{"id":3018,"date":"2011-08-07T20:07:31","date_gmt":"2011-08-08T02:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3018"},"modified":"2011-08-07T20:12:17","modified_gmt":"2011-08-08T02:12:17","slug":"what-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3018","title":{"rendered":"What Is It?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The brass rod with "horns"<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Close up of the hand \u2014 or grip<\/p><\/div>\n

Sometime in the late 1970s I read in a book by Doreen Valiente how she found discarded ritual artifacts in a Brighton<\/a> antiques shop.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I did not visit Brighton until shortly after her death, and while palling around with Evan John Jones<\/a>, the only antiques shop I visited was one specializing in militaria, tucked away in The Lanes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But back in the 1970s, still wet behind the ears, I edited a monthly magazine for antique collectors<\/a> and made the round of many shops. I never found any obvious ritual artifacts\u2014but there was this.<\/p>\n

It looked magical<\/em>\u2014but what was it? I asked various senior Witches, particularly those born outside the United States, and got various answers, none of which was particularly satisfying.<\/p>\n

Was it some kind of indicator of cuckoldry? A swizzle stick for a Really Serious cocktail? Or\u2014and this one I could almost accept\u2014part of an antique toasting fork<\/a>, lacking the part with the tines? (Compare this brass toasting fork<\/a> from the 1940s.)<\/p>\n

Alas, it probably is not the artifact that will prove the existence of a pre-Gardnerian Pagan Witchcraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometime in the late 1970s I read in a book by Doreen Valiente how she found discarded ritual artifacts in a Brighton antiques shop. Unfortunately, I did not visit Brighton until shortly after her death, and while palling around with Evan John Jones, the only antiques shop I visited was one specializing in militaria, tucked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-3018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-MG","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1214,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1214","url_meta":{"origin":3018,"position":0},"title":"Did a ‘Pagan’ Bury the Staffordshire Hoard?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The \"Staffordshire Hoard\" is a cache of 7th-century Anglo-Saxon sword jewels and other items recently found in England (and a great boost for metal-detector sales, no doubt).The caption on one slide of the golden hoard suggests that because a gold cross was folded in on itself before burial, the person\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11887,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11887","url_meta":{"origin":3018,"position":1},"title":"Why Is the Hippo Goddess Holding a Bull by a Chain in the Northern Sky?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 21, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This carving comes from a Greco-Roman-era Egyptian temple in Esna,where decorated walls are being carefully cleaned and original colors seen again. As workers in Egypt remove soot and dirt from the temple, sometimes with a mixture of alcohol and distilled water, the original painted carvings and hieroglyphics beneath are so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/bulls-leg.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/bulls-leg.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/bulls-leg.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/bulls-leg.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1199,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1199","url_meta":{"origin":3018,"position":2},"title":"Doreen Valiente remembered","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Hecate reminds us that ten years have passed since the Wiccan world lost Doreen Valiente, who still does not get enough credit for her part in creating the religion.I corresponded with her some in the 1980s, but, ironically, arrived in her home of Brighton just weeks after passing. Riding city\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":403,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=403","url_meta":{"origin":3018,"position":3},"title":"Job prospects for Pagan scholarsI\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 6, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Job prospects for Pagan scholarsI am speaking only of religious studies here, and I wish only to point out that a PhD (or terminal master's degree) with an emphasis on Pagan Studies is a poor bet in the academic job market at the present time.Every year, following the annual meeting,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=38","url_meta":{"origin":3018,"position":4},"title":"Evan John Jones 1936-2003","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 4, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"On the 2nd, Catherine Bundock, John's daughter, notified me that he had died at home in Brighton (Sussex) on Sunday evening. I met John via letter and telephone in the early 1990s, when at the suggestion of Carl Weschcke, president of Llewellyn Publications, he contributed a chapter to my anthology\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3337,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3337","url_meta":{"origin":3018,"position":5},"title":"Thinking about the Zombie Apocalypse","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The tremendous growth in the imaginary zombie population amazes me. Maybe, like other bubbles, this one is about to burst. But in the meantime, literary, cinematic, Web, and re-enacted zombification seems to go in two directions. 1. Practice killing the zombies. There were a lot more stages, and to be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"culture\"","block_context":{"text":"culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=culture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3018"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3033,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions\/3033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}