A talisman is a magical item, something created to attract good luck or to embody particular spirit forces. Bindrunes fall under this heading, but so also do some other items I craft from time to time.

On occasion, as I’m beach-combing with the dogs or just walking in the woods and forest around my home, I come across something that calls out to me, wanting to be incorporated into a talisman. I bring these things home and work with them as a shaman as well as a crafter, asking them what they want to be and why, then I craft a unique piece of artwork for them and enliven them, inviting the informing spirit to become an indwelling spirit within the crafted item.

I never know what form the finished piece will take until we’re done and the spirit is in residence because the process of creation involves an ongoing dialogue with both the craft materials and the inspiring spirit.

Most of these talismans are not meant to stay with me, and I offer them for sale or, sometimes, gift them to friends and colleagues who are meant to have them. This is one that stayed with me.

I’ve always had horses in my life since I was a small child, and I have a very strong relationship with the Welsh goddess Rhiannon, who is a horse goddess. I was beach combing with my dogs in Wales many years ago when I found this horse pedal bone, the bone that’s inside the hoof, on a beach in Carmarthenshire called Morfa Bychan, which was very close to my home at the time. I used glass beads in the three sacred colours of the British Old Ways, red, white and black, to craft this necklace; each colour corresponds to one aspect of the Maiden-Mother-Crone triad and also with the Three Cauldrons that hold Life, Wisdom and Vocation.

The string runs through the two holes in the bone formed by the major blood vessels which feed the inside of the hoof in life, and the silver crescent formed across the front of the bone calls on the power of the moon, which all goddesses and women share in British tradition. Smaller beads protect the string and bone from wearing on each other in use, and the larger tassel at the back counterweights the weight of the bone and its tassel, making the whole necklace balanced and comfortable to wear.

Appropriately, the background to this photo is my 18 inch horsehide drum, Thunderhoof, decorated with stylised lightning and hoof prints, which you can just see creeping in round the edges. This is, interestingly, the drum my four horses react to most positively when I drum for them – they like all the drums, but Thunderhoof is their favourite.

Here’s Thunderhoof again – this time on my altar during a ritual.

I was pondering the ins and outs of feathers this morning; the geese are moulting and every day the yard, barn and feed room are scattered with feathers. Here’s two I picked up this morning – both off the same bird, Hannibal the Cannibal, who is grossly traduced by his name. He’s a loving parent, a devoted mate and brave in defending his family – and yes, if you trespass on his priorities he will give you a nasty nip, but we have a mutually respectful relationship and, although he’s not above getting me behind the knee with a tweak of his beak, he also stops short if I turn around and wag a finger at him with a watchful ‘I see you!’

Look at the size differential in these two feathers, though. One’s a primary flight feather from his wing, and the other is a tiny little feather from the back of his neck. What a difference! Every feather on his body seems to be subtly different from all the others – specialised for flight, or for shedding water and wind to keep the weather off, or fluffy to trap heat and keep him warm, and every one shaped perfectly to form an all-over suit of protective weather-armour. Even though my geese can’t fly – they’re domestic geese, not wild ones, and bred over centuries to be too heavy for their wings to carry them into the air – still their wing feathers have the asymmetric shape required for maximum efficiency through the air, the quills heavy, strong and stiff, and the vanes either side of the quill shaft are tough and hard, too.

In contrast, that tiny neck feather is delicate, so fine I have to concentrate on picking it up without damaging it, and sits on the end of my little finger, so light even breathing near it wafts it away.

One of the reasons for considering this amazing variety in feather design – apart from marvelling at the engineering brilliance achieved through of millions of years of evolution! – is that when I use feathers for craft work or for magic (or both) it’s important to choose the right feathers for the job.

The big primary wing feathers are almost too big for craft work. I use the secondary wing feathers for dreamcatchers, but these big stiff quills on the primaries are ideal for making quill pens – if you can bear to strip off the feather and just use the bare quill! – or for fletching arrows (not a skill I practice). In magic, I use them for precision-wafting smudge-smoke and incense-smoke, for which they’re ideal.

I have fans made from the dried whole wings of roadkill woodcock and blackbirds that I use for more general wafting of smoke – I always feel it’s a terrible insult to a creature not to make use of their discarded bodies, and the beautiful patterns of their wings make equally beautiful ritual fans.

Smaller feathers are good for decorating sticks, bags and beadwork. As a general principle, when you’re making any ritual tool, the more effort and work you put into the crafting, the more you will be repaid with a tool that is more attuned to you, more responsive and better at channelling energies for your purposes. There are limits, however – these minute little feathers from Hannibal’s neck are so tiny, I’d need tweezers and a magnifying glass to fix them into any piece of work and the time it would take to cover any amount of a surface with them would be phenomenal.

