The Basics of Village Witchcraft

I will rise, servant of God (name), I will go from the hut to the door, from the door to the gates, into the clean field, to the east, to the eastern side. Familiar, isn’t it? Such or similar words can be found in any collection of folk spells, of which there are countless in the modern, gadget-filled, wired XXI century. The texts of village rites and rituals, simple and uncomplicated, traveling from book to book, from mouth to mouth, are still alive and effective; we still turn to them when there are no other options left or out of old habit. Our distant great-great-grandmothers have long since passed away - yet their words still save from ailments, troubles, and sorrows. In the book "The Basics of Village Witchcraft," we have hidden a true treasure for you. These are excerpts from historical documents of the 18th-19th centuries, in which real incantations, rituals, and the realities of our ancestors are recorded. In them, addresses to the dawn and to Mother Earth are tightly intertwined with appeals to the Virgin Mary, Christianity appears in a bizarre symbiosis with paganism, and in several places, even Adonai and Sabaoth flicker.