{"id":1070,"date":"2008-10-09T18:53:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-09T18:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1070"},"modified":"2008-10-09T18:53:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-09T18:53:00","slug":"a-ritual-with-swans-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1070","title":{"rendered":"A Ritual with Swan’s Eggs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The November\/December 2008 issue of Archaeology<\/span> magazine<\/a> contains an article titled “Witches of Cornwall,” about odd, ritualistic or votive burials of skins, eggs, and other items at a place called Saveock Water.<\/p>\n

These burials took place from the 1640s at least through the 1950s.<\/p>\n

There is as yet no link to the article (so ask a librarian), but this site gives some of the same information<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The writer, Kate Ravilious, creates a purely hypothetical spell that might have accompanied one of the offerings:<\/p>\n

Take a swan and wring its neck. Skin the bird and, under a full moon, lay its skin in a shallow hole with the feathers face-up. Add eggs–five for every child you want to bear. Atop each egg, place the talon of a blackbird and a black stone. Circle the hole three times, clockwise, then close it with a clod of earth. As soon as you are with child, empty the hole, or terrible things will come to pass.
<\/span>
(Wringing the neck of an angry adult swan might be harder than Ms. Ravilious realizes, however. Apparently her magic is not for the faint-hearted.)<\/span>
<\/span>
UPDATE:<\/span> Archaeology <\/span>put a link up.<\/span><\/a>
<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The November\/December 2008 issue of Archaeology magazine contains an article titled “Witches of Cornwall,” about odd, ritualistic or votive burials of skins, eggs, and other items at a place called Saveock Water. These burials took place from the 1640s at least through the 1950s. There is as yet no link to the article (so ask […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[20,21,29],"class_list":["post-1070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-archaeology","tag-england","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-hg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5086,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5086","url_meta":{"origin":1070,"position":0},"title":"Death and the Viking Mind","author":"Chas S. 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