Now we come to the Sword or Battle-Axe.  He only mentions the Battle-Axe in the context of the list, but the Sword is all over Cochrane's letters.  I think which it is depends on the context.  Probably the Battle-Axe was older, replaced by the Sword, but I could be wrong.  I think the symbolism will be consistent regardless of which is used ( Read more... )

Determining what the symbolic meaning of each of the feminine symbols is a good first step, but Cochrane says repeatedly that, in Witchcraft, nothing is ever what it seems.  There is more to the symbols than just a symbolic representation and how they correspond to the other concepts.  Concepts are good, but they aren't the core of the Poetic.  The ( Read more... )

With the distaff, we are back to something Cochrane discusses in other places.

On Cords:The so-called "sacred object" held in such reverence by some witches was in fact a weaver's distaff--and could easily be mistaken for a phallic symbol. The weaver's distaff, bound with reeds or straw, appears frequently in rural carvings and elsewhere. It again ( Read more... )