The Stang and the Devils Pitchfork

Cunning Meet! 

I have to admit that I started out, like so many others, reading fluffy books on “everything-you-like-is-Wicca”. I was a self-professed Pagan, a self-professed wiccan (not understanding what that, as a cohesive, initiatory tradition really meant) and that was my ‘religion’. The teenage me seems so far away. As a teenager I was lucky enough to stumble upon the Cauldron, a journal of Witchcraft and folklore, and I subscribed, not knowing what I would find in those pages would be very different. In writing with the editor Michael Howard, he finished a reply to me with a glyph of the symbol of the stang, the forked staff of traditional witchcraft. I had come from a world of pentagrams and triangles, so this symbol enthralled me, it had real mystery, and I wanted to know what it meant. Though I got a first answer from Michael, today I continue asking this question, much further on my path, knowing a lot more, yet also realising how very little I know.

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The stang is a working tool of traditional Witchcraft. Traditional witchcraft in its widest sense has been defined by Michael Howard in his Children of Cain as “any non-Gardnerian, non-Alexandrian, non-Wiccan or pre-modern form of the Craft, especially if it has been inspired by historical forms of witchcraft and folk magic” (p.6). I believe such a definition is important in taking the work itself as central, and not any antiquated ideas of argued longer (and thus more valid) lineage. It also allows individuals such as myself, without lineage or pedigree to work from this base of inspiration, which is a spiritual inspiration and tangible relationship with a current of work.

Examples of such traditional witchcrafts include those described by Nigel Jackson, Robert Cochrane, Joe Wilson, Michael Howard, Andrew Chumbley and many others. Traditions like the Feri tradition of Cora and Victor Anderson are also ‘traditional’ by this definition, but with very different inspirations from most others in this field. On a certain level the afro-American traditions (Voodoo, Santeria, Palo, Quimbanda, Obeah) are also operatively very close to traditional witchcraft. 

The Stang, The Devils Pitchfork & Diabolical Witchcraft

Those of you who have seen contemporary depictions of the devil have also seen the three pronged pitchfork. This threefold fork is of course derived from the trident of Neptune/ Poseidon, and may be a deliberate demonization of ancient Gods. Before even Neptune we find this trident as that of Shiva, another figure who is often vilified. Symbols also have a way of surviving and lying in the background of our consciousness, waiting to arise and meet the clear light of day. This is the case for me with the stang.

The Threefold devils trident can also be seen as a natural evolution of the two pronged stang of traditional Witchcraft, which is used to denote (amongst other things) the Horned God of Witchcraft. It is with this two pronged stang that we must begin our exploration.

A lot of the lore around the stang comes to us through Roy Bowers, better known by his craft name of Robert Cochrane. Robert Cochrane claimed to be a ‘traditional witch’ at a time when Wicca was emerging as one of the predominant and preeminent pagan traditions. Cochrane is the originator of the Clan of Tubal Cain, a Witchcraft covine, and later a common body of lore, or loose

tradition (Cochrane Craft) that is highly influential in the modern emergence of ‘traditional’ Witchcrafts today. The stang takes the role of an altar in Cochrane Craft, as well as its role as a ‘working tool’. It is a staff with two forked prongs made, according to Cochrane, out of ash. This correspondence links it to the word tree of Norse mythology.

Horns are often seen as cosmic sense organs, mediators and interpreters of the energies of the universe. Modern belief in horns as cosmic mediators endures in the agricultural practice of biodynamics today.

Sarah Lawless states a variation of the stang, with three prongs is especially lucky.

Three-pronged staves were considered especially lucky and powerful as were trees growing in the same formation. This is because they resemble a human being with the center as torso and the prongs on either side the arms. Two and three-pronged staffs are representatives of the World Tree as an anthropomorphized figure. We find the three-tined stave in ancient art being held by Hades, Poseidon, and Shiva. Is it a fisherman’s spear, a pitchfork, a hay-fork, or a magical tool? Maybe it’s both… Often the ancients did not separate the magical and the mundane for magic can be practical also.[i]

In the barn I have a hay fork with two prongs, a contemporary stang, and I like the idea of the tools of witchcraft being the tools of everyday life. There are several depictions, usually woodcuts, of Witches flying to their sabbat on pole or a pronged staff. This is quite a specific image, and may show some level of continuity with older folkloric practices with such pronged staffs. The stang used in contemporary Witchcraft is also sometimes a hay fork (2 prongs), or a set of horns, or a horned skull on top of a pole.
The stang is also often adorned with a candle or lantern between the ‘horns’. This is an image we are familiar with through Eliphas Levis depiction of the Baphomet, as well as in some depictions of the devil in tarot decks (e.g. the Morgan Greer).

