Manners in the Craft

The Craft has very little law, and only one piece of counsel that every witch accepts. It has a good many manners, and they are kept rather more strictly.

The Rede is the only counsel of conduct that the whole of Wicca shares. Around it has grown up an etiquette, as any community grows one, most of it unwritten and much of it learned by getting it wrong in front of people who are kind enough to say so. What follows is that etiquette as it is kept in British covens. Very little of it would surprise anyone with good ordinary manners, and the parts that might are explained.

Greetings

Witches greet one another, and part, with blessed be, which also does duty at the end of a letter. Merry meet is the greeting at a gathering, and the full form, said at the end of a rite and often at the end of an evening, is merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again. None of this is obligatory. Most British witches say good evening like everybody else, and keep the old forms for the circle and for one another.

Names and privacy

This is the one point on which the Craft is truly strict. Never reveal that another person is a witch, or give out their name, address or telephone number, or discuss their beliefs with anyone else, without their clear permission. It does not matter how harmless it seems, or how open you are yourself.

The custom comes from the years when exposure could cost a witch their job, their home or their children, and in some places it still can. Many witches are perfectly open about their religion. Many are not, often for good reasons that they do not owe anyone an explanation of. At a pagan gathering, do not photograph people without asking, and do not post pictures of anyone without their consent. Within the Craft, use a person's Craft name unless they have told you otherwise. The page about the people of the coven says more about Craft names, and the page on secrecy says more about why witches keep their counsel.

Tools and altars

• Do not touch another witch's tools without asking. An athame, a wand or a cup that has been consecrated is a personal thing, and handling it uninvited is about as polite as reading someone's letters.
• Do not touch an altar in someone else's house, or move anything on it, however casually it seems to have been arranged. If children come with you, keep them away from it.
• Your own altar is yours. You may decide who comes near it, and it is not rude to ask a visitor, or a visitor's child, to leave it alone.
• Do not haggle over the price of a tool. It is an old custom that a tool bought grudgingly is a tool resented. You may, of course, decide not to buy it.
• Do not lend your athame. Other tools may be lent, but the knife is not.

Another person's will

Never work magic on someone, or for someone, without their agreement. That includes healing, and it includes people who would obviously be better for it. A person's life is theirs to run, and the page on magic explains why the Craft holds to this so firmly. The same courtesy extends to divination: do not read the cards about someone who has not asked.

In the circle

Each coven has its own customs, and a guest learns them by watching and asking. A few hold nearly everywhere:

• Arrive on time, bathed, sober and with something to share at supper.
• Once the circle is cast, do not walk out of it. If you must leave, ask, and a door will be cut for you and closed behind you.
• Move round the circle sunwise unless the rite says otherwise.
• Do not chatter during the rite. Laughter is a different matter, and the gods do not seem to object to it.
• When you are given words to speak, speak them in your own voice. Solemnity is good. Putting on a special voice is not.
• Never leave a circle uncast. Whatever is opened is properly closed, the guardians thanked and dismissed, before anyone goes home.

The page on the circle has more on conduct within it.

Other people's paths

There are many traditions of witchcraft and many ways of keeping each of them, as the page on the traditions of Wicca sets out. Do not correct another witch's practice unless they ask you to, and when they describe something you do differently, there is no need to say so. Do not tell a solitary that they are not a real witch, or an initiate that their tradition is a fossil. Most quarrels in the pagan world begin with somebody saying that the way they were taught is the only proper way, and none of them has ever been won.

The same courtesy runs outwards. The Craft does not seek converts, and a witch does not argue with other people about their religion, or mock it, or try to talk them out of it.

At sacred places

Britain is full of places that pagans hold sacred: stone circles, barrows, holy wells, old trees, hilltops. Most of them are cared for by somebody, and all of them are shared with other visitors, and with the animals and plants that live there.

• Leave no trace. Whatever you bring, take home again.
• No candles or fires on stones. Wax and soot damage ancient stones, and the scorch marks last longer than any of us will.
• No ribbons or rags of synthetic cloth tied to trees at wells. They do not rot, they strangle the branches, and the custom they imitate used cloth that would.
• No offerings that harm wildlife. Bread, coins pushed into bark, food and plastic flowers all do damage. A song, a few words, or a little clean water poured on the ground will do.
• Respect other visitors and the people who look after the place, and follow their rules about when and how it can be used.

Money and titles

A witch does not charge for initiation, for teaching the Craft, or for magic. Expenses may be shared, and a coven may ask for a contribution to the candles, but the Craft itself is not for sale, and anyone who offers to sell it to you has told you something useful about themselves.

Nor does a witch go about with a title. Degrees are real within a tradition, but they are not announced to strangers, and in Britain they are not usually prefixed to names. We do not say Lady or Lord. The witches most worth learning from are rarely the ones who tell you how senior they are.