The Proverbial Witch

The Proverbial Witch

Proverbs, Maxims, and Wise Words

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.

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