Ch.9 The Mighty Ones (WMB 9.i)
Extract from: Wicca: Magical Beginnings written by d’Este & Rankine, 2008 (Avalonia.) PB / Kindle @ https://amzn.to/3Ay4HJr.
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Considering the early public Wiccan texts, there is no obvious reference to any elemental connection to the lords of the watchtowers. Not only are there no obvious elemental references, but all four of the lords of the watchtowers are invoked using the same pentagram, which is the one attributed to invoking earth. Now this pentagram is appropriate if either the invocation is of earthy spirits, or it is rather an evocation, calling airy spirits to become more manifest, i.e. earthy.
Continuing this line of thought, the term ‘mighty ones’ makes this unity of type amongst the kings of the watchtowers an interesting one. It is found throughout the Bible, being an old translation for the Hebrew divine name Elohim, which also means ‘gods’.
“Who, among the mighty ones, is like thee, O Lord? Who, among the mighty ones, like thee?”[1]
In a commentary on this verse in 1794, a Dr Geddes correctly observed “Mighty ones, others would render gods.”[2] The significance of the name Elohim from a Wiccan perspective has already been discussed in the chapter A Real Witch’s Weapon. This terminology is far removed from elemental guardians, which do not appear to have been part of the early Wiccan magickal practices.
Going off on a tangent just for a moment, we find that in Wiccan practises today, the guardians called at the cardinal points are sometimes called by the names of the four winds from ancient Greece, i.e. Eurus, Notus, Zephyrus and Boreas. In ancient Greece these winds were personified as gods, the Anemoi (‘wind-gods’), being the children of the dawn goddess Eos (’Dawn’) and the stellar god Astraios (’Starry’).
Originally there were three Anemoi – Notus, Boreas and Zephyrus. Each one of these gods was connected with one of the ancient Greek Seasons (they had three not four) and then Eurus was later added for Autumn. Boreas, the purple-winged god of Winter does have some associations which could be indicative of the element of Earth, but the other wind-gods do not correspond. For example, the South wind Notus is the storm-bringing god of wet weather corresponding to late Summer and Autumn, which does not indicate any associations with the element of Fire for which he is sometimes invoked in modern paganism.
Boreas is the only wind-god originally included in some Book of Shadows invocations of the Guardians, and as this is for the north it also supports the idea that the lords of the watchtowers were not elemental beings. Another interesting point to make here, as an aside, is that beyond the mountain dwelling place of the North wind Boreas is Hyperborea, the place of eternal Spring in the North, according to Greek legend. Hyperborea can never be touched by the North wind’s icy air, and equates to the Wiccan idea of the ‘Summerlands’.
[1] Exodus 15:11 [2] Geddes’s translation of the Bible, 1794, The British Critic and Quarterly Theological Review
Extract from: Wicca: Magical Beginnings written by d’Este & Rankine, 2008 (Avalonia.) PB / Kindle @ https://amzn.to/3Ay4HJr. Shared here with the intention to inspire and inform the now and future generations interested in Wicca and other Pagan traditions inspired by it.