In traditional Witchcraft this is the light of gnosis and wisdom or cunning light.

The

polarity of the two pronged stang can easily be interpreted as male and female, but in the Baphomet we find the sacred androgyne illumined by the spirit light. There is still polarity through both male and female characteristics and in the ‘solve’ and ‘coagula’ on Baphomets arms, but these are reconciled in the central depiction of the spirit fire.

The ‘phallus’ and entwining snakes is indicative of both Mercury, the mediator, and the polarities of the nadis of vedic anatomy as Ida, Pingala and the reconciliation in Sushumna.

As an expansion of this thought, the spirit fire can be seen as the activation of the 7^th Eastern chakra, and the risen kundalini.

The spirit light can further be seen as connected with the initiation of a witch as there are teachings in many traditional Witchrafts about the passing of power – the initiation of the serpent of fire, and planetary ascent. As such the fire connects us to a tradition, a line of power, either within the line of a Witch tradition or in the understanding of power and life as a bequest of the ancestors. 

So will I now claim that the devils pitchfork is a demonization of the horned God of a nature religion? I will not take the road of denying the rich heritage of Witchcraft accounts running parallel to Gerald Gardners Wicca which are subversive, individualistic, ecstatic and gnostic. The aims and values of traditional witchcraft are different from Wicca. It can be interpreted as left hand path, the path of individuation. This witch was not a nature worshipper so much as a force of nature, and represents a threefold heritage of mysteries.

Though relatively unrelated, the use of the three pronged fork is also to be found in the Afro-American ‘watchcraft’ called Quimbanda, and is associated with the deity Exu. 

Robert Cochrane’s Three Branches of the Craft

                                                                                                     Robert Cochrane, both in dealing with Justine Glass and in transmissions to his successor Evan John Jones, describes three distinctive branches of Witchcraft. These he described as the male mysteries, the female mysteries and necromancy.

The male Mysteries

It is not difficult to imagine that the stang as a two pronged fork relates to the Horned God found throughout Witchcraft, both in contemporary and antiquated forms.

An initial image found in many witchcraft traditions is that elongated working tools, being the wand and athame in Wicca, have a masculine nature. The uprightness of the stang which is placed in the ground either at the north of the circle (often called the compass) or in the centre as axis mundi, also has connotations of the phallic maypole. A study of ancient depictions of phallicism, from ancient mystery cults to Catholic churches shows a long held reverence for this symbol. I recently had to laugh as a friend of mine published a book on the ogham, and published a bio picture of an ogam stone between his legs, all very Freudian, and though I agree that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, the mind inevitably goes to think of the archetype, the phallus. This was true long before Freud I’m sure and needs to be acknowledged as a natural connection that we make.

The top of the stang offers two prongs, reminiscent of horns. The Horned God in witchcraft is often the stag horned Carnun or Cernunnos, however in many traditional depictions of the Witches sabbat from medieval times the Horned God is the goat. A third depiction of the horned God is in the form of the master, or man in black. Some accounts of traditional witchcraft give a male leader called a magister or man in black, he is also sometimes called the horned man, Old Nick or the devil. It can be interpreted that this horned God is either a physical person in the coven representing these principles, though it may also be a description of the God at the ‘astral sabbat’. There are common themes around the Horned God in traditional witchcraft, though the name given and lore varies somewhat from clan to clan. It is beyond the bounds of this work to give a fuller description of the God. Still this, with the previous indications on the Baphomet, in some way gives a sense of how the stang might relate to the male mysteries. 

The Female Mysteries

The stang, as well as having a phallic element concludes with a two or three pronged fork which can be seen as representing the yoni or vagina of the woman. As a two pronged stang the central staff splits and forms an implied recepricale between the two forks. This is analogous with the cup of Wicca in a symbolic way.

The depiction of the Goddess in traditional Witchcraft is very different from the maiden, mother and crone of contemporary Paganism. Still we find a threefold Goddess in the form of the three norns. The norns are the Nordic form of this tripartite grouping. In Britain they were the Wyrd (weird) sisters – being the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth; in Slavic world Sudice (with different regional names), in Ancient Greece the Moirai and in Rome the Parcae. In all these cultures the Goddesses are depicted as weavers and spinners. So what does all this have to do with the stang? I have a long history with textiles, particularly with spinning and weaving (never got as far as dyeing). In spinning there is a traditional tool called a distaff which is used to hold unspun fibre in such a way that it will not get ravelled. It is used to feed a spinning wheel or spindle. There are many forms of distaff but a traditional form of the distaff is like a dwarfed stang with either two or three prongs. The word distaff is also used as an adjective to describe the female or ‘distaff’ side of the family.

