The Proverbial Witch

The Proverbial Witch Proverbs, Maxims, and Wise Words

An Arteful Anonymous Witch

A proverb is a short saying based on long experience. Proverbs contradict each other. Such is the wisdom of mankind.

General

The witch belongs everywhere, but fits in nowhere.
All the Craft is in the catching.
The Craft is a kingdom.
The world is full of magical things, patiently waiting for thy wits to grow sharper.
Neither so sinful as to sink, nor so godly as to swim.
One to rot, One to grow, One for the pigeon and one for the crow (for planting seeds).

Fate, Destiny, and Necessity

Just because it is difficult does not mean it is not your destiny.
Do not curse the fool; let his Fate be to bear himself.
He that is born to be hanged will never be drowned.
If a man is destined to drown, he will do so even in a spoonful of water.
The bound must obey.
The weak shape their own destiny.
The purpose of life is to experience life.
Grief and Joy revolve on the wheel of Fate.
Fate is met often on the road taken to avoid Her.
Never name the well from which you will not drink.
You must take Fate as your Master before you may take Her as your Mistress, for She is seduced only by submission to Her laws.
Many there are whom She sinks that they may rise the higher.
Granting one’s wish is one of Fate’s saddest jokes.
The acts of this life are the destiny of the next.
What you condemn, you will become.
Fate does not cease to exist because She is ignored.

Magic

A fool will put home in the morrow, but a witch will make use of the night.
Wish honestly, then conjure boldly.
A stroke of good luck is worth more than a spell.
A little wine is good for magic, but too much wine is not.
No need, no magic.
Concentration brings near the distant goal.
Practice not thine Arte, and it will soon departe.
A full belly conjures badly.
Magic never works too late.
Thoughts are things.
Believe you have it, and you have it.
Better to desist in spellmaking than be careless with it.
From a trivial spell badly done, great contests oft arise.
A good cause makes stout the wand and strong the arm.
The best is to cast thy spell and say nothing.
Desire will pierce even a rock.
Grain by grain, the loaf; word by word, the charm.
He who cannot attract Pan, approaches Proteus in vain.

Compasse and Spirits

Mark ye well the compasse round and keep the spirits honest.
The spirits will ignore you if you call too often or call too seldom.
Not every spirit who calleth should be served.
A good spirit does not fear the Hazel. Var. A good spirit does not fear the sword.
Raise no more spirits than you can conjure down.
The spirits hover but three feet above your head.
Be bold in your compasse, but not too bold.
Better outside the compasse than inside the stocks.
A spirit’s first counsel is the best.
The dead have few friends; be one of them.
The dead may open the eyes of the living.
Evil deeds done in secret are seen by the spirits as a flash of fire.
With the sun, without; against the sun, within.
To forget one’s ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root.
The fall of a leaf is a whisper to the living.

Secrecy and Truth

Do not speak in the street by day what you have heard in the woods by night. Var. Do not speak by sunlight what you have learned by moonlight.
Lies need adornment; truth goes naked.
Keep your vows, even when danger has passed.
Silence and secrecy are a witch’s greatest powers.
Either be great and hold your tongue or be weak and depart.
The moving tide reveals the truth.
Secrets are best hid in plain sight.
What magic hides, magic may reveal.
Of what does not concern you, say nothing good or bad.
When a witch talks to a fool, two fools are talking.
The strong are strong, but the silent are stronger.
If you speak the truth, keep one foot on your broom.
No ear hath heard, no tongue can tell, the virtue of the pimpernel.

Mysteries and Wisdom

All mysteries may be experienced, but not all may be understood.
The advice of an aged witch never misleads.
Leave the stranger to his strangeness.
To learn what is good, a thousand days will not suffice; to learn what is evil, an hour is too long.
On the crooked path, there is neither brother nor friend.
The cauldron may appear half empty or appear half full depending on whether you are filling it or emptying it.
To those who know, it needs no explanation. to those who do not, there can be none.

Herbal

Both blessing and bane may grow on one stalk.
Three marks of the good herbwife: she feeds the land before it hungers; she gives it rest before it tires; she weeds it before it crowds.
A witch who plants loves others besides herself.
A violet is always a violet, though it be among nettles.
Where the bee sucks honey, the spider sucks poison.
All witches have a secret garden.
More in the Garden grows, than the Witch knows.
Thus saith the Rowan: Cross my arms and red wool wind, if thou wouldst wicked evil bind.
Why should a man die while sage grows in the garden?
Eat sage in May, and live for aye.
The witch may extract sweetness even from a bitter herb.
Often the prickly thorn produces tender roses.
Where rosemary grows, the missus is master.

Healing

There is a cure for everything but stark dead.
A little poison may cure; too much balm may kill. Var. A little bane may cure; too much boon may kill.
A witch that cannot curse, cannot cure.
If you brew well, you will heal the better.
A dry cough is the trumpeter of Death.
Haste in healing is rarely speed.
Past cure, past care.
The witch who cannot heal says the herb has no virtue.
To comfort the brain, smell chamomile, eat sage, wash measurably, sleep reasonably, delight to hear melody and wining.

Power

When the Sun rises, use your eyes; when the Moon rises, use your ears. Var. If it is too dark to see, cease looking.
The more powerful, the more humble.
If you would be powerful, first conquer yourself.
Never conjure up more than you can make good use of.
Do not honor those who merely have power; honor those who have both power and use it for good.
Names have power; be the thing you would be called.
Where there’s a witch, there’s a way.
The witch of skill is not known by her means, but by her results.
To light a candle before you is to cast your shadow back.
Even a few witches may sink a fleet.
A book may give knowledge, but practice gives power.
Talk does not stir the cauldron.
As you call, so will you be answered. Var. As ye dictate, so shall ye be governed.
Cannot has no craft.
What one witch cannot, another can.
Witchery is better than beauty.
Much chatter, little power.
Do not conjure the storm unless you can bear the rain.
The mind is more clever than force.
When someone shalt say to thee, “thou knowest naught”, and it bites thee not, then knowest thou that thou hast begun the work.
Behind a skillful witch are other skillful witches.
Witches and warlocks without any bother, like gypsies on meeting well know one another. Var. Power knows power.

