The Motif of "blood" occurs in several different
contexts in the Irish Tradition
- blood sacrifice
A blood
sacrifice is one of several things: the deliberate and
ritual slaying of a creature for purposes of divination,
offering to the gods, or in token of the lives taken in
the hunt the rest of the year; the slaying of a human
sacrifice to give back to the earth something symbolic of
the hunt or to propitiate the gods (consider Deirdre who
was almost slain at infancy for this reason)or according
to roman sources, for divination;the slaying of either
animal or human in order to effect a serious magical
work; the making of a poppett or a mascot smeared with
blood of the petitioner and used as a substitute for the
actual sacrifice required to effect great works of magic
(blood of a suitable totem animal may also be used).
often confused by the unitiated with Blood sacrifice,
blood letting is a very specific act used for many of the
same reasons as blood sacrifice but others as well. Blood
letting nowadays ranges from the pin prick, to a deep cut,
depending on your masochistic tendencies but it is based on
the idea of wounding oneself, letting blood flow, not a
sacrifice of life but a mingling of blood with some other
element, water or earth or with another's blood. It is done
to promote, to bind -binding is a very very important effect
of blood;to energise and to protect, but also, like blood
sacrifce for divination, for propitiation, energy for a large
magical work, or to symbolise the lives already sacrificed to
nourish the tribes.
technically speaking any ritual involving blood can be
called pedantically a "blood ritual" and
occasionally workings to divinate using blood or a magical
working energised by blood have been called blood rituals.
However a real Blood Ritual is a ritual centered on the
idea of sacrificing back to the earth, a life for the lives
consumed. This is the pure ritual aimed at preserving the
balance of life/death, consume/create, and there is some
evidence that in mesolithic and neolithic times one might
literally have sacrificed a human life to ensure the
continued availability of game for the people. The idea of
the wren king, the king for a year who is then sacrificed, is
somewhat similar to this but it also has overtones of union
and marriage between earth and man, between diety and human.
In modern terms the use of blood motifs in the rites aimed
at either preserving the balance or creating union between
man and god/nature are acknowledged as blood rituals. All
other uses of blood are known simply by the aim of the ritual:
ie divination is divination whether blood is an element or
not. Likewise healing remains healing whether blood has a
role or not in the work.
the menstrual blood has an intrinsic magical quality:
associated as it is with lunar cycles, and with procreation,
it can hardly escape them. It can be used in love magic as
the most effective binding tool: likewise mothers will use it
to bind their sons and daughter, (in a protective sense
rather than a restrictive, i hasten to add): there are spells
which, by using menstrual blood, will enable one to have a
link spiritually and emotionally with another human til they
die. Likewise the curse that doesn't contain menstrual blood
is hardly worth gathering the eye of newt for!
Menstrual blood is often added to inks to lift them above
the mundane: added to witch bottles to increase protection:
mingled with land to increase its fertility: mingled with
land to ensure its continued ownership by the line of that
woman.
blood ties are the bonds of family and clan: this term
refers mainly to hereditary witches, and refers to the belief
that the gifts of a family can be passed "in the blood"
often hand in hand with the belief of reincarnation within a
family line.
The family exists on two levels, just like the witch:
there are the ordinary ties of family, loyalty, sibling love
and rivalry, at once commonplace and prfound, aperating at a
basic and primal level. Then there is the family within a
family, the traditions which by virtue of including a few
exclude the majority, the higher and formal ties of loyaty
and the superstructure in which this invisable family
operates. Blood ties are both the loyalties, and conflicting
loyalties within a witch family.
The question of witchcraft being "in the blood"
has led to conflict between those who see it as an art open
to all and those who see it as an art, or talent , restricted
to those born into its milieu. After all it is only in the
latter half of the last century that many parts of the world
came to consider that power, and leadership, should be given
out of the hands of those "born" to rule. The idea
that one could have a working class man in government was
morally offensive to the aristocracy. Those who are shocked
at hereditary family snobbery would do well to reflect on how
recent a development the electoral franchise is in any
democracy.
Blood ties are also the ties to a land and culture, to a
name and blood-line. This is shared by many witches: it is
the tugging and nagging at the back of the mind that propels
one back into a search for connection with the past, and with
old wisdoms. This desire to reconnect and the inherent
knowledge that there is something beyond the mundane, that
there is an undercurrent in the world, is in reality the
stirring of the blood trying to reconnect with its lines.
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