You can, of course, do magic or rituals without any of this, and we do that too, when the time is right (you might be out on a trip and find a particularly beautiful place and want to do a ritual without having planned it).

But these tools can help to lighten the load and make it easier to focus your energy.

They all have both their practical and symbolic meaning and value, and four of them are also linked to the elements and cardinal directions, and as you will see, this also corresponds to the four

"colours" in the tarot deck (minor arcana).

These tools have their natural place in the rituals and can have different functions, and certainly not all of them are always used!

Every witch has her/his own very personal weapons, which no one else uses without her/his permission. My magical weapons are a part of me; - my athame is an extension of my arm,

and my weapons have been imprinted with my aura. I have cleansed and consecrated them, charged them with my personal energy and with my intentions in using them. I don't leave them lying around, and they are not used for anything other than what I have consecrated them for.

Ideally, you should make all your magical weapons yourself, but unfortunately I'm not able to forge a knife or a sword, so I've spent a lot of time trying to find the right one.

(I've been so extremely lucky that I've been given both an athame and a sword and incense burner made especially for me - but I didn't have any when I started!)

Anyway, it's best to spend some time on this, and not just take the first and best thing you see, because you think you have to have it to "do" something. (As I said, you can do anything without any paraphernalia whatsoever.)

It is (as I see it) much more important that you have put something of yourself into the design of the weapon than that it looks "perfect"! And you learn an incredible amount from the process of making it, both magically, practically and personally/psychologically (know thyself!).

If you're making a wand, for example, you don't go out and grab the first and best stick you find. You sit down and think about what kind of wood you're going to use, and then start looking in books and finding out about trees - which ones have been used traditionally magically, what correspondences there are to the different types of wood, what their properties are, etc. Then you have to choose, and then you have to find out where they grow, and then take a trip and then......Then you have to figure out what it should look like. Should I whittle/carve it into a certain shape, should I decorate it, use symbols or runes, if so, which ones? etc. etc. And it is through such processes that you train as a magician and witch, something you don't realise if you go and buy everything ready-made in a shop or at a flea market or, for that matter, in a so-called "occult" shop.

When everyone in my coven has laid their athames on the altar, it's quite a versatile and diverse collection of knives - it's fun to see!

Witches are individualists, and in Wicca there aren't a lot of rules about everything, which is probably why we thrive there! And I'd like to add: Long live personal creativity!

I'm going to focus on the different magical weapons and say a little about each. The traditional eight are as follows: The sword, the athame, the white-handled knife, the wand, the censer, the pentacle, the scourge and the cords. I will also include the chalice, the cauldron and the witches' broom.

The sword represents the element of air, and the clear pure thought (pure in the sense of focused). It also symbolises power and will. In Wicca, the sword is used to draw the circle (the priestess then focuses her power and sends it out through the tip of the sword as she walks around the circle).

The sword is also used in the initiations, and the sword is masculine in its form.

It's definitely not the weapon you acquire first, and you don't really need it until after you've taken the second degree and start initiating others yourself. And when it comes to the sword, you should definitely wait until you've found the right one!

The sword is also used to cut the cake in a handfasting!

The Athame, or black-handled knife, is the witch's main tool (if you can talk about such a thing). It is used in the same way as the sword (but it is much lighter and easier to carry around than the sword!) I really feel that my Athame is a part of me.

It is used to draw the circle, to mix and bless salt and water on the altar, to draw the pentagrams (in the air) when invoking the elemental guardians, and to bless cakes and wine. The athame symbolises the masculine together with the cup, which symbolises the feminine. The Athame is never used for cutting.

The Athame is probably the first weapon most people acquire.

The white-handled knife is the witch's working knife in the circle. It is used for practical magical work, such as carving runes. It should not be used for anything else and should only be used in a circle (but remember that you can make a circle with your head anywhere, anytime!)

The Wand represents the element of fire. It can often be used instead of the athame, and it is not as "sharp" as the athame or the sword (literally) - it depends on what kind of energies you want in the circle. The staff is also a masculine symbol (suprice! suprice!).

If you want to go out into the forest and seek out elves and other small creatures, it may be a good idea to carry a wand instead of an athame, because according to tradition, the little people are not so fond of iron.

The Wand should be the length from your elbow to your fingertip, and you should definitely make it yourself.

The censer is next on the list. The burning incense symbolises both fire and air, but air is probably the most commonly associated with incense. The incense has a cleansing effect and is used to purify both the circle and the participants. The incense also welcomes friendly "spirits".

We like to make the incense ourselves and burn it on a glowing piece of coal in the incense burner (there are special incense coals that can be bought in Catholic shops, for example). If you can get hold of native amerikan "smudge", it's also delicious. Incense sticks also work, of course, or burning some sage leaves or rosemary. You use what you have!

Learning how to make incense is an interesting study. What to use for the different Sabbaths and rituals, and why.

