Airts
From Traditional Witchcraft Wiki Project
Airt means "direction", and is especially used in relation to the direction of the winds. It is pronounced art, and comes from the Scottish Gaelic àirt. In witchcraft various virtues, powers and entities are ascribed to these compass-points, which may be four or eight in number; the exact ascription of things to directions differs greatly between traditions. As such the airts may be seen as denoting the plane of the horizon.
One chant often cited as being traditional is:
"Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and grey,
Come ye, come ye, come ye that may.
Throughout and about, around and around,
The circle be drawn, the circle be bound"
This is cited in Doreen Valiente's books "Witchcraft for Tommorrow" and "Rebirth of Witchcraft", and is used in some well-known Old Craft traditions. It is an adaptation of the chant that appears in Shakespeare's "Macbeth", and is most likely an addition made by Thomas Middleton, who added in extra witch-scenes from his own play "The Witch" to whet the publics appetite (the original Macbeth being somewhat scant of the popular scenes with the witches). In this chant the airts may thus be given as:
- East - Red - The crimson of dawn.
- South - White - The bright light of noon.
- West - Grey - The dun grey of dusky twilight.
- North - Black - The black of midnight.
The word airt derives from the Gaelic for East; the four directions in Scots Gaelic being:
- Airt - East
- Deas - South
- Iar - West
- Tuath - North
It will be seen how in the ascription of colours, winds and parts of the day to the directions, various other virtues come to mind, and such is the basis of correspondence systems. However, it will be noted that in working with the directions of one's native land one becomes anchored to it, which says much of the value of working with native, as opposed to imported, systems.
