The Hag

 

 

Today is the New Moon, a time for releasing.  There are a few things I would like released. 

Most of the Goddesses have been sexualized, romanticized and made to appeal to masculine ideologies.  I resent that, actually. They tend to have superwoman capes, flaming red hair, nicely crimped, and beauty is first and foremost according to patriarchal views of what beauty is. But, women are taking back the expression of what goddess might have looked like.  And, then, there is the Hag, which we do not see or hear much of.  Oh, “witch’, “bitch’ shows up, but not too often do we hear of the Old Hag.  And there she is, smack daub in the midst of these overly-sexualized goddesses in all her “oldness” …and wisdom.

Hags were known as midwives in Scotland but she could also steal away life.    She had a messy rough hut with things in cages and in clay jugs.  She believed in magic, or the people thought she carried magic.  She was old, frail, unkempt, really decrepit, but she could move like the wind when she was needed.  Her hair was long, tangled, and wore a long woolen cloak that was stitched and patched and rough-looking.  She, too, was a composite of what patriarchy thought of older women who remembered herbalism and old healings.  Men feared women, at best, because how could one bleed so and not die?    Women could birth out a child.  Unbelievable to men.  They had way too much power, they felt and so they kept them as subservient as possible.  Age was bad enough, but an aging women was certainly despicable to them.  They made the healer the Evil.  Suspicion has always been there.   And they were typically outcasts, or chose to be, and lived in areas where men would not want land. 

To the Celts, an old woman was a hag that was wise (and feared for that as well) and deemed ugly.  Everything horrible that could happen from births to weather was blamed on women, especially old women.  They were often hunted down, where a tragedy happened, for they were blamed.  It was thought they were so all-powerful that they controlled earth, air, fire, water, and tragedies that came from natural happenings.  They were said to be in control of the seasons.  They were the centre of thunder and lightening.  They could freeze the ground by just tapping their canes.  They are said to have created the craggy mountains.  And, they are said to have carries hammers to break rocks to start new mountains. 

Oh, in ancient times men so feared the feminine that they could seduce a man and make him have sex with her and who better to blame?  Women …  we doers of all kinds of evil to men.  When crops would not grow, it was The Hag holding the land in barrenness.  They even made wives barren.  Once a woman was past her ‘prime’ she was barren and a hag.  A bad dream was the fault of hags stealing in and stealing dreams.  In the Greek, the Slavic, the Germanic tribes, she was a ‘witch’.  Today’s women are taking back the word “witch’ and giving it back to its important and beautiful role as healer and knower of herbs and potions that heal. 

Men were terrified of Hags yet they turned to her when they needed courage.  It was believed, if men believed in the good of a hag, that she could transform and become beautiful.  Of course, the Patriarchal view was a subservient, unheard, unnoticed wife was the best and it would mean she gave up her Hag ways.  Still they feared her even then and thought she could eat them alive if he angered her.  To find a hag stone that had been dropped out of her basket was worse than the ‘evil’ eye.  They believed they were cursed and that a woman they knew as ‘hag’ was the guilty one for any reason they could dream up.

The reality was that a hag was a healer, still is.  In Britain it was believed that, to find a stone with a hole in it, was auspicious and a gift from a hag who dropped it to be found.  A hag stone wards off negativity.  Only good things could drop through the hole of a hag stone.  Evil thoughts and happenings could not pass through and would get stuck.  Water, only, could completely make and clear the hole and water was magic and good.  These are my hag stones.

 

Some believed these hag stones, chipped out of larger stones and carried in a hag’s basket, was a blessing to find.  Some believed fairies could enter through this door. And, there were people who cold crawl through that hole by merely peering through it, and enter fairyland.

Some older women, in charge of houses and many keys, made the first key fob out of stones with holes in them.  They were used as pendulums to sex a child in the womb.  Hag stones were hung on bedposts to stop bad dreams.  Some, still, nail one above the doorjamb coming into the home to ward off evil and/or bad luck.  Milkmaids used to hang a hag stone over a barn door to make sure the cows gave sweet milk.  Sailors would hammer a hag stone on their ships somewhere to ward off the hags of the sea.  Many wore hag stones on a thong around the neck to ward off evil while walking out in the open or traveling of any kind. 

When you find a hag stone, only take one at a time.  It is said that hag stones find you, you do not find them.  And, they only work for the person finding them, so never buy or borrow one. 

Let’s take back the Hag negatives that we know old women to have; let’s remind everyone of the positives of body healings, the wisdom, the mature-hearted love, and the spiritual guide, they are.  Be sure to walk often near water sources to see if you will be offered a hag stone.

I wish you help us take back the negative ‘hag’ term as much as we are working to take back the ‘witch’ term. 

 

©Carol Desjarlais 2.10.23