The pentacle represents the element earth. There is a round disc with the pentagram engraved on it, and in Wicca we also have a number of other

symbols drawn on it. It is usually placed in the centre of the altar, and the salt and water are often placed on the pentacle when mixing and consecrating them.

The material can be metal (copper, brass, bronze), wood or stone.

In the days when witches were persecuted, they often made the pentacle out of wax so that it could be easily destroyed after use. You can also make one yourself by melting candles in a deep dish, loosening it when it hardens and then carving in the symbols you want. This will give you just about the right size.

The scourge is also one of the witches' weapons or tools.

For most people, the use of the scourge is probably primarily symbolic in nature.

The scourge can of course be associated with power and dominance. We recognise it from ancient Egypt, for example, as a symbol of power, for example in depictions of Osiris.

But the scourge also represents purification - purification by fire. Most people have probably heard of the flagellants, the self-whippers, who travelled around in the 14th century and whipped themselves to blood, and then some, to cleanse themselves of sin.

Purification by fire was also one of the excuses the church used to burn witches - they were burned to save them - their souls were purified by the fire!

But the scourge can also have a third function, namely as a means of inducing trance.

Light whipping at certain points on the body will affect blood circulation and thus also the blood flow to the brain, and can thus induce trance or trance-like

states of mind.

The scourge in Wicca traditionally has eight strings with five knots on each, and if you want one, it is definitely recommended that you make it yourself! (It's not quite the same as buying one in a porn shop!)

The cords in Wicca have several functions. They are used to bind the candidate during an initiation.

At the various initiations, the cords are also often given in different colours (often related to the colours of the sefiroth on the Tree of Life). (This is also how you can often tell from the cords that a witch has tied around her waist what degree she has.)

But cords are also widely used in practical magic, and here the colours of the cords are of significant importance depending on what you are trying to achieve.

Otherwise, it goes without saying that the cords are used to "tie" things, also in a magical sense.

The chalice is first and foremost a symbol of the Goddess and a symbol of the feminine. It is also

symbolising the element water; and the Moon is reflected in the cup. In the west, the cup is filled with water.

On the altar in the north, the cup is filled with the wine of life and joy. And when the athame or staff is brought into the cup, and the wine is blessed by this union, I think no one wonders at the symbolic meaning of this!

The Chalice is the Grail, and the Grail is the Goddess. The Grail is rebirth.

The cauldron. The witch's broom and the black bubbling cauldron are probably what most people associate with witches, because that's how we've seen the witch in countless pictures and fairy tales. In the cauldron, we boil our mysterious potions with bat wings and cattails and herbs with the most obscure effects, and the broom we fly on when travelling to and from our witches' sabbaths.

The cauldron is often placed in the centre of the circle, especially if you are indoors and cannot have a fire, and the cauldron is often filled with candles or other things that can be burned (without creating soot stains on the ceiling). The cauldron is also often decorated or filled with plants etc. that are typical of the season, which varies from Sabbath to Sabbath. And of course, you can brew and cook all sorts of things in the pot!

But it also has a symbolic value that goes beyond this. The cauldron belongs to Cerridwen and Hel, it is the "cauldron of rebirth", where we are transformed between our lives/incarnations and prepared for the next.

In Wicca, it is traditional to jump over the fire while making a wish - and the cauldron can be used in the same way. You can also, for example, write down things you want to get rid of on a piece of paper and then burn it in the cauldron.

The witch's broom. Most of us have a proper witches' broom, and what it is usually used for today is to brush and cleanse the circle, physically and psychologically, before we begin a ritual.

Outside, it can be quite practical to clear the circle of debris before you start. But we also visualise brushing away all negative thoughts and vibrations, and at the same time clearing and emptying our minds, to be ready to enter another world or another "dimension".

When it comes to flying on brooms, we probably still do it, if not in a literal and aerodynamic sense. But the recipes for good flying spells are well guarded and not something you post online (at least not in our house).

There are of course a lot of magical traditions about which types of wood etc. you should choose for a proper witch's broom, but that's up to the individual witch to study. Some believe that originally the "broom" on the broom was not branches, but the root of the tree you used, and the root would ensure that you still had some contact with the ground or earth while you were out flying (not a bad idea!).

It wasn't until the late 18th and early 19th centuries that we see images of flying witches

flying with the actual "broom" or bush backwards. In all earlier depictions, the "broom" is in front (in relation to the flying witch), and to me this seems the natural thing to do. This is because you will be able to absorb the scents and odours from all the magical plants and herbs you may have woven into the bush.

The witch's broom is also linked to fertility, as it is perceived as a symbol of the union of the male and female (and then you have to use your imagination and figure out which is which!) In the "old days", fertility rites were held in the spring to ensure a good harvest in the autumn, with women jumping with brooms in the field, and as high as they jumped, so high would the grain grow.

During a handfasting, it is also common for the couple to jump over the broom a few times.

The Crone