Heredity

Power may be present from birth, but witchery must be learned.
Witch’s blood will not lie, nor can it be hid.
An ever-smiling child seldom makes a good witch.
Be not ashamed of your family’s craft.
The old custom will prevail.
Custom without reason is ancient error.
What’s born, will speak.
No moon, no man. (A child born on the dark-of-the-moon amounts to little).
An old woman without learning; it is she will be doing charms.
The witch is born above the breath. Var. Marked above the breath, a witch reborn from death.

Danger, Evil, Trouble, and Cursing

A witch who sleeps with a sword must rise with wounds.
Evil never makes fair bargains.
Trouble follows all extremes.
Highest in the kingdom, closest to the scythe.
Keep the blackthorn hidden until you see your own blood.
Never banish something that may be freed by a blessing.
Evil often masquerades as good to those newly come to power.
If you bear the white wand, be patient; if you bear the black wand, strike hard.
Better a free witch than a captive king.
Better a brother’s curse than an enemy’s blessing.
A crooked branch has a crooked shadow.
To judge is to harm.
All evil deeds are repaid on earth.
Evil done returns to the sender thrice; good returns a hundredfold.
Do not trust the sparrow to do the raven’s work.
Catching is before hanging.
Curse without cause, be cursed without cause.
Company’s good if you are going to be hanged.
A clear conscience can bear any curse.
The corruption of one is the generation of another.
Courtesy is not incompatible with wickedness.
Cunning against cunning makes no living.
A red cap on the right road beats a green cap on the wrong road.
A curse is like a donkey: tether it well or it will follow its master.
A curse without cause will not cross the victim’s threshold.
A danger foreseen is half avoided.
However long the night, dawn will break.
Invoke not evil; it will come fast enough unbidden.
Evil more willingly enters a house than leaves it.
Sometimes the best gain is to lose.
It is impossible to spoil what never was good.
She that courts injury shall obtain it.
If the witch dies by your blow, she will forgive you; if she lives, we shall see.
When scattering thorns, do not dance barefoot.
Don’t use up all your arrows before you go to battle.

Tools

Even a young hand finds power in an old stang.
All’s lost that is put in a leaky cauldron.
Two witches may not wield one wand.
Not every forked stick is a stang; not every pot a cauldron.
Power, not tools, make the witch.
Precious tools make none the better witch.
A cracked bell will never sound well.
The used key is always bright.
Keep your knife sharp.
A bad broom leaves a dirty room.
Do not cast aside an old cauldron until you know whether the new one holds water.
Small and great, we all boil in the same cauldron.
Straddle your own besom, and leave others to straddle theirs.
No coin is too precious to liberate your own.
A witch is known by her knife.
The wand does not make the witch.
Both wand and gallows are made of wood.
The stang will protect thee in the forest whence it grew.
Do not light a candle, but speak a blessing first.

Service

Do not feed a hungry man with an empty spoon.
Neither beauty nor trickery shall ease pain.
A creature in distress is a sacred object.
Need not who needs not thee.
Doubt the witch who cackles often, but never lays an egg.
A candle lights others and consumes itself.
He that refuses to buy counsel cheap shall buy repentance dear.
Patience will kill sorrow.
Vice rules where gold reigns.
Do not be so heavenly minded that you are of no earthly use.
A witch is the hand of her Father on earth.
No sea refuses a river.

Prentices and Teachers

To know a prentice, winter him and summer him, then wait but one more day.
You can make a good witch of a rogue, but you will end up fighting him in the end.
A library of books does not equal one good teacher.
Practice is better than a teacher.
One teaches best what one most needs to learn.
Those who ask are foolish for a moment, those who do not ask are foolish forever.

Sabbats

The shortest Sabbat is where the company is good.
The Sabbat is a movable feast.
Best is the Sabbat from which comes peace.
Because all of Nature is our kin, we invite whomso we will to our table, and the company always outshines the meal.

Coven

A coven does not fail for want of a single witch.
Better to conjure alone than in bad company.
A headless coven conjures badly.
The will of a single witch is broken more easily than the will of a coven.
Shun evil company.
The coven is a conspiracy of witchcraft.
The more witches, the worse the potion.
Three witches, five opinions.
All are equal under the Moon.

Foretelling

The messenger of the Gods bears no blame.
What has been, may be again.
A pack of cards is a book of destiny.
Counsel before action.
Good counsel comes overnight.
A dream that has not been deciphered is like a letter unread.
Nothing is sudden; all things have a past.
Crouch to see; upright to command.
Forewarned, forearmed.

Familiars

Faithfully serve your imp, and he shall faithfully serve you.
After dark, all hares are witches.

Out and About

A flying witch will sometimes fall.
However high your broom may soar, you must turn your hands to earth.
One body cannot perform two tasks, but two bodies can.

Death

Men fear death as children do to go in the dark.
Look upon death as a going home.
When the game is all done, both the King and the Pawn return to the same box.

Justice

Call Justice upon another, call it upon yourself.
Everyone loves justice, but shuts the door when he comes.
There is a point at which even justice does injury.

Weatherworking

Clap thrice for thunder, whistle thrice for winds, spit thrice for rain.
Dance in time to the crickets if you wish for rain.
Waves sell wind cheaply.

The Gods

The best way to know the Gods is to love many things.

Follow HedgeWytchery on X to see one proverb a day on your timeline.