With October just around the corner and the veil between worlds traditionally said to grow thin, it feels fitting to turn our thoughts to ancient folklore and the mysteries of the sea. Autumn’s restless winds stir the trees and whisper through the rigging, carrying tales of wise women and witches who were once believed to hold sway over the weather itself. These were the wind witches, conjurers of breeze and storm, whose powers were sought by sailors in need of a favour from the fickle winds.
The Witch and the Sea
Magic and the supernatural have been woven through human history for thousands of years. Ancient cultures including those of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome all left evidence of magical practices, spells and rituals intended to influence the world around them.
At sea, where lives could depend upon forces beyond human control, such beliefs took on a particular importance.
Around harbours and fishing villages, stories spread of people who could summon or control the wind. A coin, a charm or another small payment might buy a sailor a promise that the lines would stir, the sails would fill and his ship would find its way home.
Sailors and Superstition
To live by the sea was to live with uncertainty. The ocean was vast, beautiful and cruel. Tempests could rise with frightening speed, while a prolonged calm could leave a sailing vessel stranded far from home.
Customs and rituals became a sailor’s shield against misfortune, handed down through generations in a mixture of reverence, fear and practicality.
Among the most intriguing was the wind spell, said to hold the power to command the air itself.
The Magic of the Knots
One of the best-known forms of wind magic involved a cord or thread tied carefully into three knots, each believed to hold a different wind strength.
A sailor could buy such a charm before setting sail and release the knots according to the weather he needed.
The tradition was recorded on the Isle of Man, where women were said to sell sailors the wind bound into three knots of thread. Untying the knots released increasingly powerful winds.
The belief was also recorded much further north. In 1555, Swedish writer and churchman Olaus Magnus published an extraordinary woodcut showing a magician selling a knotted wind-rope to sailors. His account describes the winds of Finland being bound into three knots: opening the first released a gentle wind, the second a stronger one, while the third could unleash a violent storm.
Similar tales were told in Scotland and across northern Europe. In one Scottish tradition, opening the first knot released a gentle breeze, the second a stronger wind, while the third – ominously known as “Hardship” – could unleash a dangerous gale.
Versions of the three-knotted wind charm also appear in Scandinavian folklore, where those tempted to release the final knot were similarly warned to expect a storm.
For a sailor becalmed far from shore, however, the temptation may have been hard to resist.
Crafting Your Own Wind Spell
If you feel drawn to the old ways, you can make your own symbolic wind spell inspired by these centuries-old maritime charms.
Take a length of line or cord and tie three knots into it.
As you tie them, imagine the first holding a gentle breeze, the second a fair sailing wind and the third the full force of the storm.
You could even add your own incantation:
“Aeolus, keeper of the winds,
bind your breath within this cord.
In the first knot, a gentle breeze;
in the second, fair winds at sea;
in the third, the storm set free.”
Just think carefully before you untie that third knot…
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