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I grew up hearing stories about my father's boyhood dog Tarzan.

Tarzan was big and black, and loved kids. Tarzan also loved to sled.

When the kids went out to sled down Pittsburgh's icy hills, Tarzan always went along. The best part was, after a ride, Tarzan was happy to pull your sled back up to the top of the hill for you.

But Tarzan was no fool. He didn't mind doing the work, but there was a price to be paid.

Tarzan wanted another ride, and he wouldn't let go of the drag rope until you let him back onto the sled.

My youngest aunt and oldest cousin were born in the same year. Those two were Tarzan's babies, and he willingly took on the role of nanny. Both of them learned to walk by holding onto Tarzan.

When they were both upstairs, Tarzan would lay at the head of the stairs, and nothing would move him. Those kids were not going to fall down the stairs, and Tarzan made sure of it.

One day my grandfather got home after a long shift at the steel mill. (He operated a crane at J & L for more than 30 years.) Tired and irritable, he trudged up the long, narrow flight of stairs, only to find the dog lying across the top, blocking the way.

“Move, Tarzan,” he said.

The dog looked at him, but didn't move.

“Dog, get out of the way,” said my grandfather.

Tarzan didn't move.

“Dammit, dog, move!” said my grandfather, and kicked him.

I can remember the look on my grandfather's face as he told this story. He was a gentle man, really, and—I think—ashamed of having lost his temper.

“Such a smell of sulfur!”

(Glinda the Good)

Witches stink.

No, that's not some sort of paganophobic slur. Seriously, take a whiff. Can you smell it? That little hint of sulfur?

Yes, sulfur. Like god, like people, you might think. Well, yes, that's true, and in a bit I'll tell you the story. (There's a story for everything in the Craft.) But what it really comes down to is the old saw: you are what you eat.

What witches eat are lots (and lots and lots) of the king and queen of sulfurousness: onions and garlic. They're our favorite vegetables.

Food has to get flavor from somewhere. The gentry use meat; well, they can afford to. As for the rest of us, meat is expensive and mostly only for firedays. Most of the time, our food gets its savor grâce à that Royal Couple of the Underworld: you know who I mean.

When the Horned our god came down from heaven (but that's another story for another night), they say that where His left Hoof struck ground, garlic sprang up. (Old Hornie being Old Hornie, of course he landed Left-Hoof first.) Where His right Hoof hit, onions grew. To this day, you'll note that each clove of garlic still looks like half a miniature cloven hoof. Now you know why.

There were once two brothers who had a falling-out.

If the stories once told why, they no longer do. Perhaps it was over a woman.

(Probably it was over a woman. Why else do brothers fall out?)

The end of it was, that one brother killed the other. This was the first kin-slaying that ever there was in the world.

Well, but hear what came of it.

From his head he made the priest-kind: those that remember, and counsel, and guide. Their gods are gods of Sky, and their color is white, the white of snow and purity.

From his torso and arms, he made the warriors: those that lead, and fight, and protect. Their gods are gods of War, and their color is red, the true warrior scarlet.

From his hips and legs, his buttocks and loins, he made the peasants: those that raise, and grow, and make. Our gods are gods of Earth, and magic, and our color is black: the deep, rich black of good, tilled loam.

They say that Minneapolis has the highest per capita pagan population in the US.

Assuming that that's true (who knows?), then I live in the Most Pagan Neighborhood in the Most Pagan City in the country.

Alas, though: I cannot claim to live on the Most Pagan Street.

Just why there should be so many pagans living on 10^th Avenue South is something of a mystery.

As for the neighborhood, that's easy. Thirty-forty years ago, when the local community was first getting to its hooves, this part of South Minneapolis was a marginal area, poised to go down. For this reason, there was lots of early “20th” century architectural character going for reasonable prices, so the Pagan Urban Pioneers moved in. (I was one.) Pagans being a clannish sort of people, once there were a few, others soon followed.

As for just why so many of us ended up buying on 10^th Avenue, though...well, that's one for the oracles.

To the pagan eye, the main difference between our religions and the Abraham ones isn't the difference between One or Many.

It's the difference between Slave and Free.

With the spread of the Slave Religions across the world, loss of spiritual freedom has invariably gone hand in hand with loss of political freedom: spiritual imperialism with political imperialism. Pagan peoples everywhere have fought to preserve our political, cultural, and intellectual freedom. Sometimes we've won, most often we've lost, but in our hearts, even when shackled, we have never submitted, and we never will.

Unlike some, the pagan gods don't want slaves, and they don't want eternal children. They expect us to grow up, to stand on our own two feet, and to do for ourselves. If you raise your children to be dependent on you, you've failed as a parent.

We, the Pagans, have been here since the beginning; we've never gone away, and we never will. We dare to dream of a day when the Slavers and their ways will vanish from the Earth, when once again we will all live as our gods want us to live: as Free peoples, everywhere.

We are the Pagans, but “pagan” is a name from without. What do we call ourselves from within?

Goddess Loves Me

Goddess loves me, this I know:

my high priestess tells me so.

If that's not enough for you,

Gerald Gardner says so too.

“Horns up!” says my friend, grinning and flashing the accompanying Sign.

It's become his usual valedictory. I find this delightful.

Horns up: a polysemous—many-meaninged—greeting. Go for it! it says. Don't take any guff! it says. Forge ahead! it says.

But for witch-folk like us, it's also an invocation. And of course—so it is with witch-lore—it tells a story as well.

Because, naturally, “Horns up” implies an equal-and-opposite inverse. “The Goat Above, the Goat Below,” the Basque witches used to say at their sabbats. (No doubt they still do.) “Horns up” signs the living god, “Horns down” the dead.

And there's his story. Unlike most gods, the god of the witches dies. Being a god, of course, he doesn't stay that way, but that doesn't obviate what went before.

(How does he die? In fact, sad to say, we kill him ourselves: in love, we kill him. Witches are a tribe of deicides, which explains much of our long, sad history.)