Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Witches Stink
“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.
Winter's halfway over. Food is starting to run out. But—praise the Horns—we've still got plenty of onions and garlic.
So for the coven feast tonight, I'm making French onion soup. Three pounds of brown onions, two pounds of red, and two heads of garlic, all slow-cooked down into a cognac-spiked sweet-savory brown slurry, bodied-out with golden-toasted French bread, and lots and lots of hot, gloopy cheese. Sisters, can you taste it?
Sure, we'll be the stinkiest coven in town.
But let no one say that we don't eat well.
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OMGs, that sounds delicious! Wish I were able to celebrate with Prodea.
xo