I also choose which species of bird to use feathers from for each project – I have geese, Muscovy ducks, assorted chickens and quail here as domestic species, and I’m always on the lookout for shed wild bird feathers or roadkill when I’m out and about. Domestic species carry a subtly different energy to the wild ones – they’ve lived with us for so many centuries, they’re more attuned to human ways and their feathers reflect this. Similarly, there’s a difference between the energies carried by wild birds who visit our gardens and birdtables – the blackbirds, robins, thrushes, sparrows, finches and tits – and the wilderness-wild species who will have nothing to do with us – the hawks and eagles, the herons and kingfishers.

Different again are the game birds, the ones who know humans only as a ruthless predator. Theirs is an elusive energy, seeking to hide and flee, and it’s important to take that into account when using their feathers. There’s little point using the feathers of a pheasant, for example, if you’re trying to decorate a talisman for courage to stand up and fight your corner – for that, you’d do far better with the eagle and hawk feathers. For a charm to persuade someone to ignore you, then choose a bird that seeks to be unobtrusive, not a peacock.

The one thing I will not do is kill any bird purely for the sake of its feathers. If I find a dead bird, or if I’m killing a bird for food, then I will use the feathers rather than waste them – but I only kill for necessity, not for convenience and never for vanity.

If you’re looking for ethically-sourced feathers for any craft project, do please drop me a line – I usually have a box of feathers sitting about and if you tell me what you need, I’ll see if I can supply it.

I’ve enlivened two sets of runes today – one the black tumble stones Futhark set I made last week:

The other set is the Futhorc in black acrylic paint with blue ‘stained glass’ highlights, done on frosted clear glass, though Gar opted to be on clear glass without the frosting:

They also called for different altar ‘furniture’ for the two rituals – this often happens. The process of enlivening, calling the power of the runes into the materials used, always shares some aspects – I always have fire, alcohol and incense and usually there’s a crystal wand involved – but often the incense burner is different, or a different wand is required, or another crystal may wish to be present. Sometimes the alcohol is mead, though this time it’s a Cabernet Sauvignon (called Dark Horse!).

Living shamanism can’t be done on an assembly line!

It’s been a difficult year – my elderly mother went suddenly downhill with Alzheimer’s last summer and now lives with me as she’s no longer able to look after herself. This, obviously, puts quite a crimp in my work, as she now needs supervision 24/7 and can’t so much as make herself a cup of tea!

Finally, however, I’ve found the time to craft again – not a drum, but a couple of sets of runes, for a change.

The first one I did this afternoon and it’s Anglo-Saxon Runes, painted in gold acrylic paste on green glass pebbles. These are ideal for runes, as they carry no inherent energy of their own as living substances such as wood or crystals do. There’s nothing wrong with using wood or crystals to make runes, mind you – you just have to negotiate with your materials beforehand and make sure they’re up for the job! Glass, being melted sand, has no such complications.

There’s also a great advantage in using acrylic paint – it is quick to dry! Painted at 1pm, ready to enliven with the energies of their individual runes by 2pm – just time to have lunch between the two jobs.

The Anglo-Saxon runes as I use them have 33 runes to the set – this is fairly standard, though historically there were anything from 29 to 33 runes in use during the period (approximately 5th Century AD to 11th Century AD). I like using the nine ‘extra’ runes of the Futhorc  (named for the first six letters of the set) for two reasons – one is it gives more flexibility in readings and crafting bind runes, and the other is that to me – as to some other Northern Tradition shamans – eight of them seem associated with older, darker forces than the 24 runes of the Futharc and the ninth seems to be representative of the World Tree, Yggdrasil with an additional association with Odin, the quintessential shaman-king.

This evening I felt drawn to craft a second set of runes – this time the Elder Futhark, just 24 runes long, and done in silver acrylic paint on black tumblestones – very dramatic! It’s always a pleasant challenge to select the appropriate stone for the shape of the rune – long thin ones for the long thin runes, and wider ones for broader runes. They’re still drying, sitting on a sheet of paper in a quiet corner; I’ll enliven them tomorrow morning.

I’ll take another photo in better light tomorrow when I enliven the set ready for use.

I’m always happy to teach people how to make their own drums, and this morning I had a student who made a lovely 18-inch reindeer drum on a birch hoop.

Setting up for a student, or a group of students, starts well in advance. I have to order in materials, which takes about two weeks, and then the night before, the hide(s) go into the bath to soak. Here’s half a reindeer hide soaking last night.

After that, there’s organising the workspace.

While the hide’s in the bath, the table is moved into position by the window for a good light and I lay out sandpaper, beeswax, furniture polish (some people prefer one, some the other) with a clean jay cloth to rub it in well, scissors for cutting hide, the hoop and (in this case) the metal tension ring, glue gun and pencil.

Here’s another view, without the glue gun – I’d just plugged that in ready to turn on.

Today’s drum was a lovely piece of work by Ron, who finished in record time – but he’s made drums before, which helps enormously.

After today’s tuition session, I was feeling inspired so I got out an 18 inch oval oak hoop I’ve had sitting waiting for a while. I drew out the designs to decorate the hoop in pencil last autumn but then Life got in the way and while pyrography happened within a few days of the sketches, it’s taken until today to feel ready to paint the hoop.

