Horns ward.

The Sign of the Horns has been a sign of power since long before it became a Heavy Metal cliché.

Because horns aren't just for beauty or display.

They're weapons. They ward because they warn. Theirs is the power of protection.

You could call the Horns a mudra. (In Witch we usually just say: hand-sign.) You could call them an invocation. (You know Who I mean.) In Anthropologist, you could call them an apotropaic: a turning away, an averting.

The Horns have been warding off the hostile, the unchancy, the ill-favored, for centuries, if not millennia.

You can mutter “Horns ward [me]” or “Horns protect [me]” if you like. It certainly won't hurt.

But only make the Sign and the Horns will do their work, seen or unseen, spoken or unspoken.

Some might call this a fire-fight-fire scenario: like warding like, the unchancy against the unchancy.

Witches being unchancy people, I've even seen the Sign made against me a few times, usually on the other side or behind the back where they think I don't see.

But of course I always do.

I just smile and move on. I know your magic. Horns? I've got my own: you can see them if you know how to look.

But that's the Law of the Forest: power against power, horns against horns.

In the Name of the Horns.

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With thanks and a tip of the black pointy hat to J"B"H.

\m/