The image of the norns is one of female mysteries. Textiles are a wonderful analogy for magical work, and of prophesy. On one hand there is the prophesy aspect, which though not an exclusively female quality, it is archetypal that when we think of prophets, seers and mediums, the qualities of a woman seem to fit better with this image.

The image of weaving as fate defining is quite magickal, and is taken from the norns as both seers and definers of fate. These images can be taken into magickal work through simple spinning, and finger or card weaving (almost without cost beyond the yarn) with colour symbolism, number symbolism (the number of strands), focused intent, and chanting. The result can take its place on the altar or be given to a person. Such ‘cords’ could also be used later for cord magick. Another, more simple working is to find a naturally occurring distaff in a hedge and dress it by wrapping with yarn or fibre. Come to think of it, there are a lot of possibilities for textile magick, but perhaps I will return to this subject another time. 

Necromancy (spirit work)

The third branch of witchcraft is necromancy. Having been asked the question a few times, I would like to clarify that necromancy is not about having sexual intercourse with corpses. That is necro-philia (love of dead bodies). Necromancy is prophecy from the dead. It is the work with the ancestral line, both literal ancestors and spiritual ancedents.

In more general terms spirit work is an integral part of traditional witchcraft. This extends to spirit work with the being of plants, working with animals, and finally with human ancestral spirits. This work often includes magickal work, including working with physical substances and fetishes including animal feathers, bones, spirit bottles with herbs or roots, and has included (in older forms of magick) included the use of human remains. Suffice to say this is frowned upon these days, though a spirit altar with animal skulls and pictures of the ancestors might be an appropriate modern method of working. Sarah Lawless has written a number of excellent pieces on spirit work in all the living kingdoms. These can be found on her website (listed below in the endnotes).

I would like to add a note on this third path as it relates to the cunning light. The cunning light, also called the fire of Cain or Quain, and sometimes called the serpent fire (kundalini?) is the light given to humanity by the Gods when humanity was in its infancy. This event is described in the tale of Prometheus stealing fire from heaven. It is potentially in all humans, and the passing of power in traditional witchcraft speaks to an initiating or awakening of the cunning light. Those who are awake to this divine spark and work out of it are said to bear the mark of Cain. This is represented by the middle prong, candle or lantern between the outer horns of the stang. This is an ancestral inheritance, and another aspect of spirit work.

The themes of these three areas, being male mysteries, female mysteries, and spirit work and initiation are extensively described in the book Tubelo’s Green Fire by Shani Oates. I recommend this book to anyone who has felt a resonance with these themes. 

Casting The Caim - The Stang As The World Tree 

In traditional witchcraft there is an equivalent ritual to casting the circle used in Wicca. This is called either laying the compass, or casting the caim. Some who work with traditional witchcraft use the stang to draw the circle and set the stang as the centre of the circle by driving it into the ground, prongs up, at the centre of the circle. In this instance the stang take on the significance of the axis mundi, the axis of the world. This is often rendered as a great world tree, both in the Norse tradition as Yggdrasil and in many shamanic cultures. As a world tree it can be climbed, down into the realm of the dead, or up into the realm of the Gods.

The Stang As An Altar 

In many forms of traditional Witchcraft there is no altar, only the stang which takes on similar significance. In Cochrane derived witchcrafts the stang is placed in the north to represent the horned God as gatekeeper to the other or spiritual world. This is significant in the light of Gizenburg’s theses around the Witches Sabbath as an astral/ hallucinatory happening.

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Over the last number of years I have heard several references to the stang being used in Wiccan ritual. As a non-initiate I do not know if this has been a longer term practice, or if it is a development arising from its use in traditional witchcraft but I find the idea of cross fertilisation and growth interesting.  Many aspects of the stangs use in the context described here may also transfer to other groups using the stang.

Whatever your path, may the cunning light be ignited, may it burn bright, and may you see a clear path before you. 
Flax, flag and fodder/ Cunning Part!

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[i] Lawless, Sarah The Witch Of Forest Grove http://witchofforestgrove.com/