Sweeping between Facts and Fiction

Are you a Blood Witch? Do you belong to the 7 Great Clans of Wicca? Are you a Woodbane, a Rowanwood or since you are an adept in healing, perhaps you are a Brightendale? Are blood witches purely a fiction, or are they?

I was introduced to the Sweep Series (by Cate Tiernan) by a Wiccan friend from Cebu City around 2006. The first time I red the book, I thought that it was for kids and teenagers since it talks about love life, saving the world and fighting the forces of evil. The series is made up of 14 books and it talks about the life of Morgan Rowlands, a Blood Witch from the Woodbane Clan, an ancient "evil" clan that would do anything to grab power, even kill and destroy covens. Now this is a refreshing read for someone who is a Wiccan (at that time) since it talks about the religion itself. It also explained the tenets of the practice, the Goddess and the God, energy, correspondences, spellwork and runes and the beautiful spells in Gaelic. A lot of youngsters were probably drawn to Wicca because of this book, the same way that the movie "The Craft" inspired a lot of people to become Wiccans.

Now some newborn Wiccans may go around blabbing that they are witches and blood witches at that. Some would introduce themselves as Wiccan from a long line of Woodbane witches. Now are these "claims" fact or fictional?

Probably modern Witches just do not know what's the meaning of being a Blood Witch. Being a Blood Witch just means that you could trace a lineage in your family. This is true with most of the Fam Trad witches. These "Blood Witches" could easily trace their ancestry and would find generations of witches in their family tree. When I say witches, these could be cunningfolks, shamans, hedge witches, root workers. Most of the modern witches in the Philippines are Blood Witches with generation of magick users in their family tree. Almost all of us has a great great great (multiply this many times) grand (insert gender here) who were merkos, babaylanes, siruhanos, mananambals. Though most of us would feel that we are more powerful than others, this is not true all the time. As quoted from the book Ladies of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley- "what she has by blood, you have by training". The more potent blood of a witch with 5 generations of magick accumulated in her veins can be more effective to power a spell (not to mention the surog or the familiars/ Manes or des Penantes that could help the Witch), it doesn't mean that a witch with 10 or 20 years of experience could not do so.

Another factor that would play is the connection of the Witch to the spirits- be it Divine (God or Goddess), Terrestrial, Planetary; how correct the correspondences are, the Witch's own understanding of the said spells, etc. If a trained witch is more connected with the Divine, knows the proper time, herbs, stones, planetary correspondences to do the spell, the outcome will be more powerful than a spell cast by a Blood Witch with 10th Generations of magick in her blood.

As for the 7 Great Clans of Wicca of the Sweep series, they are fictional. There are no Woodbanes, Wyndenkell, Rowanwand, etc. However, there are still misguided witches (Woodbanes), those who are hoarders/seekers of knowledge (Rowanwand), mischievous witches (Leapvaughn), Warrior mages (Vikroth), crafters of talismans and amulets (Burnhides), Herbal Healers (Brightendales) and expert spell crafters (Wyndenkell) in real life.

Regarding the clans, I know that there are Clans existing in the Babaylan Traditions as well as the Triad Clans in Stregheria (Tanarra, Janarra, Fanarra) but this will in another post.

It does not matter if you are a Blood Witch or a Trained Witch. The most important thing is your knowledge about your Craft and your connection with your Gods. The more you know, the more powerful you become- Bloodwitch or not.

Amor et Pacem,

Dagnir,

Mystae, Circlus Intimus, Orbis Niger Luna

Adeptus Primus, Cabal Signum Mysteria

Arcessitor, Ordo Intra Circularis