Most of the decoration will remain just pyrography but some parts wanted a touch of colour. I’ve used acrylic paints, which dry fast, come in a wide range of colours, blend easily, clean up off the brush very well and will hold their colour for a long time to come! The inside of the hoop has a circle of the year, with each season being represented by a few scenes. Either side of the join in the hoop are snowflakes for midwinter, followed by a group of stylised dancers, sunrise over a stone circle, a horse-drawn plough, a pair of hares boxing, another group of dancers, an oak leaf, a maypole, a bee, some honeycomb, a pair of foals playing, another set of dancers, a sheaf of corn, a squirrel, a stalk of wheat, an acorn, another set of dancers (this time with a lit torch upraised), a fly agaric fungus, a winter-bare tree, a Mari Llywd and so back to the snowflakes.

In the next few days I’ll put a boar hide on this frame and leave it aside to dry in its own time. Whether the hide will want some decoration or not I don’t know – nor have I decided yet whether to do this one as a ring-tensioned hide or a Native American style drum. When the hide’s ready I’ll make up my mind!

Having more or less settled into our new home at Cairnorchies Croft, today was a big day – time to birth the first drum here! I put a Reindeer hide to soak last night and prepared a 16″ Ash hoop, giving the edges a final polish with fine sandpaper followed by a light coat of bee’s wax, rubbed well in, to make sure they’re properly smooth and won’t damage the hide that goes over them.

I actually think Reindeer works better with Birch, metaphysically, since both are denizens of the Boreal Forests, but this reindeer hide wanted to be on a 16″ Ash hoop. Who am I to argue?

As the only female deer with antlers, as well as a member of the relict Ice Age fauna once native to the UK (though this hide came from Scandinavia), there are all sorts of spiritual correspondences at work with Reindeer. As a female deer with antlers, Reindeer has strong connections to Elen of the Ways, one of the oldest British goddesses and always depicted as a woman with antlers, or an antlered female deer. Some sources say reindeer became extinct in Britain shortly after the last Ice Age, around 8,000 years ago, others claim Vikings hunted them in the 1300’s – either way, there’s only one herd of free-ranging reindeer in the UK now and they roam the Cairngorm Mountains, not far from me. This is a herd established in 1952 by the reintroduction of 29 Scandinavian-born reindeer to the Cairngorm Plateau, where they’ve thrived ever since. Some of the males are kept behind fences and can be visited by tourists – even hand-fed and stroked – but the females and youngsters, along with the breeding males, live as a feral herd, wandering the National Park as they choose.

Ash is a tree that also has strong spiritual connections. According to the Northern Traditions the World Tree, Yggdrasil, is an Ash, and true to its name Ash is a tree that burns clean and hot, though it’s also a wood of amazing versatility, providing tool handles, carriage wheels, excellent charcoal – once used for tattoos, since it’s (allegedly) the only wood charcoal that never causes infections! – and is both fast-growing and easy to work. Ash is also connected with Gwydion in British lore, Gwydion being the Master Magician of Britain.

Reindeer hide is a lovely pale cream in colour, which goes well with the pale colour of ash wood. It’s quite quick to soak and correspondingly quick to dry out again, too, so I like to work swiftly with this elusive and fast-moving creature! Rather than the metal-hoop style, this one is a Native American style drum, with the lacing cut from the same hide that makes the drum head and nothing but the hide and the hoop involved. At the moment, of course, there’s a certain in-progress feel about the newly born drum, because I use clothes pegs to keep the hide tidy on the back of the drum until it dries enough to hold its  shape better.

With this style, there are 12 holes in the hide and 12 spokes to the lacing, gathered into 4 groups of 3 to recall the 4 seasons, each of 3 months, and the four-armed cross in the centre also acts as a reminder of the 4 elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water.

This lovely little drum is drying now, completing the next stage of her birthing in dry, cool conditions out of direct sunlight, being turned gently each day to ensure she dries evenly. In a day or two the clothes pegs will come off and in about 3 weeks, she’ll be ready to share her voice with the world.

 

Although most of my drums stay in the UK – at least to my knowledge! – sometimes one goes further afield, and they don’t get much further afield than Australia.

This beautiful drum, reindeer hide on an 18 inch ash hoop with indigo ribbon binding a 7 inch steel ring, was commissioned from me by an Australian shaman and is now at work on the far side of the world.

Long may she call across the worlds!

 

2019 brings the exciting news of a change of home for Bean-Sidhe Drum Craft – we’re moving to a smallholding in the beautiful Aberdeenshire countryside, with woodland all around and a bronze-age Recumbent Stone Circle just a few hundred metres away!

This does mean that courses and drum-making will be on hold for a few months until the move has been completed and new (much better!) workshop space set up, but watch the blog for news of when courses will be starting up again.

We will also have a range of animals sharing the space with us, ranging from dogs and ferrets through Rex rabbits and quail to my beloved horses, including one of the rarest horses in the UK, my young Suffolk Punch gelding George, and there will hopefully be the opportunity for students to interact with some of the animals once I’ve set up the right space for this to take place safely (on both sides!)