rune row begins with another set of letters—f, u, th, a, r, k—and thus the rune row is called the Futhark. The order of the runes in this rune row was found on Gotland. On the Kylver stone, and on other items like the Vadstenabracteate and the Grumpanbracteate....
Walpurgisnacht engraving

Walpurgisnacht

In the last days of paganism in Germany, the druids’ sacrifices were subject to punishment by death at the hands of the literalist Christians. Nevertheless, at the beginning of springtime the “druids” and the populace sought to regain the peaks of the mountains so that they could make their sacrifices or experience their celebrations at these remote locations, intimidating and chasing off the Christians (usually through...
twelve night of Yule with Holle

Holle and the twelve days of Yule

Holle the goddesses and Yule. Frau Holle is connected to springs, wells and lakes, where she lives in a land on the bottom of the water. She is also connected with the fog. Holle can be seen as a bright shape drifting in the fog, and her fog maidens are “die Hollen”, who move over the land to come to the aid of women and children....
Maier files witches

Walpurgisnacht the day after

Bible quote from Book Exodus 22:18  “Don’t allow a female sorcerer to live.” Most legends and history intertwine and are inclusive of many items woven into a subject. As already said in previous post yesterday – https://www.maier-files.com/walpurgisnacht/  -, Walpurgis has many legends and stories very few which are true and have cost many innocent people their lives. If your garden or farm prospered better than your...
Hexen kommando

German Witches

It’s almost Walpurgisnacht, no better moment to have a closer look at our witches or Hexen. Where did this cruel hatred against women and the ancient pre-christian sanctuaries start? When Pope Innocent VIII (1484–92) professed his belief in witchcraft, he condemned it, and dispatched inquisitors to Germany to try its supposed practitioners and punish them unimpeded. Singling out Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Salzburg, and Bremen, the papal...

The case of the benandanti, good walkers

Benandanti. Carlo Ginzburg,  is a noted Italian historian and proponent of the field of microhistory and medieval culture. In 1966, he published The Night Battles, an examination of the benandanti visionary folk tradition found in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Friuli in northeastern Italy. He returned to looking at the visionary traditions of early modern Europe for his 1989 book Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath. Italian Inquisition One of...

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