Fith Fath

From Traditional Witchcraft Wiki Project

Fith Fath (Pronounced Fee Faw) is a Scots Gaelic term meaning deer aspect, or one who takes on the appearance of a deer, and the term relates to a corpus of initiatory shape shifting lore. The term fath is connected to specific poems and incantations that enable these transitions via the magical words spoken.

In 1662 Isobel Gowdie of Auldarne confessed that she and other members of her coven could transform themselves at will into a hare at will by saying three times:

I shall go into a hare, with sorrow ans sych and meikle care and i shall go in the devils name Ay while i come home again

And when they wanted to return to human form again they would say also three times:

Hare, hare, God send thee care I'm in a hare's likeness just now, But i shall be in a woman's likeness even now.