The Sabbats are the festivals of the Craft. The esbats are its working nights: the meetings at the full moon when a coven worships, trains its people and does its magic.
The word esbat comes from Margaret Murray, who took it from a French writer on the witch trials and used it for the ordinary meetings of a coven as distinct from the great Sabbats. It is related to an Old French verb meaning to frolic, which gives a fair idea of how the meetings were imagined. In the modern Craft the esbat is the coven's regular working night.
When esbats are held
By tradition a coven meets at each full moon. The Charge of the Goddess gives the instruction in so many words: once in the month, and better it be when the moon is full. Since the moon's cycle is about twenty-nine and a half days, there are twelve full moons in most years and thirteen in some.
In practice a coven meets on the most convenient evening within a day or two of the full moon, and the moon does not seem to mind. Some covens hold a second meeting at the new moon for teaching.
What happens at an esbat
The order is that of every rite of the Craft, described on the page about the practice of the Craft. What distinguishes the esbat is what is done at its heart.
- Worship. The Goddess is invoked into the High Priestess in the rite of Drawing Down the Moon, and may address the coven.
- Magic. If there is work to be done, for a member or for someone who has asked the coven's help, power is raised and sent. See magic.
- Training. Newer initiates are given parts of the rite to perform, and are taught.
- Initiation. Initiations and elevations usually take place at an esbat, and the whole meeting is then given over to them. Candlemas is also a favoured season, and our own coven prefers it for the first degree.
- Cakes and wine. As at every circle. See cakes and wine.
Afterwards there is supper, and the coven's business is talked over at the table.
Drawing Down the Moon
This is the central act of Gardnerian worship. The High Priestess stands before the altar. The High Priest kneels to her and, in words set down in the Book, invokes the Goddess to descend into the body of her priestess. If the rite takes, and it does not always, the one who then speaks is understood to be the Goddess, and she may deliver the Charge or say whatever else she has to say.
The name is ancient. Greek and Roman writers said of the witches of Thessaly that they could draw the moon down from the sky. The rite itself belongs to a kind of religious practice found the world over, in which a deity is invited to be present in a human being for a time. Those who have carried it describe it variously: as standing aside, as being filled, as a heightening of themselves. Those who have witnessed it done well do not forget it.
It asks a great deal of the priestess, and a responsible coven trains its people for it slowly and with care.
The phases of the moon
The full moon is the time of meeting, but a witch attends to the whole of the moon's course, and each phase has its traditional character.
- The waxing moon
- From the new crescent to the full. A time for beginnings, growth and increase: for work intended to bring something into being.
- The full moon
- The height of the tide, and the night of the esbat. Power is most easily raised, and the Goddess is honoured in her fullness.
- The waning moon
- From the full to the last sliver. A time for decrease and release: for ending what needs to be ended and letting go of what is finished.
- The dark of the moon
- The two or three nights when no moon is seen. A time for rest, for reflection and for divination. Little active magic is done.
Gardeners used to plant by the same rule, sowing as the moon grew and weeding as it shrank, and the idea is of the same family: that there are tides in things, and that it is easier to work with them than against them.
The names of the moons
Almanacs and calendars now print a name for each full moon: Wolf Moon, Snow Moon and the rest. Most of those names come from North American almanacs and have no old history in Britain. Two that are genuinely traditional here are the Harvest Moon, which is the full moon nearest the autumn equinox, and the Hunter's Moon that follows it.
Many covens have names of their own for the moons of their year, drawn from what the land around them is doing. Ours are given below, purely as an example. They are our custom and no part of the tradition.
| Month | Our name | Why |
|---|---|---|
| November | Fog Moon | The valley fills with mist and the hill stands out of it |
| December | Yule Moon | The moon of the longest nights |
| January | Ice Moon | The hardest frosts of the year |
| February | Snowdrop Moon | The first flowers under the hedges |
| March | Hare Moon | The hares are boxing in the top fields |
| April | Seed Moon | Sowing time |
| May | Hawthorn Moon | The may is out along every lane |
| June | Mead Moon | The meadows stand uncut and full of flower |
| July | Hay Moon | Haymaking |
| August | Corn Moon | The grain harvest |
| September | Harvest Moon | The traditional name, kept as it is. It belongs to the full moon nearest the equinox, which in most years is September's |
| October | Hunter's Moon | The traditional name, kept as it is. It belongs to the full moon nearest the equinox, which in most years is September's |
When a second full moon falls within one calendar month, as happens every two or three years, we call it simply the Thirteenth Moon. The dates of this year's full moons are on the page for the coven year.
For those without a coven
The full moon belongs to everyone. A person who is drawn to the Craft and has no coven can do no better than to begin here: go out on the night of the full moon, find it in the sky, and give it a few minutes of undivided attention. Do that every month for a year, in all weathers, and you will have learned something that no book can teach. There are more suggestions on the page about solitary practice.