🧙Crone’s Corner (10)🧙‍♂️

#crone #corner

WONDERFUL WORDS

As a poet, I love words old and new. I also like to delve into their origins. Here are two witchy words - deosil/widdershins.

🌞 Deosil (Clockwise / Sunwise)
- Etymology: From Scottish Gaelic deiseal (also found in Irish Gaelic), meaning “right-hand-wise” or “sunwise” — moving in the same direction as the sun’s apparent path across the sky in the Northern Hemisphere.  
- Cultural Roots: In Celtic tradition, moving deosil was considered auspicious, aligning with the sun’s life-giving energy. It was often used in blessings, protective charms, and rituals to draw in positive forces.  
- In Witchcraft: Modern practitioners use deosil movement to invoke, create, or empower — for example, walking deosil when casting a circle to raise energy.

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🌑 Widdershins (Counterclockwise / Anti-sunwise)
- Etymology: From Lowland Scots, via Middle Low German widder (“against”) + sinnen (“to travel/go”), literally “to go against”.  
- Historical Associations: In medieval Europe, moving widdershins was often seen as going “the wrong way” or “against the grain,” and could be considered unlucky. Folklore warned against circling a church widdershins, as it was thought to invite misfortune or even supernatural entanglement.  
- In Witchcraft: Today, widdershins is used for banishing, reversing, or undoing — for example, walking widdershins to release energy or remove unwanted influences.

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NB ✍️ In the Southern Hemisphere, the symbolic associations can reverse because the sun’s apparent path moves in the opposite direction — so “sunwise” there is what Northern Hemisphere folk would call counterclockwise.

Ref: englishstackexchange.com